My Apology to Naomi Wu and the Make Community

Re:My Apology to Naomi Wu and the Make Community by Taniwha on Monday November 20, 2017 @12:41AM (#15738049)

I've met Chinese people in China with accents that to me said "valley girl", I honestly thought they came from LA.

Far fewer Americans are taught Mandarin, and even fewer from an early enough age that they can master tones easily (I suspect that like Danish vowels you almost need to be born into it)

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Re:My Apology to Naomi Wu and the Make Community by kelnos on Monday November 20, 2017 @07:01AM (#15739309)

The tones themselves aren't hard (it's mainly just altering the pitch of the sounds you make in different ways); the pronunciation issues come from actual sounds that English speakers just don't make.

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Re:My Apology to Naomi Wu and the Make Community by Taniwha on Tuesday November 21, 2017 @08:31PM (#15753445)

That's kind of the point - they are sounds you learn well as a 1 year old, not so easy (in my case) at 50

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