【龙腾网】作为一个会说中文的西方人，你在中国的口音会被人取笑吗？

正文翻译

As a Westerner who speaks Chinese, do people ever make fun of your accent in China? 

作为一个会说中文的西方人，你在中国的口音会被人取笑吗？

评论翻译

Anonymous 匿名

Yes, not most people but frequently people try to imitate the “Foreign Accent” when they speak to me. Like saying “ni hao” in a ridiculous voice and laughing about it, or deliberately speaking with the wrong tones etc. Almost always men, I don’t recall a woman ever doing that to me. I usually speak back to them in a even more strong obviously put on Foreigner accent so they know I’m not happy about it; unless its in a business setting where I just tend to ignore it.

是的，不是大多数人而是经常有人跟我说话的时候模仿“外国口音”。比如用可笑的声音说“你好”然后嘲笑这种口音，或者故意用错误的语调说话等等。这么干的几乎总是男人，我不记得有女人对我做过这样的事。我通常会用更浓重的外国口音回应他们，这样他们就知道我不喜欢这样; 除非是在商业场合，我倾向于忽略这一点。

Actually I once went on the set of a variety show in Beijing and the Presenter who apparently was a big celeb (wasn’t familiar with him) thought it would be fun to mock my accent in front of hundreds of the audience during a filming break. Made me feel very uneasy, especially being the only white person in the room.

实际上，我有一次在北京参加一个综艺节目的拍摄现场，一个明显是名人的主持人(我对他并不熟悉)，在拍摄休息的时候，觉得在数百名观众面前嘲笑我的口音会很有趣。这让我觉得很不自在，尤其是作为房间里唯一的白人。

Note that they are never mocking me for that, they're greatly amazed (and amused) that a foreigner would take their local accent/vocabulary or would use some colloquial speech.

请注意，他们从来没有嘲笑过我，他们非常惊讶(也觉得有趣) ，一个外国人居然会用他们的本地口音/词汇，还会用一些口语。
Outside of the family, reactions are mostly the same, I've never encountered anyone making fun of my foreign accent or when I mess up tones, by lots of laughters when I speak (voluntarily or not) like a 北京爷们儿 (Běijīng yémenr, “Beijing guy”, or something like “a true Beijinger”).
除了在家里，在外面，大多数人的反应也都是一样的，我从来没有遇到过任何人取笑我的外国口音，或者当我说话(不管是不是自愿的)像北京爷们儿，北京人”，或者类似“真正的北京人”)那样说话时，就会被很多笑声所笼罩。

So, until now, I only have seen 3 types of reactions : not understating what I say, understanding it or understanding it and being almost hysterically amused. No mocking, no shaming. Maybe some do it when I'm not there, but I couldn't know, obviously.My guess is, they don't. 

所以到目前为止，我只看到了三种反应: 没有理解我所说的，理解了的或理解后被都得捧腹大笑，这里面没有嘲笑，没有羞辱。也许有些人在我不在的时候会那么做（嘲笑），但很明显，我不知道。但我猜，他们不会那么做。

Andrew Galbraith, 12 years in Shanghai and Beijing 

Andrew Galbraith 在上海和北京工作了12年

Yes.
But the funny thing is, they're not actually making fun of my accent -- they're making fun of the accent they think I should have. And they may not even be aware that they're doing it.

是的，但有趣的是，他们实际上不是在取笑我的口音，而是在取笑他们认为我应该有的口音。他们甚至可能没有意识到他们正在这么做。

Sometimes a taxi driver will immediately switch to a sort of Shanghai foreigner dialect as soon as I sit in his car: He will mimic the sound of a (western) foreigner with basic Chinese who can't get his tones right. This can happen even if he knows I'm the same guy he was just talking to on the phone. Once, in an irritable mood, I asked a driver why he spoke such bad Chinese. His equally irritated response: "I learned it from you!"

有时候我一坐到出租车司机的车里，司机就会立刻转换成某种上海外国人的方言: 他会模仿一个有基础中文的但声调不正确的(西方)外国人的声音，就算他知道我是刚才打电话的那个人，但还是会发生这种事。有一次，我心情不爽，问一个司机为什么要说这么难听的中文。他同样愤怒的回答道: “我从你那里学来的! ”

I probably deserved that.

可能是我活该。

I once (more politely) asked another taxi driver to please stop speaking with a "foreign" accent. Switching to normal Chinese, he apologized and said he hadn't realized he was doing it. Ten minutes later, after a brief pause in the conversation, he asked me for directions -- again using a bad accent. For him, speaking with a foreigner clearly triggered some kind of unconscious code switching.

我曾(更礼貌地)请求另一位出租车司机不要用“外国”口音说话。换成正常的中文，他道歉了，说他没意识到自己在这么做。十分钟后，在谈话中短暂停顿之后，他问我怎么走（还是用很糟糕的口音）。对他来说，和一个外国人说话，显然触发了某种无意识的代码转换。

For what it's worth, I don't recall encountering this phenomenon outside of Shanghai, where there are lots of foreigners who speak bad Chinese. And I think it comes from the misplaced assumption that it's easier for foreigners to understand Chinese if you speak it like they do. So it's not usually intended in a nasty way, but it can still be very frustrating.

值得一提的是，我记得除上海以外没有遇到过这种现象，上海有很多说不好中文的外国人。我认为这是因为有一种错误的假设，他们假设如果你像外国人那样说汉语，他们外国人就会更容易听懂。所以通常这其实不是有什么恶意，但还是很让人失望。

So, though my vocabulary is poor, and my tones are questionable, I seem to get credit for getting the sounds right.

所以，尽管我的词汇量很差，我的音调也有问题，但我似乎因为发音正确而受到赞扬。

Or maybe they’re all just being polite and my accent is really pretty lousy. There’s a joke I have about this. If all you can say is “ni hao” and “xie xie”, people in China will tell you ni de zhongwen hen hao, your Chinese is very good. If you can say a few more words and phrases, they will say “ni de zhongwen bu cuo”, your Chinese is not bad. If you can speak it fluently then they they will not say anything about your Chinese. That’s when you know you’ve made it!
But ether way, they don’t make fun.

或者我的口音真的很糟糕，而他们只是出于礼貌才那么说。我知道一个关于这件事情的笑话，如果你只会说“你好”和“谢谢”，中国人就会告诉你的中文很好。如果你能多说几个单词和短语，他们就会说“你的中文说得不错” 。如果你说得很流利，他们就不会评价你的中文了，这时候，你应该知道，你已经成功啦。
但另一方面，他们不会开玩笑。

They do, but in a very pleasant way. Most of the hard-core learning of Mandarin occurred by interacting with people from Hebei and Henan. Thus, when I'm in Shanghai or Shenzhen, I've had locals ask me, "How come you have a Zhengzhou accent?"

是的，他们会笑你，不过是以一种非常愉快的方式。我普通话的核心学习大部分是在与河北和河南人民的互动中。因此，当我在上海或深圳的时候，当地人问我”你怎么会有郑州口音? ”

In short, we all tend to pick up the cadences and speech patterns of our teachers. I'm no exception. When I (finally) reached the level of speaking at the same rate and cadence as natives, most of the people I conversed with were from the mid-north of China. They corrected me and formed my patterns.

简而言之，我们都倾向于学习老师的抑扬顿挫和说话模式，我也不例外。当我(最终)达到和当地人一样的说话速度和节奏水平时，我交谈的大多数人都来自中国的中北部。他们纠正了我，并且形成了自己的模式。

So, I've got an accent. It's about 50% Zhengzhou and 50% strange-foreigner-not-quite-perfect-Chinese accent :-)

我有口音，一半是郑州口音，一半是老外口音——不太完美的中西结合。

————————————
Marc Goodman, Actor, writer, entrepreneur, martial artist

Marc Goodman，演员，作家，企业家，武术家

A recent example that comes to memory is once Shaq was irritated at Yao Ming, and proceeded to make fun of him by making some noises like “chow, chin, how”… Clearly an attempt to make fun of Yao. The Asian American people were outraged, and so they should be. But in mainland China, people didn't find any offense. They just thought, “wow, Shaq really can't speak Chinese. Lol”…

记忆中最近的一个例子是，奥尼尔曾经对姚明很生气，然后在他说“chow, chin, how”这样的发音时取笑他……显然是想取笑姚明。因此亚裔美国人被激怒了，他们的愤怒是理所当然的。但在中国大陆，人们并不觉得这有什么冒犯之意。他们只是想”哇，奥尼尔真的不会说中文。”

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that cultural sensitivity is totally different in the US than it is in China. And although to westerners in China, who never stop hearing other Chinese people trying to mimic our accents and exaggerate them, often times, we feel disrespected. The truth is that disrespect is only because of our habits. But to the Chinese, they are just in awe of such differences, and find it interesting.

不管怎样，我想说的是，美国的文化敏感度，和中国完全不同。尽管对于在中国的西方人来说，他们总是听到其他中国人模仿我们的口音并夸大其词，让我们常常感到不受尊重。事实上，觉得不尊重只是因为我们原先的生活习惯导致的。但对中国人来说，他们只是对这些差异感到敬畏，觉得这很有趣。

So ya, try your best to not take offense to it, and just imitate their Chenglish, and everyone will just get a good laugh.

所以，模仿他们的口语的时候尽量不要冒犯到，这样大家都会很开心。

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William Bellamy, Living in China for years

威廉 · 贝拉米，在中国生活多年

More often than not the fact that I can utter any Mandarin at all shocks people, so much that they don't seem to mind if they can't understand what you're saying. I guess foreigners who speak Chinese are so much rarer than Chinese who speak English.

很多时候，我能说出一些普通话词汇，这让人们很震惊，因此，就算他们听不懂你在说什么，他们似乎也不会介意。我猜会说中文的外国人，比会说英文的中国人要少得多。

A case in point here would be the number of foreigners who have become "stars" on Chinese TV because they speak Chinese. Nothing else. A sad tale in a world of Celebrities who are famous because they're famous, but (I suppose) a beacon of hope for someone like me who's poured so much effort into learning it! I personally think they're smug :P

一个很好的例子就是因为讲中文而成为中国电视台“明星”的外国人，而不是通过其他原因成为明星。所以在名人的世界里因为这样的事情出名，其实是一个悲哀的故事。
但是(我想)对于像我这样付出了这么多努力来学习普通话的人来说，这是一个希望的灯塔！我个人认为他们（因为说中文而出名的人）其实是沾沾自喜的.

To give an example, I have regularly taught in various private primary and secondary schools over the last few years, and obviously my remit there is to speak exclusively English (immersion learning and all that). However for logistics problems with the staff I resort to Chinese since their English isn't really up to discussion, and once they hear me say baizhi (white paper) once they look shocked, and then come up to compliment my Chinese.

举个例子，过去几年，我定期在各个私立中小学教书，显然我的职责是专门讲英语(浸入式学习等等)。然而，对于后勤问题我只能用中文求助员工，因为他们的英语实在不适合讨论，一旦他们听到我说白纸，他们就非常震惊，然后过来称赞我的中文。

This can have negative repercussions. My Chinese is not anywhere near fluent, and once they hear this one word they will assume that I "speak Chinese", and therefore can start to jabber at me in a super-fast dialect (I've written about dialects here before) to which I just nod.

这会带来负面影响，因为我的中文一点也不流利，一旦他们听到我说一个字，他们就会以为我会讲中文 ，那他们就会开始用一种超快的方言(我以前写过关于这个方言的文章)跟我喋喋不休，而我只能点头。

However I have NEVER had someone disparage my Chinese. Compliment, be shocked by and vaguely amused, but never negative.

但从来没有人贬低过我的中文。有赞美，有震惊和有觉得好笑，但从来都不是负面的那种。