10 Most Difficult Chinese Dialects – Read Before You Learn them

10 Most Difficult Chinese Dialects - Read Before You Learn them

10 Most Difficult Chinese Dialects – Read Before You Learn them

Learning a new language is difficult, not to say the dialects! Mandarin is the official language in China, foreigners think it is difficult to learn, while there are actually many Chinese dialects are much harder than learning Mandarin! A netizen once posted a ranking of the “Top Ten Most Difficult Dialects in China”. Wenzhou dialect ranked first, followed by Cantonese. Fujian dialect was only selected for Hokkien dialect, tied for third with Suzhou dialect. It is Shanghai dialect, Shaanxi dialect, Changsha dialect, Sichuan dialect, Shandong dialect, Tianjin dialect, Northeast dialect.

Reading this “Top Ten Most Difficult Dialects in China”, many Fujian netizens were dissatisfied, “There are N many dialects in Fujian, Fuzhou, Putian, Ningde, Nanping, and any dialect can make it into the “Top Ten”. It is definitely more difficult to understand than Sichuan dialect, Tianjin dialect, and Northeast dialect.

Tenth: Northeastern Dialect

Northeastern dialect can be said to be the dialect closest to the pronunciation of Mandarin.

Moreover, with the vigorous popularization of sketch actors such as Zhao Benshan, it can be said that it has become a household name, regardless of the elderly and children, can yell a few sentences, and the pronunciation of the Northeast dialect can reflect the unrestrained and unrestrained personality of Northeast people, which is easy to be accepted by everyone. However, because there are many branches of Northeastern dialect, such as Dalian dialect, Shenyang dialect, etc., the most standard Northeastern dialect is still in the Tieling Chaoyang area, and the pronunciation of individual words in Northeastern dialect is still difficult for outsiders to understand, but such words The word is not used for a long time in Northeastern dialect.

Rank Ninth: Tianjin Dialect

It can be said that Tianjin dialect has the humor of Tianjin people from the bones. Cross talk art often uses Tianjin dialect to achieve better funny effects. There are basically no unintelligible words in Tianjin dialect, but because the pronunciation of Tianjin dialect is very different from that of Mandarin, if the speech speed is too fast, it is still incomprehensible.

Rank eighth: Shandong dialect

The pronunciation of the city in Shandong’s Jiaodong Peninsula is quite similar to the Dalian dialect in the northeast, and most people can understand it. However, if you go to inland cities such as Weifang, the local dialects are a bit obscure. Shandong dialect always makes people feel very earthy with its unique pronunciation, but when you listen to it, you will feel that the deep cultural heritage of Qilu is reflected in this strong Shandong flavor. Don’t forget that Confucius and Mencius also said it. Shandong dialect!

Ranked seventh: Sichuan dialect

It belongs to a branch of Southwest Mandarin, the northern dialect of Chinese, and its pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc. have great consistency with Mandarin. It also has its own different characteristics, and the difference in phonetics is the biggest. The Sichuan dialect phonetic system has 20 initials, 36 vowels, 4 tones, and the phenomenon of vowelization. Due to the large population of Sichuan and many people who go out to work, Sichuan dialect is familiar to many people.

Ranked sixth: Changsha dialect

Changsha is the provincial capital of Hunan and the political, economic and cultural center of the province. It has a large population and convenient transportation. Therefore, the Changsha dialect has been influenced by the northern dialect from ancient times to the present, and the distance from Mandarin is relatively small. The user population accounts for about 5% of the total Han population, so it occupies an important position in Chinese dialects. Hunan is a place where great people are born, and “Dream of Red Mansions” reveals a distinct Hunan dialect context.

Rank Five: Shaanxi dialect

Shaanxi dialects are unique, broad and profound. From these dialects, we can not only glimpse the development trajectory of the ancient Chinese culture, but also appreciate the true feelings of today’s people. Because of the geographical characteristics of Shaanxi, the north-south in the narrow sense of the east and the west, the dialects of different regions are quite different, and even the same sentence has different meanings because of the different accents and the accents.

Ranked fourth: Shanghai dialect

Shanghai dialect is not easy to learn because Shanghai dialect can only be spoken and it is difficult to read. Not every sentence in the vernacular can be read in Shanghai dialect. You can read newspapers in Cantonese, but not in Shanghai dialect. If you take a newspaper and ask a Shanghainese to read it, it will be mixed with Mandarin.

This is the difficulty of learning Shanghainese. You can only learn it by chatting with Shanghainese. It is difficult to read a piece of text like in Mandarin or Cantonese. Once I saw a Shanghai publishing house at the Hong Kong Book Fair. This is a textbook for learning Shanghainese. It also uses pinyin, but you have to have a basic knowledge of Shanghainese to read it, otherwise you will be really confused.

Nowadays, Shanghainese sometimes write “Shanghai dialect” on the Internet. Those are homophones. You must be able to read the sentence in Shanghai dialect. People from other places don’t know what to say.

Ranked third: Hokkien dialect

The spread of Hokkien dialect has not only surpassed the provincial and national boundaries in the southern part of Fujian. The most widely spread Hokkien dialect in other provinces is Taiwan. On Taiwan Island, except for the Gaoshan ethnic group, almost all Hokkien dialects that are close to Zhangzhou and Quanzhou dialects are spoken.

It is estimated that people who are not gifted with languages ​​may not understand Hokkien dialect in their entire life in Fujian. Hokkien is the dialect with the most complicated language phenomenon and the greatest internal divergence among the seven major Chinese dialects.

Ranked second: Cantonese language

Cantonese can be said to be widely spread now!

Many people speak a few simple Cantonese. The reason that Cantonese language ranks second is that Cantonese not only has its own unique pronunciation, but also its own writing. It is also used in Guangzhou buses first. Some Cantonese, including Hong Kong people, do not even understand Putonghua when reporting stations in Putonghua. This shows that Cantonese is very different from Putonghua, and Cantonese are very protective of their dialects. They will try to use their own dialects whenever possible.

Number one: Wenzhou dialect

I wonder if you have heard of such a sentence!

It is said that the heavens are not afraid, and the people are not afraid of Wenzhou people’s nonsense.

The nonsense here is not meant to insult the Wenzhou people. It is said that during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Eighth Route Army communicated with each other due to the need for confidentiality. They sent two Wenzhou people to communicate by telephone or walkie-talkie, while the Japanese people intelligence department , I can’t always translate this extremely complicated Wenzhou dialect. It can be said that the Wenzhou people at that time were like the wind whispers in the American blockbuster, and they played a significant role in the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan. So talking nonsense is not to say that what Wenzhou people say is nonsense, but that the Japanese people do not understand. Through this we can understand how difficult Wenzhou dialect is.