Beijing Sounds — 北京的声儿

Thanks to S.H.E. we Zhonglish-speakers now apparently have our own hit song, complete with rap lite and formulaic key change in the last refrain. Hat tip to Granite Studio for the reference to the song as it was performed for the new year.

Key phrase:

全世界都在学中国话
quán shìjiè dōu zài xué zhōngguóhuà
The whole world is learning Chinese

Here’s another video that actually gives you all the words in a readable font.

(Apologies to pinyin.info for breaking the spirit of a new year’s resolution by referring to something that conflates Chinese & Mandarin)

But the foreigner’s never-ending problem with “zhōngguóhuà” is: whose zhōngguóhuà do we try to learn? In Beijing you can try to focus on the local language, but with domestic immigrants (wàidìrén) outnumbering locals, it’s hard to figure out exactly what “local language” means.

As I pondered this conundrum and idly tried to find out something about SHE (don’t laugh if they’re hugely famous — my ignorance of all things cultural knows no boundaries), I came across pretty conclusive evidence that the singers are NOT referring to běijīnghuà when they talk about 全世界都在学中国话. Check out the following snippet from this interview to hear one singer’s non-Beijing and, need I mention, non-standard pǔtōnghuà pronunciation of shóu.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

因为我们三个比较熟
yīnwei wǒmen sānge bǐjiào shóu [pronounced sóu]
…because the three of us are pretty close

For the record, BJS has no truck with non-beijinghua pronunciations. The more the merrier. It’s just further evidence, though, that if you’re trying to tighten your Zhonglish into a particular flavor of Mandarin, it probably makes sense to ignore how things are “supposed to” be and just listen to the people you’re most likely to spend time around. Go with the way they say things — whether it’s běijīnghuà or any other fāngyán 方言 (dialect) — and let the standardization prisses bastardize someone else’s Zhonglish.