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？

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。

My accent in Chinese is actually not that strong for a Foreigner, if I have a brief phone conversation for a few minutes people will generally not know I am a Foreigner. So they are not even imitating the way I talk. Like another user has said.

就像另一个用户说的那样，对于一个外国人来说，我的中文口音其实没那么重，如果我打几分钟电话，人们通常不会知道我是一个外国人。所以他们甚至没有模仿我说话的方式。

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。

With out wanting to offend people, I’m wondering if the people are saying it doesn’t happen or people are just joking around are not fluent in Chinese, so they are missing that people are imitating a stereotypical Foreigner Accent to them, because from my experience is is a relatively common occurrence (albeit from a minority of people). I’ve only had one person I can recall directly say “your Chinese is crap, stop talking”, when I first went to China and my Chinese wasn’t so good. Incidentally it was a woman. I’ve had people discuss with me how Foreigners say some things funny and never took offence, but most times when people have imitated my accent it hasn’t felt decidedly unfriendly, it also makes you feel quite uncomfortable.

没有冒犯的意思，我想知道人们是不是认为事实其实并不是如此，还是只是他们在用这种（外国）不流利的口音开玩笑呢，这样的话，他们其实是并没有意识到自己是在模仿老套的外国口音。这么干的尽管是少数人，却很常见。我的记忆中，只有一个人直接对我说过“中文很烂，别说了。”但那是我第一次去中国的时候，我的中文还不行，顺便说一句，说这话的还是一个女的。
有人跟我讨论过外国人应该怎么把话说的有趣，又不冒犯，但大多数时候，当人们模仿我的口音时，虽然并没有明显的不友好，但这也会让我自己觉得很不舒服。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Incidentally regarding the video, Mark Zuckerberg does have a strong and unnatural accent but his wife has a very strong Cantonese/HK accent as well.

顺便说一句，关于那个视频，马克·扎克伯格确实有很重，很不自然的口音，但是他的妻子也有很重的广东/香港口音。
Kevin Dassie, lived in Beijing, China (2013-2014)凯文 · 达西，2013-2014年居住在中国北京
My wife's family is from Beijing and I've spent one year learning Putonghua there. Also, I love using the erhua (儿, Beijingers are quite famous for (ab)using it), and since I've been mostly confronted to Beijing people after leaving the university, I use here and there some local vocabulary, most of the time without knowing it's local.
我老婆家在北京，我在那儿学了一年的普通话。另外，我喜欢用儿话音（北京人因使用儿话音而出名），自从我离开大学后，大多数时候都是和北京人打交道，所以我不管啥地方都会使用一些北京的词汇，大多数时候都不知道它是北京当地的。
The other day, my father in law said “我闺女”…, meaning “my daughter”. From what I understood later, 闺女 (guīnü) is colloquial and a more standard way to say “daughter” is “女儿”(nǚ'ér).
前几天，我岳父说“ 我闺女” ……意思是“我的女儿”。据我后来的理解，闺女 (gu nü)是口语，更标准的说法是“女儿”(n‘ ér)
Later in the conversation, I wanted to say “your daughter” and I would normally have use the more standard 女儿, but no, my brain couldn't remember it so I just used 闺女 which I thought was just a variant of 女儿...
在后面的对话中，我想说“你的女儿” ，我通常会使用更标准的“女儿”，但是没有，因为我的大脑无法记住它，所以我只能继续使用闺女，我认为这只是女儿一词另一版本。

Everyone around me went crazy, laughing hard for 2 minutes, me wondering what it was that I had said that could be so funny.

结果我周围的人都疯了，狂笑了两分钟，我都不知道我说了什么会导致这么好笑。
Well, apparently nothing, but it was so unusual to hear a foreigner say 闺女 that it was very, very funny to them. :)
嗯，显然没什么，但是对他们来说，听到一个外国人说闺女是非常非常有趣的。
Same kind of reaction if I suddenly drop a 土豆儿 (tǔdòur, “potato”)，哥们儿 (gēmenr, “bro") or 不起眼儿 (bùqǐyǎnr, “nothing special”) somewhere in a conversation. It's normal for them to hear another Beijinger saying it this way, but coming from a foreigner is comical, unimaginably so. Weirdly enough (to me), saying things like 哪儿 (nǎr, “where?”) 玩儿 (wánr, “play”) or 上班儿 (shàngbānr, “work”) don't seem to have the same exhilarating effect. It even seems expected as when I use for example 哪里 (nǎli, “where?”) instead of 哪儿, I swiftly get myself “corrected”.
如果我在对话的某个瞬间突然说了一个土豆儿，哥们儿或者不起眼儿，也会有同样的反应。
对他们来说，听到另一个北京人这样说是很正常的，但是这话从一个老外口中说出来，就是很滑稽的，不可思议的。
奇怪的是(对我来说) ，说出一些比如：哪儿，玩儿，或者上班儿，这样的话似乎就不会引起类似的效果。就好比我说哪儿，其实和说哪里效果是一样的（指不会引起中国人的其他反应），所以我会迅速让自己“改正” 。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

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。

While my Chinese is far from perfect, people assume I'm Chinese when I talk to them on the phone. In reality, I'm just a random white guy who has spent a long time in China. This has led to problems when using taxi hailing apps here in Shanghai, as drivers on the lookout for a Chinese passenger will sometimes drive right by, ignoring my desperate waving and shouting.

虽然我的中文还远远不够完美，但当我和别人通电话的时候，他们都以为我是中国人。事实上，我是一个在中国待了很长时间的普通白人。这导致了我在上海使用APP呼叫出租车的问题，有时司机开车经过寻找的只是中国乘客，却忽略了我绝望的挥手和呼唤。

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。

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Ben Smith, Lived in China for 6 months; learning Chinese; follow the politics

本 · 史密斯，在中国生活了6个月，学习中文，了解政治。
I speak Chinese well enough to pass the HSK3 - so, basic conversational competency but certainly not fluently. Just about every time I open my mouth to speak Chinese, in China or outside of it, I’m told my accent is good. People certainly don’t make fun of it, though I did get laughed at the other day when I said “老婆” (wife) instead of “老公” (husband). It is all in good humour - I realized instantly I said the wrong word, and was a little embarrassed, but amused, and laughed along with them.
我的中文说得很好，通过了汉语水平考试3级，会基本的会话能力，但说的不流利。几乎每次我开口说中文，不管是在中国还是其他地方，都有人说我的口音很好听。人们当然不会取笑它，但是有一天我说的是“ 老婆”(妻子)而不是“老公”(丈夫)时，确实遭到了嘲笑。一切都很和谐，我马上就意识到我说错了话了，虽然尴尬但很好笑，也跟着他们笑起来。

I suspect my accent has a certain standard sound to it as I began my studies at the Auckland Confucius Institute with teachers from Beijing who spoke very standard Mandarin and I did make an effort in those early days to get the sounds right. There’s no way I get all the tones right, though.

我猜测自己的口音是有明确的标准声音的，当我在奥克兰孔子学院开始学习时，那里的老师都是北京人，他们的口音非常标准，我也确实在之前努力的正确发音。不过我不可能把所有音调都准确无误的讲出来。

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。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

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。

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Cynthia Zhuang, MBA from Loma Linda University, School of Public Health (2017)

辛西娅 · 庄，罗马林达大学公共卫生学院工商管理硕士

I may be a Westerner, but as I look Asian (and in China, therefore, they assume I’m Chinese), I’ve never had people ever make fun of my accent in China. While some think my accent is weird and definitely not standard, they’ve never made fun of it.

我也许是个西方人，但我看起来像个亚洲人(在中国，他们以为我是中国人)。在中国从来没有人取笑过我的口音。虽然有些人觉得我的口音很奇怪，而且肯定不标准，但他们从来没有拿我的口音开玩笑。

Maybe if I was white, it would be different...I don’t know. From my personal experience, all I know is that most of my Chinese friends (whether that was in the US or in China) were always surprised, amazed, or in awe of my white friends who spoke Mandarin, even if they did have a slight accent. Honestly, they didn’t care. Other than some personal experiences (and the same goes for my white friends who speak Chinese) with the elderly, most Chinese people I’ve encountered in China don’t make fun of my accent (or their accent). I personally think that as long as it’s understandable (i.e. they can have a conversation with you and know what you’re talking about/asking about), they don’t care.

也许我是白人的话，情况就不一样了……根据我的个人经验，我所知道的就是，我的大多数中国朋友(不管是在美国还是在中国)总是对我的说普通话的白人朋友感到惊讶、惊奇或敬畏。
即使他们确实有一点口音，但说实话，他们不会在乎这个。除了一些与老人交谈的个人经历(这方面我的白人朋友经历也一样) ，但我在中国遇到的大多数中国人都不会取笑我的口音(或者他们自己的口音)。我个人认为，只要是可以理解的(也就是说，你们可以交谈，他们知道你在说什么/问什么) ，他们就不在乎。

It’s like me and those non-native speakers who speak English with an accent. As long as I can understand them, it’s cool and fucking awesome to me (then again, I love accents, so I may be slightly different than most in that regard, but my point is, a majority of people didn’t laugh at me even when I didn’t have a standard accent).

就像我和那些说英语带口音的非英语母语人士一样。只要我能理解他们就行，这对我来说很酷，他妈的棒极了(话又说回来，我享受讲话有口音，所以在这方面的感受可能和大多数人（外国人）略有不同，我想说的是，大多数中国人不会嘲笑我，即使我没有标准口音)。

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Craig Humphreys (韩福瑞), Serial Sino-US entrepreneur with solid Mandarin skills
克雷格 · 汉弗莱斯，连续创业的中美企业家，普通话水平很高。

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? ”

At first this was very pleasing to hear. But, only later I realized this was the assessment of someone not very skilled in nuances of dialects around China, and was just guessing. Much like a native Bostonian who hasn't traveled pegging the difference between a Portland and LA accent. Not too accurate.

一开始听到这个消息很高兴。但后来我才意识到，这是一个不熟悉中国方言细微差别的人的评估，而且只是猜测。就像一个没有去过波特兰和洛杉矶的波士顿人来区分两地的口音，这当然不怎么准确。

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。

Of course I'd like to have a perfect localized accent. However, I prefer to put my energy into better phrasing and a richer vocabulary. So, I'll live with being the not-quite-Zhengzhou white guy....

我当然我希望我的地方口音够好。不过，我更愿意把精力放在更好的措辞和更丰富的词汇上。所以，我会接受不太像在郑州的白人的生活（能接受在其他地方生活）……

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Marc Goodman, Actor, writer, entrepreneur, martial artist

Marc Goodman，演员，作家，企业家，武术家

You know it's funny because in a country that is dominantly of Han ethnicity, there often are “innocent” attempts to imitate foreigner’s accent. Most of the time it's just Chinese people having fun, and thinking they are being cute, but don't realize how disrespectful it really is. In the same vein, the US does that as well, except in a country that is truly muti-cultural (I don't mean 56 minorities of which most are of Asian decent, but that it is made up of cultures from ALL over the world) the US has learned that imitating other’s accents when they speak English and adding a humorous twist is incredibly non-PC, and any American would get chewed out.

你知道的，这很有趣，因为在一个汉族占主导地位的国家，经常有“无辜”的人试图模仿外国人的口音。大多数时候只是中国人在找乐子，然后觉得自己很可爱，但没意识到这有多无礼。同样，美国也有这种情况。除了在一个真正多元文化的国家(我不是指56个少数民族，并且其中大多数是亚洲人这样的，而是说是由来自世界各地的文化组成），美国已经认识到，当他们说英语的时候用幽默的转折模仿别人的口音，是非常反常的，任何这样的美国人都会被责骂。

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.
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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。