Many Mandarin learners believe that Beijinghua is Putonghua. They seek teachers originally from Beijing, or they believe that they should go to Beijing to learn Putonghua.
As your humble blogger is from a small city which is 30 minutes away from Beijing, I can tell you for sure that Beijinghua is NOT Putonghua. I am in a position that I can understand Beijinghua, and sometimes fake a Beijing accent, yet at the same time, know Beijinghua is not Putonghua.
Linguistic expert pointed out that Beijinghua was heavily influenced by Manchu language. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, when Manchu people lived in Beijing were learning Chinese, their accent was influenced by their first language. And the result showed today is that Beijinghua is filled with massive neutrol tone words. So, if you have been learning standard Putonghua, you will find it challenging to understand Beijinghua. That is the same reason for people who learned Cantonese find it challenging to understand Haka, or people who learned Shanghaihua find it difficult to understand Ningbohua.
The second reason is that, just as any other dialects, Beijinghua is full of its very own coloquials and slangs which don't exist anywhere else. And therefore, those coloquials and slangs probably won't be understood by people who didn't grow up in Beijing area.
If you are learning Putonghua in Beijing, your putonhua will be influenced by Beijinghua. The same thing goes to if you are learning Putonghua in Guangzhou, your putonhua will be affected by Cantonese. That is the same reason why Chinese people carry their accent when they speak Putonghua. But luckily, there is a standard version of Putonghua which helps people understand each other no matter where they come from.
april
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