兩會口音

[Tomsima]

What with 兩會 kicking off, I noticed 新聞聯播 is giving a lot of airtime to people speaking in regional accents all of a sudden. An interesting listen today,

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glOsB2Ecg0M

skip to 44:00 and theres a series of different accents to enjoy for those who are curious. I thought particularly interesting was the fact that I could understand the toneless 新疆 putonghua easier than the man following him (don't know where hes from, 河南 maybe?).

[zander1]

I was putting off watching this when I saw it was an hour so thanks for the motivation! I actually found the 新疆 man basically incomprehensible (relied entirely on subtitles) whereas the other guy I found just about manageable (maybe it's because he was just saying the same platitutes as the others so I kinda knew what he was going to say anyway..?)

 

I was amazed at some of the accents from the representatives! Surprised there hasn't been any push for such public figures to speak clearer 普通话。

 

On that note, does anyone know why they never record Xi's speech directly? Instead there's someone always just saying what he said ... Is it because they think it may ruin the aura? For example Li KeQiang had the end of his speech given to us 'live'.

[Tomsima]

1 hour ago, zander1 said:

I was putting off watching this when I saw it was an hour

 

My reaction was pretty similar haha, more a sinking feeling that if I dont get this over with now, theres no way I'll be able to motivate myself for it later. As for Xi's speeches, I'm also curious, I can only hazard a guess that its some sort of power move; if you only hear about someone, but not from them directly, they begin to take on some mystical status in your mind. Just my own assumption, don't know about others?