Sunday, September 25, 2011
Accents in Asia
Question to my Google Plus friend: With a fluency in Thai, Mandarin and Japanese (plus of course English) you are in a unique position to make observations, comparisons about the similarities and differences in these respective cultures. I would certainly enjoy reading your reflections on how your multicultural/multilingual education and experience has shaped/changed your views and understanding of our human experience. Here is a silly question: Americans find the FRENCH accent so romantic but there are other languages which give a harsh and guttural impression. Are there certain accents in Asia that are exotic and others that are harsh or comic? Also, when Chinese and Japanese speakers use cell phones, do they key in pinyin and then select the Hanji characters or do they have some way to enter actual strokes (which I imagine would be laborious.)
