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translatorcz wrote:

Quote:

Or how do you think the CCTV can be understood nationwide and even by Chinese-speaking countries?

i know that a lot of the time, you have subtitles on cctv (i have it at home). so i thought it may have been cantonese subtitles over mandarin speeches.

do people from taiwan also understand mandarin (well, putonghua)?

i'm wondering because i had a very bad experience with arabic. i wanted so bad to learn it but people i know told me that the egyptian dialect (closest to literary arabic) is useless in morocco, tunisia...(unless you speak to very well-read people) and that, basically, each country has its own dialect and most dialects were not mutually understandable.
so i decided to quit without even starting Confused

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possopo wrote:

translatorcz wrote:
Quote:
Or how do you think the CCTV can be understood nationwide and even by Chinese-speaking countries?

i know that a lot of the time, you have subtitles on cctv (i have it at home). so i thought it may have been cantonese subtitles over mandarin speeches.

do people from taiwan also understand mandarin (well, putonghua)?

i'm wondering because i had a very bad experience with arabic. i wanted so bad to learn it but people i know told me that the egyptian dialect (closest to literary arabic) is useless in morocco, tunisia...(unless you speak to very well-read people) and that, basically, each country has its own dialect and most dialects were not mutually understandable.
so i decided to quit without even starting

Which do you mean? CCTV-1,CCTV-2? CCTV has more than ten channels. I take it for granted that you can get CCTV-4. Most of the time, I think there are not any subtitles. And even if there is subtitles, cantonese and madarin have the same characters, although they pronounce more or less defferently. I do travel sometimes. And I have no great trouble to find someone to talk. They talk differently. But I can manage to understand them, although a little bit difficult, that is because when we chinese are very young, we generally are used to listening to many dialects on TV or other media. And they could understand me without any difficulties, at least I didn't see their trouble. My father go to Taiwan once, he is not good at languages, but he get through that journey very smoothly. So you see, nothing daunting. Zhonghe Chen, the coach of Chinese volleyball team, he lives in Fujian Province. He also speaks Putonghua on CCTV program, although with a little accent. That doesn't prevent him from speak his own dialect. There are many examples. Everyday we can find some such examples on CCTV program.

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i was talking cctv-4. the subtitles may be used for the deaf, i don't know. it's very weird because every time i switch on that channel (and it is like once every two months:/), there are subtitles (or what i think are subtitles).

anyway, you make me want to learn chinese, my friend:)

it's probably next on my list now with italian (but italian is clearly nothing to learn for the french, especially as i already speak spanish) so there's a good chance i'm starting it next year (i hope my german will be refreshed by then).

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possopo wrote:

i was talking cctv-4. the subtitles may be used for the deaf, i don't know. it's very weird because every time i switch on that channel (and it is like once every two months:/), there are subtitles (or what i think are subtitles).

anyway, you make me want to learn chinese, my friend:)

it's probably next on my list now with italian (but italian is clearly nothing to learn for the french, especially as i already speak spanish) so there's a good chance i'm starting it next year (i hope my german will be refreshed by then).

Yes, I don't notice that befor. There are subtitles,but with some of the paragraphs out of subtitles. Now when I'm typing this. I notice when the narrator speaks, there are subtitles and when an Expert speaks, since he maybe speaks some dialect I think, there are subtitles. Or maybe it's for people from non-Chinese-speaking countries, for those who want to learn Chinese. And for someone who can hardly follow the speed.
Program mentioned above is "走遍中国", you may check it out.

Oh, I admire you. I want to become a person just like you. To know many languages, what a happy thing it is! I envy you!

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