Notes:
Admittedly, these are not the best recordings; some are missing portions or have background noise. But they are still representative of the many similarities and differences between Chinese dialects.
These recordings are only based on an individual's personal knowledge and usage of their dialect and do not reflect the dialect as a whole. As with any language, there are many variations even within dialects.
Recordings are split into 3 sections:
1. Numbers (數字)
零、一、二、三、四、五、六、七、八、九、十、百、千、萬
2. 《靜夜思》李白 (Popular Tang Dynasty Poem)
床前明月光;疑是地上霜。舉頭望明月,低頭思故郷。
3. Common Phrases (常見詞彙)
Greetings: 你好、大家好、現在幾點?、今天天氣很好
Family: 爸爸、媽媽、哥哥、弟弟、姐姐、妹妹、兒子、女兒
Misc.: 謝謝、對不起
Title Format:
Language Family • Chinese Name (English Name)
*The term "普通話" is used in mainland China while "國語" is used in Taiwan. There are slight differences in pronunciation and vocabulary between 普通話 and 國語; however, they are not reflected in these recordings.
This dialect is from the Jingzhou (荆州) city in Hubei. Audio courtesy of Lexi Yan(晏梓潔)
The following is the written transcript of Section 3: Common Phrases
Greetings: 你好、大家好、而家幾多點?、今日天氣好好
Family: 爹地、媽咪、哥哥、弟弟、姐姐、妹妹、兒子、女兒
Family (alternate): 老竇、老母、阿哥、細佬、家姐、阿妹、仔、女
Misc.: 多謝、對唔住
Audio courtesy of Steven Lu (呂浩俍)
Audio courtesy of Christine Chen (陳馨慈)
Taiwanese recording is missing the following components:
靜夜思
Audio courtesy of Dr. Shiouyin Houng (洪琇瑩老師)
Fuzhounese recording is missing the following components:
靜夜思
Audio courtesy of Yan Lin
Teochew recording is missing the following components:
靜夜思
今天天氣很好
女兒
對不起
Audio courtesy of Lan Luu (汪美蘭)
Audio courtesy of Hailey Chen (陳海華)
The YouTube channel ILoveLanguages! has a great playlist with many different Chinese dialects. Some of their videos also compare dialects to each other so you can easily hear the differences between them. If you have time, I would definitely check their channel out!