Regional pronunciations of standard Mandarin When I first came to China, I was quite disappointed to find out that, in so many places, the colloquial pronunciation was so greatly different from the one I've studied so far. The phonological material, which is already rather limited in Mandarin (especially to my foreigner's semi-tone-deaf ears), seemed further reduced: I could no more distinguish shi from si, zhi from zi, chi from ci, and so on. More disturbing, many speakers appear to be totally unaware of any difference, and could pronounce 老师 as laoshi or laosi in the same breath. The problem started in Jinan (Shandong), only to get worse in Wuhan (Hubei) and Nanjing (Jiangsu), not to mention Chengdu (Sichuan).

I recently decided to try to overcome this difficulty by training my ear with a student of mine who comes from Xiangyang (Hubei). For our first course, I asked him to record several chosen stock sentences. I transcribe some of them below, with the standard pronunciation, followed by what I can hear (both in pinyin, which may be not precise enough for a die-hard linguist, sorry!).


你是什么时候到中国的？

Nǐ shì shénme shíhou dào zhōngguó de?
Nǐ sì sénme síhou dào zōngguó de?

我真诚感谢你的一切帮助。

Wǒ zhēnchéng gǎnxiè nǐ de yīqiè bāngzhù.
Wǒ zēncéng gǎnxiè nǐ de yīqiè bāngzù.

请仔细看看。

Qǐng zǐxì kàn kàn.
Xǐng zǐxì kàn kàn.

老师叫学生保持安静。

Lǎoshī jiào xuéshēng bǎochí ānjìng.
Lǎoshī jiào xuésēng bǎocí ānjìng.



(In the latter, please note the discrepancy in the pronunciation of sh.)

Now for my question. Do you know any resource (list, table), which clearly summarizes the main variations in the pronunciation of standard Mandarin (I'm not speaking of locale languages or dialects) in one or several given regions?

Update. I'm perfectly aware that most chinese people use both their local dialect and Mandarin depending on the situation. I'm not interested in learning or understanding their dialect. But I need to understand them when they think they speak a perfectly standard Mandarin. The fact is that their pronunciation has usually several non-standard aspects. I've given some examples, and Stumpy Joe Pete has kindly began to provide a list of general patterns, which is exactly what I'm looking for.

By the way, the very fact that Zhang Yao and Aw Qirui Guo, apparently both native speakers, thought my question was about local dialects, tells a lot about one of the greatest difficulties a foreigner encounters in such a situation: people don't realize that their pronunciation is non-standard, or consider that the differences are negligible and uninteresting. This explains probably why it's so difficult to find a simple list of correspondences like the one of Stumpy Joe Pete!
I can't think of any tables I've seen, but I can share some of the patterns I've encountered:


zh ch sh merge with z c s (or distinguished at random):

Almost everywhere in the south, at least among most speakers

n merges with l (conditioned on following vowel):

Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, Nanjing, ...

h merges with f (conditioned on following vowel):

Some Sichuan?, Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing

final n merges with final ng

Jiangsu, Shanghai

r merges with l

Jiangxi? I've met several people like this, and 2 were from Jiangxi.

Something about mixing up j q x versus the z c s and the g k:

Guangdong, HK