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My daughter's preschool has a Mandarin language immersion program and the teacher (from Fuzhou, Fujian province) seems to pronounce "knee" (膝盖) as qīgài instead of xīgài. Is qīgài a correct alternative pronunciation, or is her own dialect incorrectly corrupting her Mandarin pronunciation? If the latter, what other pronunciation errors is she likely to make? |
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It is a non-standard pronunciation, but it is reasonably common. It is not in any way associated with the Fuzhou dialect specifically — even some northerners say qigai. Here's an interesting blog post and discussion about the free variation of the pronunciations of knee. |
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:-) don't waste time on this. Xi1 Gai4 is correct and will be more and more popular. FYI http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE8Zdic86Zdic9D.htm If you are preparing an exam, keep Xi1 in mind, or feel free to pronounce it. In China, there's numerous dialects. If you live in a small village of Fujian, you may even not understand what the neighboring village's people saying because of the mountains. This is the reason why people need Mandarin living in this big country with so many mountains, especially in South China. |
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Xi1 Gai4 is the standard pronunciation in Mandarin; If you are taking an exam, Xi1 Gai4 is the only correct answer. But in daily life, Qi1 Gai4 is so widely used that most Chinese don't distinguish them. |
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