You may want to interview this American apparently working as a news reporter in Chengdu. His Sichuan dialect is even way better than mine! Here is the video link:

http://www.unknownspace.com/article_t/SCU/31167590.html

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/wLdf2JhB_Qw/

Sent by yang | 1:25 AM ET | 05-01-2008

Actually, Sichuan Dialect is very diverse itself. The thing you heard is actually called Chengdu Dialect which is represented by the tone for three is like "sae" while in mandarin is like "san." If you go to any other place more than 30 miles away, you'll find other different dialects.

Sent by Chen He | 7:33 AM ET | 05-01-2008

Check this out. This fellow can speak with a fluent Sichuan dialect.
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/wLdf2JhB_Qw/

Sent by Song Qiuying | 7:41 AM ET | 05-01-2008

I agree with you completely. I come from Beijing, and my girlfriend comes from Chengdu. In most cases, if she speaks Sichuahua very slow, I could understand; but if she speaks in normal speed, then listening to her is like listening to puzzles. To be fair, it still easier to understand than Cantonese.

Sent by ran zhang | 9:20 AM ET | 05-01-2008

Though I am a native Chinese speaker, I myself find Sichuan dialect hard to understand. Perhaps living there for some time would help. I am surprised by what the Wiki entry says.

By the way, "you get to China, and you can't understand a thing people are saying. " -- A lot of Chinese more or less feel the same when they come to the United States after years of learning English. :) But we all get over that period after all. Learning a foreign language is not easy but is also a lot of fun.

Sent by Chinese in America | 9:24 AM ET | 05-01-2008

Your line "wildly waving one arm in the air while drawing invisible tone marks, or bobbing your head up and down and side to side until you're dizzy" nearly had my fall out of my chair in stitches. I spent some time studying Thai about 10 years ago and thought I was the only one who bobbled his head and drew tone marks in the air practicing words and phrases. You have no idea how many times I accidentally did one or both of those things accidentally while trying to speak to local Thais. They were totally baffled, like I was some eccentric American who twitched and gesticulated just to get even the simplest words out. Sanuk mahk mahk, khap! :-)

Sent by andy carvin, npr | 4:55 PM ET | 05-01-2008

Then, the Wiki entry must be written by a Sichuan-native.

Sent by Liang | 10:06 AM ET | 05-02-2008

During several trips to Chengdu and Chongqing I searched bookstores for a dictionary of Sichuanhua or Chongqinghua, but found nothing. When I asked people about such a book, they looked at me like I was nuts (why would you want to study that?). Thanks for the link to the barking-at-the-sun blog!

Sent by Jon D. Moulton | 3:04 PM ET | 05-02-2008

If you think Sichuan dialect is hard, you haven't tried the various dialects in Guangdong and that in and around Shanghai. They are no less foreign to the ears of many Chinese than foreign languages.

When I was in college, a friend of mine, who speaks Shanghai dialect, once begged me to repeat a line in Shanghai dialect to a girl from Shanghai in our class. The girl was brainy and beautiful, but she was also proud, which has kept many of her potential suitors at a distance. My friend promised me that he merely wanted me to pass a message of admiration.

Knowing the character of my friend, but not knowing a single word of that line in Shanghai dialect, I went to the girl gingerly several times and each time asked the meaning of one word from the line in no particular order. When it finally came out, it meant exactly "I want to sleep with you".

In the 70's China, this would surely have been considered by her as "capitol offence". She would have not only despised me, she would have hated my guts. A little caution on my part saved me her friendship. As for my friend, he was deprived the right to see the free, but ticketed movies in college for a whole semester, because I was the one distributing the tickets in our class.

Sent by Jian | 3:10 PM ET | 05-02-2008

I listened to the Sichuanese clips, and got totally confused with the clip that "has to do with food". Could anyone here kindly interpret it for me?

(EDITOR'S NOTE: You will find Andrea Hsu's answer in the blog entry "Travel Booking Haiku")

Additionally, Sichuanese is of course widely spoken in southwestern China, but be aware that there're three main dialects may have more speakers and can be more influential.

They're Cantonese, Taiwanese (Min Nan Dialect) and Wu Dialect (including Shanghaiese, Hangzhouese, etc.). Widely spoken in the southernmost, southeastern, easternmost region respectively. To clarify, these languages are totally NOT compatible with Mandarin. They are probably more than just dialects, although they are similar in some cases.

We do find English and French are somehow similar, but still we refer to them as two languages.

Finally, Sichuanese is comparatively easier to decipher than other southern dialects. If you listen to clips of other southern dialects, you can hardly tell what language they're speaking.

The idea that the Chinese language is a single language is confusing. It was unwise for folks in Beijing to coerce all Chinese people to speak their language.

Sent by Wecan Wong | 10:03 PM ET | 05-03-2008

I live with my aunt, uncle, and my aunt's parents who are from Changsha. They speak Sichuanhua and only Sichuanhua. Even though I can find a number of similarities to Mandarin, I find it ridiculously hard to understand them.

I have an easier time understanding Shanghainese, which is supposed to be harder to interpret from Mandarin. Maybe my Chinese skills inhibit my abilities to understand Sichuanhua; even the pros have trouble.

My uncle, a native Mandarin speaker from Taiwan, has given up trying to understand his in-laws' fast-paced dialect.

It's all Greek to us.

Sent by Cindy | 12:40 PM ET | 05-05-2008

Hi, ya'll, it's not that bad.

Sichuanhua is like speaking "Texan."

It's just one of many "northern languages" in Chinese. Cantonese and some other dialects in southeastern China are much more difficult to understand. They are even more difficult than someone from America's Northeast trying to understand how Alabama locals speak.

Here's why:

In the mid 80's, I traveled by myself from Hang Zhou to Shanghai on a "slow train" that started from Ning Bo. It was named "slow train" because it stopped at every station. It was so crowded that I stood all the way to Shanghai station among Ning Bo peasants back-to-back and shoulder-to-shoulder. I tried to initiate conversations with them on that slow and long trip.

Unfortunately, I couldn't understand a single word! They didn't understand much Mandarin, either. Guess who I talked to in my 7-8 hour long trip?" A young French couple in ENGLISH (even though I did have 18 month French class)!

Have fun listening to Sichuanhua! But I hope more people speak Mandarin, "Standard" Chinese.

Sent by Beverly Peng | 11:26 AM ET | 05-10-2008

Dear Cindy,

Changsha is the capital of Hu Nan province. They speak their dialect. I've many friends from Hu Nan and we speak Mandarin when we are together. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province. That's why I want my children learn Mandarin.

Sent by Beverly Peng | 2:54 PM ET | 05-10-2008

I took a trip to Chengdu a few years ago and wanted to see Dujiangyan and SiChuan opera and to visit the Panda center. I met so many nice people there. They treated me so well, people invited me to their homes and I never had to pay for dinner. Such a warm and wonderful people I am so sad that this has happened to them. Does anyone have a good suggestion for where to donate?

Sent by Timothy Sinquefield | 9:21 PM ET | 06-11-2008