yi1 dianr3 vs. yi1 dian3 dian3

I was speaking with a Chinese woman today, telling her I speak a little bit of Chinese, "wo3 zhi3 hui4 shuo1 Han4 yu3 yi1 dianr3" and she corrected me with 'yi1 dian3 dian3.' I looked up both phrases and saw 'yi1 dianr3 is an 'erhua' variant. I looked up 'erhua' and found 'er2 hua4: nonsyllabic final r 儿 added to a word in spoken Chinese / also called retroflex final or r-ization 兒化.' What does this mean? Note: I am using the *excellent* MDBG Chinese-English dictionary site http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php to get this information. I am less than a week into the Rocket Chinese course, having a great time and learning a lot!! Thank you and regards, Charlie

I have found an answer to my own question with a little digging around with Google (funny, I couldn't find any other reference to erhua the other night, but found this using "retroflex r" in my search): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua, an interesting article on a colloquial difference in spoken Mandarin Chinese. It explains why she 'corrected' me and said her way 'sounds better.' Thanks and regards, Charlie

Hi Charlie, welcome to the forum. Interesting article, thank you! I'm glad to hear that you enjoy the Rocket Chinese course. Let us know how you get on with your Chinese learning. All the best! :D

No doubt a person learning English would find a variance in the received dialogue dependant upon the receiver being from England, USA or Australia or even New Zealand for that matter. If however the communication is understood then it is just a matter of debate as to the correct term. The variance in China is quite different from North to South, but in most cases the various terms are understood. Barry H