Try watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in Mandarin and see how you fare?
Apparently Mandarin was my first language, but around when I started going to school, my parents were afraid I'd have trouble learning English if I also kept speaking Chinese, so I switched to exclusively English.
For a long time, I said I had passive fluency: I could understand spoken everyday Chinese, but could not speak it. I now can speak some, but have terrible pronunciation, and screw up the tones.
I remember feeling like I understood most of the dialogue in CT,HD and was surprised to hear people complaining about the accents of the two leads. I totally did not notice any accents.
no subject
Apparently Mandarin was my first language, but around when I started going to school, my parents were afraid I'd have trouble learning English if I also kept speaking Chinese, so I switched to exclusively English.
For a long time, I said I had passive fluency: I could understand spoken everyday Chinese, but could not speak it. I now can speak some, but have terrible pronunciation, and screw up the tones.
I remember feeling like I understood most of the dialogue in CT,HD and was surprised to hear people complaining about the accents of the two leads. I totally did not notice any accents.