Speaking Changsha

Visiting Hunan's capital, changsha was a sweet experience for me. It has been 4 years since I went back to my Hometown. Although every time I visit Changsha there are visible changes to the city in the form of new buildings, roads and shopping districts. I nonetheless feel intimately nostalgic when I am there. I think part of the nostalgia comes from the local dialect. People often find it surprising after having conversations with me in the local dialect only to hear me tell them that i am from the states. Their sentiment is easy to understand, why after all would you keep a hard to speak local dialect in a foreign country. Probably because the changsha dialect is unique amongst chinese dialects. It's an accent that is hard to get rid of, and most changsha people who try to speak in mandarin often fail at it. Especially in public situations, its immediately recognizable that through their mandarin accents that they are from changsha. Conversely, people from other regions who come to changsha often fail to pick up the dialect. The Changsha dialect sounds pretty goofy most of the time.  When its heard on TV, it often stirs laughs and jokes as the local changsha dialect isn't quiet grammatically correct when compared mandarin. The whole dialect is consisted of various slangs and words that is hard to explain. Often there are phrases in the changsha dialect that cannot be found in the chinese dictionary, they only exist in the form of phonetically based words.