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I usually don’t have a problem understanding people speaking Mandarin in Shenzhen. Before studying in Kunming and getting used to different accents, I had difficulty understanding Cantonese speakers when they spoke Mandarin. After spending almost two years in southern China, I feel that I’ve made significant progress. On one occasion, a few people on a bus in Shenzhen were delighted that I could understand their Sichuanese. A Hunanese woman once told me, in her native dialect, that she didn’t speak Mandarin and that this was why she didn’t understand me (again, since I understood what she said, I didn’t realize it was a dialect until she pointed it out). But when Northeastern Chinese people start using their own words and add an “er” at the end of every second or third word, I often don’t understand what they are saying!