Do you learn only the standard dialect?

[sillygoose1]

For Italian I go out of my way to be familiar with various dialects due to how present they are in daily life especially in the central and southern regions. As a result I'm most familiar with Roman and Neapolitan. For French I've made an effort to get acquainted with Quebecois without much more. I know some passive slang and ways of speech. For German I'd like to get some decent Austrian and Swiss exposure.

However, for Spanish I stopped caring after awhile. I'll just take what presents itself to me. And Russian it seems to me is pretty uniform so far.

[Axon]

I love the sounds of all the Chinese lects, even though I can barely speak anything besides Mandarin. I have the most experience with Sichuanese, and that's an interesting case. Younger speakers basically take Mandarin vocabulary and apply a series of staggeringly complex sound and tone shifts. Older speakers still use a lot of vocabulary that isn't in Standard Mandarin. I'm mostly used to these sound shifts and so I can understand Sichuanese - but every time I try to speak it I get it wrong. It's kind of like someone doing a bad British accent in English, I gather. Yunnan dialect is closely related to Sichuanese but I haven't been exposed to enough to be able to decode it at speed yet.

So whenever I speak with someone who can't really speak Standard Mandarin like a broadcaster, I get kind of thrown off because I want to speak like they do. But I have to force myself to stick to Standard Mandarin if I want to keep from being laughed at or misunderstood.

[nooj]

If my first years of English were based on textbook British English and after that I devour content from whatever sources I can get, including Hollwood and Ireland - what is that? One dialect, two or even more? I never get these topics...

Why not? After all, isn't it quite normal to be multidialectical?

[aokoye]

I will say, I can understand a large chunk of the dialects of German spoken in larger cities in Germany and I can easily understand the dialect spoken in Vienna (but I also lived there for 9 months). That said, go 100km south to Pinkafeld and I can understand next to nothing people are speaking "in Dialekt" in my friend's words. That said, said friend, who grew up there, can has trouble understanding that dialect as well because she wasn't taught it in school and her mother wouldn't speak it around her as a child.

[aokoye]

If my first years of English were based on textbook British English and after that I devour content from whatever sources I can get, including Hollwood and Ireland - what is that? One dialect, two or even more? I never get these topics...

Why not? After all, isn't it quite normal to be multidialectical?

Yes! I find the topic of being being multidialectal in one's L1 super interesting actually, especially in situations where you'd expect, perhaps illogically, one person to be multidialectal in a language, when in reality they aren't. I am not bidialectal in English - if we define bidialectal as being able to speak in multiple dialects as opposed to being able to understand multiple dialects. I find it really interesting to hear my mom change the dialect she speaks in (though perhaps that's a coping mechanism for me in that I need some way to be amused in those specific situations because, unsurprisingly, it's predictable).

[tarvos]

No, mostly because I usually lived somewhere where that wasn't spoken.

[aaleks]

Yes, no, and I don't know .
In case with English it seems most people start with the British version of the language. It is the version that's usually taught in schools. The same with textbooks, grammar books, etc. But I think that up to a B2-C1 level it doesn't really matter. At least it doesn't matter for me until I didn't start to use the language actively. For now I decided to stick with the one I'm used more. But it's one of the standard dialects anyway.

And Russian it seems to me is pretty uniform so far.

I think Russian is uniform. Although there are some subtle differences in word usage and pronunciation, for example I speak a bit differently than someone living in the Moscow region, but I'm not sure if a non-native with a C1 or even C2 level could tell the difference.

[Systematiker]

Well, I at least start with it, usually due to resources.

I’ve actually intentionally studied another dialect of English, to ease understanding (given my natural tendencies) in international settings using English as a common language.

As Iversen, some things I consider languages other might call dialects. And as Iguanamon noted, resources are sparse.

In some langauges, I can adapt word choice and speech pattern to regional differences, and in some I’m not at a level of ability to do so (and may or may not ever get there). In some languages I’m already “flavored” in a certain direction due to personal connections, and have a tendency to lean toward that pattern of expression even with speakers of other dialects (which occasionally gets the “why” questions).

Generally, the more facility I have in a language, the more my goal expression is as a “speaker from X region, speaking the standard with influence from X region”

[Serpent]

I'm very interested in non-standard dialects and I even have that reflected in my profile. Generally I'm more interested in understanding. I'd rather be "busted" as a non-native than make someone think I'm mocking or not respecting their dialect.

they speak with an atrocious accent, whereas I speak Standard English.

I hope this was sarcastic

[Speakeasy]

...

they speak with an atrocious accent, whereas I speak Standard English.

I hope this was sarcastic.

Pretty much self-evident.

As a child, growing up on army bases across Canada, I was exposed to a mixture of English (Canadian) accents. Nevertheless, there was a commonly-held opinion that people who did not sound exactly like us, spoke "with an accent" ... we were not even aware that we, ourselves, spoke with a particular accent!

As I grew older, and began traversing Canada and visiting the United States, the United Kingdom, the Carribean, and Australia, it became rather obvioius to me that all native English speakers have regional accents and that there are social undertones that are clearly evident. However, the "locals" with whom I came in contact would invariably remark on my accent, whereas they seemed to be totally unaware of their own and would even dispute the fact in those cases where I pointed out that they, too, had an accent. That is, the refrain of my childhood "they speak with an accent, but I speak Standard English" was universal! Only those who had travelled widely seemed to be aware that we all have accents.