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Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University
- ezequiel-garzon 12y agoEven if Zuckerberg's main motivation was to learn his wife's language, I believe this will effectively raise the bar for CEOs in the years ahead. I wouldn't be surprised if this seemingly unnecessary skill could signify new business opportunities for large corporations.
- adwf 12y agoIt's quite similar to businessmen in the '80s learning Japanese. If you do a lot of business within a country, you are somewhat disadvantaged if you have to rely on a translator.
- nether 12y agoJ. Paul Getty learned arabic to help his oil deals...
- Dewie 12y agoIsn't speaking relevant foreign languages considered a plus in business settings? That seems to be the layman perception, at least.
- hawkice 12y agoI've been told by Americans doing business in China that, even if you have pretty good Chinese, you don't have good business Chinese unless you specifically know that you do. So you'll get a translator anyway. Understanding the culture is important to understanding the product you provide, if it's at all different, so that can be pretty important.
- Wogef 12y agoThis is absolutely correct. Only about 10% of the successful long-term foreign businessmen I know here speak passable Chinese. Chinese love when you speak the language- but that does not unfortunately translate into the sort of tangible business advantages that many students of Mandarin hope for. It's a wonderful language, and loads of fun to learn- but the ROI is not as high as other areas of study.
- cottonseed 12y agoWhere's "here"? I lived in Shanghai 3 years I would have put that number pretty close to 0%.
- Wogef 12y ago>Where's "here"? I lived in Shanghai 3 years I would have put that number pretty close to 0%. Shenzhen. You're right, 10% is being generous but a lot of long time expats pick up Mandarin not at work but through the "long haired dictionary" method. I don't know any successful business people that have been here for more than five years that feel it's essential for business. Foreign companies fail here all the time due to not understanding culture, I've never heard of any failing due to the language barrier. Value comes from scarcity- fully bilingual people simply are not scarce in China.
- matthewrudy 12y agoIn Taipei the percentage of foreigners who speak good Chinese is quite high. Maybe just because I hang out with professionals rather than English teachers. But I agree that general fluency is a whole lot more common than business fluency.
- justicezyx 12y agoYou are closer to understand culture knowing their languages...
- kyllo 12y agoWell, his wife is a second generation Chinese-American and a Cantonese speaker. So that wouldn't be a very compelling reason to learn Mandarin.
- wes-exp 12y agoJon Huntsman, the politician and businessman, speaks Mandarin. As such, he served as US Ambassador to China. Zuck's not the first – I'm sure there are more examples out there.
- rmason 12y agoGuess the self study has gone well. It appears that he struggles at times but never reverts to English. Betting this video will be widely shared in China.
- desdiv 12y agoIt appears that he struggles at times but never reverts to English. Funny enough that all the questions during the Q&A session were in English, but he managed to answer them all in Mandarin.
- throwaway1979 12y agoIs there a translation?
- kyllo 12y agoYes, in China people really tend to appreciate any effort you make at learning their language. You don't have to be fluent to be appreciated for trying. This will go a long way in endearing him to the Chinese people.
- ericschmidt 12y agoThis is the PR move of the century. This video will go SO viral in China. Faith in Zuck restored.
- JSno 12y agohis wife can speak chinese
- martythemaniak 12y agoHis wife is American.
- firman 12y agohttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150534/Facebook-bride-Priscilla-Chans-father-Asian-refugee-worked-Chinese-takeaway.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150534/Facebook-bri...
- frooxie 12y agoThe first question they ask is why he studied Mandarin, and (as the first of three reasons) Mark replies that his wife is Chinese.
- martythemaniak 12y agoAmericans come in over 31 flavours.
- ravitation 12y agoI was made with 23 flavors!
- jeffreyrogers 12y agoThat doesn't mean she can't speak Chinese.
- thoughtpalette 12y agoRegardless of his technical achievements, learning a second language ( and such disconnected one ) is super impressive. Great job.
- sampo 12y ago> learning a second language [...] is super impressive. Perhaps as an adult. But if you do it as a kid in school, then almost everyone can pick up a language or two.
- therealdrag0 12y agoPer hour, adults are more efficient at learning languages. But kids forced into another language typically get more hours of exposure than adults attempting to force themselves to learn a language.
- pessimizer 12y agoI was watching a reality TV show last week (flip this old beach house or somesuch) where a father and his toddler daughter had approximately this dialog. Dad: "Who's my favorite?" Daughter: "Me!" Dad: "Are you my favorite?" Daughter: "Yes!" Dad: "Whose favorite are you?" Daughter: "Yours!"
- sytelus 12y agoDo you have anything cite for this claim? All the research I'm aware of strongly suggests (1) It's extremely hard for adults to learn new languages - usually requiring many more hours compared to kids learning second language (2) Brain circuitry to hear, distinguish and pronounce new sounds effectively gets shutdown in older age.
- eitally 12y agoI only have this anecdote. My wife, two kids (3 & 5 years old) and I have been taking Mandarin classes for the past six months. My wife & I pick up the concepts, grammar/patterns and vocabulary about three times faster than our kids (we are also forced to work harder at it because we're constantly reinforcing the lessons to them, so that inherently biases this analysis). That said, their pronunciation is muuuuuuuch better than ours.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- LeoPanthera 12y agoIs there a version with English subtitles?
- 0x0 12y agoIs Facebook blocked in China these days? It used to be. Must be weird to be there representing a blocked company.
- desdiv 12y agoIt's still blocked. http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/index.php?siteurl=facebook.com http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/index.php?siteurl=facebo...
- coupdejarnac 12y agoFacebook is not uniformly blocked everywhere in China. I have friends in different regions of China occasionally gain access. As for Zuckerberg's Mandarin, well done, but he needs to work on his accent and tones.
- seanmcdirmid 12y agoFacebook is pretty uniformly blocked in China. I've never encountered a network where I could access it outside of using a VPN.
- adventured 12y agoIt's the official position of the Chinese Government that Facebook is not allowed in mainland China. That is plainly the case, and has been for many years.
- chatmasta 12y agoYes. That's why he's doing this.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mikek 12y agoWould someone please translate the jokes?
- frooxie 12y agoI know a tiny bit of Mandarin and listened to the first couple of minutes. The first three big laughs seem to be when he looks unsure when asked why he decided to study Chinese, when he says that his wife's grandmother was shocked to hear him speak Chinese, and when he says that Chinese is hard. It's not so much that he tells jokes as that he has an encouraging, sympathizing audience (but what do I know, maybe there are jokes later).
- oldspiceman 12y agoComedy is all about the delivery.
- kidlj 12y agoNo jokes. People just appreciated his Chinese speech.
- mastermojo 12y agohis tones are off, but he has a pretty impressive vocabulary
- pgrote 12y agoI took Chinese in high school and did ok. Didn't use it and have tried to pick it up twice as an adult and have yet to get the tones down in conversation. Put a book in front of me, I can get it. Let me listen to someone speak it and I am lost. Any ideas on how to conquer that fault?
- newhouseb 12y agoWatch reality Chinese television with subtitles. You get both the visual confirmation alongside the sound. They can be kind of a drag to get through (esp if you're used to HBO-level stuff), but the benefit of reality TV is that you can miss parts of a conversation and not be completely confused as to what's going on as there is no real plot.
- atratus 12y agocan you recommend some shows/channels? Are there any online streams?
- imron 12y agoCheck out the Grand First Episode Project on Chinese Forums: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/24097-tv-series-recommendations-and-index-thread/ http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/24097-tv-seri... Some of the links are outdated, but there's a ton of info there, including descriptions, vocab lists, difficulty rankings and more.
- ravitation 12y agoI find it really hard to watch foreign TV/Movies with subtitles because I lose almost all of the audio, and am pretty much just reading the whole time - path of least resistance to understanding, I guess.
- xi_an 12y agoI dont really see why this is posted or is popular. What about this screams hacker news? Uggh fucking reddit is leaking. Edit: Really, what am I learning about technology? How is this even interesting? What is hacker news about some guy speaking a language most of people here can't understand with no subtitles. Is it really that amazing that a successful white businessman can speak a language most of the world speaks? Its novel for sure, but I don't think it really is going to give me a better indication on what is happening in the actual tech world.
- EGreg 12y agoChinese is considered a hard language to learn for Westerners. As a fellow founder I find this really impressive.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- higherpurpose 12y agoA German professor once told me German is actually harder to learn than Chinese.
- molloy 12y agoOf course a German professor would say that. (-: I've taken years of both languages in high school and college, and I'd have to disagree with him. An example of the difference in difficulty is that when you learn German coming from an English background there are only four more letters to learn (ä, ö, ü and ß), whereas there are 214 Mandarin radicals to memorize. And these radicals aren't even the entire "alphabet", they're just the basis that all characters expand upon. Also, Mandarin is a tonal language, along with having vastly different grammar than Germanic languages. While English has plenty of influence from Romance languages, most of it is strictly vocabulary; English, at its core, is a Germanic language. Thus it'd be rather hard to prove that German is more difficult for an English speaker to learn than Chinese. However, I would love to hear his arguments to the contrary, or anybody else's for that matter!
- mikeash 12y agoI know almost no German, but I learned French to fluency and know spoken Mandarin somewhat well. I think that talking about the relative difficulty of a language as a whole is not really workable. There are different aspects which order differently. For example, if you already speak English then you'll find German vocabulary far easier to learn. There will be a lot of shared or similar words that you can build on. In Mandarin, there are almost no common words, so you basically have to start from scratch. On the other hand, Mandarin grammar is pretty simple. No conjugations, no genders, just slightly different word order from what you're used to. If you know how to say "I eat noodles" and you know how to say "yesterday" then you know how to say "I ate noodles yesterday". We spent a long time learning how to conjugate the various past tenses in French class, and I believe German is similar. I think there's no contest when it comes to reading and writing. Learning to read and write Mandarin is almost like learning a whole separate language from the spoken version. I think the easy grammar helps give Mandarin a big advantage, especially if you're learning it for casual conversations. But that advantage is greatly reversed in other areas. Much will depend on what the individual language learner finds easy and hard to learn.
- talltofu 12y agoHighly impressed. I used to brush him off as just another wunderkind who got lucky. In retrospect, his business acumen, especially when acquiring Instagram for a then pricely sum of a billion dollars has made me realize that he truly is special.
- mandeepj 12y agoNot just instagram. We should not forget to mention Whatsapp, internet via drones and Oculus
- puredemo 12y agoWhats App was a huge mistake though. That data is not worth Billions.
- comatose_kid 12y agowhy do you think data was the only or largest driver?
- yen223 12y agoYou seriously underestimate the sheer number of people who use WhatsApp on a daily basis.
- adventured 12y agoIf WhatsApp can ultimately generate $1 billion per year in net income, it's worth ~$19 billion. It's extremely likely they can do that, if they can hold their market position. The business itself is capable of being very profitable over time, and has an extraordinarily low per user cost to operate. It's not likely WhatsApp will ever be a wildly profitable purchase for Facebook, but it doesn't need to be. Half the point was to eat a rival, the same reason they bought Instagram. The likely worst case scenario right now, outside of WhatsApp imploding, is that Facebook overpaid by 1x. To grab a billion users, and fend off a huge potential threat, that's easily worth single digit billions of dollars to Facebook.
- dingaling 12y ago
- thomasfl 12y agoKudos.
- marc_ 12y agoIt's very impressive
- jamesdutc 12y agoI wish the exoticising of the East would just go away. This mystique associated upon the Chinese language is horribly old-fashioned. It comes up far too often (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624342) Of course, we should always encourage ourselves and others to learn foreign languages, even if only to dabble. Unfortunately, this is just gimmick, and bad gimmick at that. Compare to a completely normalised (and far more impressive!!) display of Chinese-language skill. It's implied that they're mostly housewives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5na5nHZsww#t=5m30s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5na5nHZsww#t=5m30s
- arasmussen 12y agoI think you're missing the point. The number of Westerners who become conversational in Chinese is astoundingly low compared to vice-versa. It's known to be quite difficult. Being able to publicly answer questions at a Q&A without falling back to English once is a feat that takes years of learning and practice. It is amazing to me that Mark has been able to find the time and dedication for this while simultaneously running one of the most successful tech companies ever. This isn't on hacker news because the East is exotic or Chinese language is mysterious.
- jamesdutc 12y agoI think that the number of Westerners who achieve conversational fluency in Chinese is limited only by motivation and access to resources. It's more difficult for an American than learning Spanish, sure, but wholly within the grasp of anyone willing to put in the effort. The skill-level displayed in the Facebook video is about what you'd expect from a student having completed about four semesters of Chinese education from a mid-tier state school. The other video is much more impressive as a display of language skill. There's a natural fluency on display, and it comes from a bunch of regular folks who have the benefit of an immersive learning environment and probably not that much more.
- darklajid 12y agoUhm. Hate me for being the downer, but.. isn't he most likely heavily invested due to his wife? And do you think it is harder to learn a foreign language as Joe Random Guy or might it be easier if you try to learn the language of your significant other? Is it harder to learn a foreign language if you manage a huge business and are insanely rich or is it harder if you work to make do, have kids and not a lot of free time? Is it a business strategy, a gimmick that the company paid for? A real personal investment? Everyone learning a completely foreign language impresses me. Zuckerberg just scores really, really low on my utterly personal "Am I impressed" scale.
- elwell 12y agoYou can see a surprisingly small bone conduction transducer behind his right ear at 5:13. I assume he's just repeating what he's being told. No, I'm kidding, but this is impressive.
- mikepalmer 12y agoThe guy just seriously raised the bar for qualification as a "scrappy founder"! This will be widely replayed in China, he will be 2x the rock star that he already is. Maybe he can Jack Ma can do English/Chinese practice together online?
- PhasmaFelis 12y agoI don't think Zuck has been a scrappy anything in years. I'm pretty sure you're disqualified from "scrappy" once you make your first billion. (Possible exception: Notch.)
- JSno 12y agochina will rule US in 50 years.
- onewaystreet 12y agoJust like Japan.
- bobjordan 12y agoI've lived in China 5 years now and our skill levels are comparable so I'm pretty impressed. It's really just basic conversation but the Chinese people will love him for getting this far with it. This along with move to join Tsinghua board will create massive goodwill for FB.
- 27182818284 12y agoI remember reading that he was spending an hour a night on this years ago. (I wish I could remember more) but the key being "years" sticks in my mind, yeah.
- nogridbag 12y agooh man, this doesn't give me much hope. I'm visiting China next fall and was hoping I could have a good handle on the basics by then. I'm learning via Pimsleur and right now I can only say strange phrases like "Would you like to go to the hotel with me?" and "How much money?" I'm joking slightly, I've learned a little bit more than that. But I swear Pimsleur targets their lessons at single men trying to meet foreigners.
- hawkice 12y agoSo, my thing about Pimsleur is that I assume they intend for you to supplement it. For instance, given what you've learned already, you can probably say, "I would like to order two beers." but CANNOT, if you rely solely on Pimsleur, say "I would like to order seven beers." Because they teach you some sentences and what they mean but don't teach you basics. Languages are vast oceans of meaning and composition -- 90 hours simply is not enough for Chinese (or any language, really, reality itself is too complex to describe with a system that simple). I'd recommend learning the characters using Heisig's Remembering the Hanzi (this should take about 100-200 hours), and then shifting to HSK (which should be pretty easy post-character learning) + full sentences. If you like Pimsleur, keep with it, although I get made fun of for sounding like a northerner a bit from using it for pronunciation help when I was beginning. :)
- nandemo 12y ago
- anusinha 12y agoI think it is also worth nothing that Zuckerberg is (perhaps was?) quite talented at Latin and nearly went on to study Classics at Harvard.
- leoncrutchley 12y agoDoes anyone know how he did it?
- SpaceManNabs 12y agoI don't know why people keep saying that this is very impressive unless he was learning Chinese as he was also running Facebook. His tones and grammar still need a good amount of work. I feel like I am not getting the impact since I go to a university were 15% (very rough estimate) of the student body take four years of Chinese in about 2 years (all languages are compressed to 2 years at Princeton). edit: After reading more comments, I understand that it is rare, but I can't say it is a much more significant achievement than if he learned another language such as German or Arabic.
- ericglyman 12y agoIt's because he was learning Chinese as he was running Facebook. He just started just a few years ago http://www.news.com.au/technology/facebook-founder-mark-zuckerberg-determined-to-learn-chinese-language/story-e6frfro0-1225940614496 http://www.news.com.au/technology/facebook-founder-mark-zuck...
- mliker 12y agoIt's impressive because he's successfully steering his company and picking up an incredibly difficult language for Native English speakers.
- cvg 12y agoIf you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. - Nelson Mandela
- sytelus 12y agoWhat surprises the most that he is able to distinguish sounds that are effectively all same for most non-Chinese people. Research says our ability to distinguish sounds in other languages ceases after first 8 months and that's why it's harder to understand someone talking in foreign language. Did Zuck had any exposure to Chinese as a kid? Any info on how he learned Chinese? My guess is that he probably decided to talk with wife and relatives only Chinese for a long period of time. According to many this is the best way to learn new language (as opposed to passively watching videos and audio tapes). Another guess is that he may have some really top Chinese teacher giving few hours of tuition per week.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dhbanes 12y agoWhat surprises the most that he is able to distinguish sounds that are effectively all same for most non-Chinese people. Learning a new language, especially Mandarin, in adulthood is certainly an accomplishment for anyone, but Zuckerberg is not exactly the first person to do it.
- kyllo 12y agoResearch says our ability to distinguish sounds in other languages ceases after first 8 months and that's why it's harder to understand someone talking in foreign language. For me this obstacle went away with sufficient immersion and practice. I started learning Chinese at age 19, the following year I went to China as an exchange student and studied Chinese / Mandarin full time. By the time I came back I was fluent in the language, more fluent than all of the second-generation Chinese-Americans I knew, and with a native-sounding accent, although my vocabulary was still not quite native-speaker level. I don't know exactly what Zuck is doing to study, but what I did was I went to school in China and spoke almost entirely in Mandarin all day, wrote essays in Chinese, read news articles and novels in Chinese, made Chinese friends, dated Chinese women (and eventually married one). You really have to live in a foreign language for a period of several years in order to truly learn it.
- clueless123 12y agoOhh sh!#$, now my mother-in-law is going to expect me to do the same!! :)
- zbgcn 12y agoThis is actually a publicity stunt done by a video production company in SF. He is saying complete gibberish, and the audience is instructed to react or laugh at certain points by signs outside of the field of view of the camera. Completely fake, but comes across as very impressive.
- remyp 12y agoThen why are there people in this same thread stating that his vocabulary is impressive? Do you have a source for this claim?
- foobarqux 12y agoWhat is the best way to learn Mandarin?
- cottonseed 12y agoMove to China. Also, read this for some good language learning advice: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/koreans-english-acquisition-and-best.html http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/01/koreans-english-acqui...
- pyrmont 12y agoAppraisal of the quality of Zuckerberg's Mandarin: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/10/22/mark_zuckerberg_speaks_mandarin_like_a_seven_year_old http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/10/22/mark_zuckerbe...
- nly 12y agoWow, well that site was designed by a bunch of dicks. If you scroll down too much to read the article it throws a whopping great big nag screen at you insisting that you register (for free) to continue reading. Then, when you close the wretched thing, using the provided X, it just dumps you on to their home page. It's like they thought to themselves 'How can we do a paywall but replace all of the users usual disappointment with utter irritation?'
- click170 12y agoNoScript is your friend, I saw no such nag screen.
- PhasmaFelis 12y agoBlocking "foreignpolicy.com###TB_iframeContent" in ABP seems to take care of it.
- chj 12y agoimpressive.
- csa 12y agoA review of his Mandarin based on a close listen of the first 5 minutes of the video and listening to the rest in the background while I type this (let me know if it changes later): tl;dr - Definitely ILR 1+, probably an ILR 2. Pronunciation needs a ton of work, but that's not the only aspect that is measured when analyzing speech. The foreign policy article (linked in another comment) is overly critical, imho. Detailed: ILR LEVEL He's definitely at least an ILR 1+. He shows signs of ILR 2 characteristics (and is probably an ILR 2), but it's hard to tell if he can sustain them in a wide range of contexts. While his pronunciation needs A LOT of work, the language itself is comprehensible to a sympathetic native listener. I strongly disagree with the Foreign Policy article that says it was "terrible". I would say that it's actually kind of amazing given that he's the CEO of a huge company. I would roughly say that he is on par with a good / above average 3rd year student at a school with a really good Chinese program. The original article says 2nd year, but this would be a superstar 2nd year student who was either a heritage speaker or had spent a lot of time in China (e.g., as a homestay or study abroad). DISCOURSE STRUCTURE AND STYLE He is able to sustain the dialogue for a long time. He is able to circumlocute decently (this really opens up the ability to communicate), but I would really like to see his range of circumlocution. He is able to string together his sentences in moderately cohesive paragraphs. He does not demonstrate the ability to combine paragraphs cohesively at a high level (signs of an ILR 3), but I don't think the tasks really required it. His style of answering questions was very American -- very direct. I don't think that a Chinese speaker who has lived exclusively in China (i.e., not educated or trained in the "West") would answer the same questions similarly. In this case, I actually think that it's best for him to answer in an American way even if he could answer in a Chinese style, but that's a different and longer discussion. Early on when he tells the story of his wife and her grandmother, he really comes across as quite charming. GRAMMAR He does decently enough. There are errors, but it's not hard to understand what he is saying -- especially for a sympathetic native listener. The sample didn't really demonstrate a wide range of grammar, but the tasks didn't necessarily require a wide range. He is able to say complex sentences (i.e., two independent clauses), and he is able to speak in different timeframes (normally tenses, but Chinese tenses are not like English). This all points to a solid ILR 2, but grammar is definitely not the toughest part of Mandarin. VOCABULARY He has a decent vocabulary -- it's solid for the task. I wonder what his vocabulary is like outside of the topics of personal bio information, Facebook, and Facebook business. If he wants to get to ILR 2+ or ILR 3, he will need to work on the accuracy and diversity of his vocabulary. PRONUNCIATION This is easily his weakest point. He has a HEAVY American accent. He mispronounces a lot of words. His tones are WAY off. He seems completely unable to say English loan words in Chinese (e.g., Facebook, Google, etc.). It's actually kind of hard to listen to. That being said, I would say that it is all comprehensible to a sympathetic native listener. SUMMARY Overall, really good for someone who is not studying full time and has a very involved full time job. I wonder how much of it was practiced or rehearsed -- a lot of the questions are ones that he definitely _should_ practice (e.g., the story about why he started studying Chinese), since they are standard questions that would be asked to him and/or the Facebook CEO. Regardless, speaking in a foreign language to a large group of people is not easy, and he came across really well. RECOMMENDATIONS He can work on his pronunciation in several ways: - Listen more. Even if it's on in the background, it will help. Right now, I don't think he has a good intuitive sense when he is mispronouncing a word. - When working with a teacher, do lower level language tasks, and act like a native speaker whose voice/accent he likes. Research suggests that this lowers affective filters for pronunciation. - Work with suprasegmentals with a pronunciation program that visualize what he's saying. It can be enlightening. - Practice over pronouncing words. If he does what he perceives as a "caricature" of pronouncing the word, he will probably be closer to accurate. Other than that, listen more, read more, and I think he will become a rock-solid ILR 2 with room for growth if he wants it. That's my quick-and-dirty. I am very interested in the informed opinions of others.
- cauliturtle 12y agoJack Ma speaks fluent English, Mark speaks 國語. I think it is all about business & $.
- jy1 12y agoJack Ma was also an english teacher
- westiseast 12y agoGonna be a bit of a douche, but... Why do we go googoogaga over an English speaker learning a foreign language to a competent level, when this is something millions of people do regularly? Mark isn't the first person to learn a language in the middle of a busy job and life schedule. Doucheness not quite over - it's a big achievement, yeah, but Chinese isn't actually that hard, it's a bit of a myth perpetuated because (a) there's not enough people learning it (b) a lot of teachers are quite shit in my experience (c) hand writing is difficult. in reality spoken Chinese is very simple, grammar is easy, common vocabulary is easily learnt and repeated frequently....
- rayval 12y agoChinese people are amazed when they find a foreigner speaking their language. In part because they like to see themselves as speaking the world's hardest language. But also because there are not a lot of people who are able to learn and speak this, even though China is going to be the world's largest economy shortly.
- United857 12y agoHe is probably the first CEO of a American $200 billion dollar company to do so though -- and in public.
- westiseast 12y agoI guess my point is that I don't think that's particularly relevant. The story is "man does something incredibly difficult whilst dealing with big work pressures". I doubt that Marks life pressures are greater than lots of "normal" people who learn languages everyday, and learning spoken Chinese to his level isn't actually that hard. he also has the benefits of practically unlimited resources to spend on learning.
- new299 12y agoAgreed, private lessons on a daily basis can help you improve very quickly in my experience, you don't even need to do much self study outside that.
- 2D 12y agoI think he is very sincere in his motivation to learn Chinese and its brave to get up there because to us he sounds pretty foreign. People laughed because it's endearing to listen to, not really funny. To me languages are a lot like programming in that if you can get enough to hack around the problem you are half way there. Honestly its not about the $, because if you speak Chinese it doesn't make you Chinese in a Chinese's eyes, just curious and disciplined. Just want to add that when I started learning Chinese people made it out like some impossible dream, and when I started to learn to code it was the same (maybe because I have long blonde hair and look like I'm from Florida or something). Truth is its not as hard as you think to become ok, but very hard to master. So if you are reading this and you ever thought seriously about studying Chinese but "don't have the time"... well, Mark makes time, and if you're reading HN regularly then you are definitely smart enough :)
- verroq 12y agoI find it highly ironic that he's giving a talk there, when China's blocking his site.
- Pierrrrrrre 12y agoI was expecting something very impressive when I started the video, annnnnnd... nope. The interviewer speaks to him like he's a little boy (I know, this is the same pace my Chinese teacher was using in my classroom for the first 2-3 months). And I agree with a lot of comments here: a foreigner speaking fluent English seems normal, yet an American babbling in Chinese seems outstanding...
- drakeballew 12y agoThis is a working translation of Zuck's Q&A at Tsinghua. Hope it helps those of you who are curious about what was said! https://medium.com/unbabel-news/b4cb8f223df2 https://medium.com/unbabel-news/b4cb8f223df2