Mark Zuckerberg latterly made headlines by utter Mandarin during a half time of day Q&A at Tsinghua University in Beijing . He started with a disavowal that “ my Chinese is terrible ” but after an enthusiastic reaction from the consultation he continued , articulate that while the lyric is “ unmanageable , ” he “ likes challenges . ” He speak for about a half hour , answering questions and cracking laugh . Everyone was very impressed .
Victor Mair atLanguage Logpegged him at a level “ about ¾ of the way through intensive first - yr Mandarin , ” but still establish his efforts telling . According to Mair , “ his tones are indeed a bit wobbly , and his grammar shaky at times , but his orthoepy ( vowels and consonants ) is generally acceptable , and he has a comely kitchen stove of vocabulary ( actually surprisingly skillful for someone at his stage of hear the voice communication ) . ”
What is more telling than Zuckerberg ’s dictation of Mandarin is his relaxed and insure fashion . Adults who endeavor to study foreign languages are most hampered by the job of self - consciousness , the awe of make mistakes or looking foolish . Not so for Zuckerberg , forging out front with a smile , on a degree in front of an audience no less . That sort of confident delectation in new acquire linguistic communication skills goes a recollective way toward build on those skills . That ’s how you really learn a linguistic process .
Of naturally , it aid that he gets such a positive , almost thrilled reaction to everything he says , simply because he ’s speaking Chinese . This is not just because he is a billionaire CEO . As Brian Fungpoints out,“it ’s difficult to downplay how much ethnic and political messaging is border up in a white person speaking Chinese , even bad Chinese … seeing a noncitizen deign to address the interior language for a variety can yield sheer delight . ”
If a Taiwanese mortal were to speak in English at a U.S. university at a level on par with Zuckerberg ’s Chinese , it would be have with dismay , not delight . But that does n’t mean the Chinese someone did n’t have to work on just as hard to get to that level . We should be impressed with Zuckerberg ’s Chinese — he put in the effort when he did n’t have to , after all , but we should also call back to be impressed by the many people we satisfy every day who had to learn English as adults . They ’ve likely never had anyone tell them how well they speak it . Take a moment today to circulate some language beloved . Or at least a few likes .
