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Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

#131

Post by rayval »

westiseast wrote: post #129

Gonna 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…

Chinese 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.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

#132

Post by adventured »

puredemo wrote: post #97
mandeepj wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just instagram. We should not forget to mention Whatsapp, internet via drones and Oculus

Whats App was a huge mistake though. That data is not worth Billions.

If 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.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

#133

Post by 2D »

I 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 :)

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

#134

Post by ctchocula »

msvan wrote: post #130
csa wrote: post #125

A 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. Detai…

I agree with your sentiment that it's impressive of him to have learnt Mandarin while running a company like Facebook, at an age well beyond the optimal 'malleable' pre-teen/teen period. It's also brave of him to put himself in a position like this, where he will be judged by millions of people like me. But, his pronunciation is not good and the flow of his speech is a bit too slow and stuttery in order for this to b…

I tend to agree with this assessment of his Mandarin more than the gp's. As a native speaker, I must disagree when gp says: "He does decently enough. There are errors, but it's not hard to understand what he is saying -- especially for a sympathetic native listener." Large parts were incomprehensible to me (in part due to the audio quality), and the host's repetition of what Zuckerberg said--he does this many times--were a breath of fresh air. Maybe the experience between gp and myself was like the one mentioned in the Foreign Policy article [1]. The author mentions that he was an adult learner of Chinese and was able to understand Zuckerberg's Mandarin better than a native Mandarin speaker who watched the video with him.

I do admire the energy Zuckerberg is putting into learning Chinese. It's not an easy language to learn. What I found interesting was the sycophantic praise from ABCs in the comments section with gems like: "As much as we are impressed with your Chinese, you made a lot of the ABCs here feel ashamed."

[1] http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/10/22/mark_zuckerbe...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

#135

Post by nandemo »

hawkice wrote: post #111
nogridbag wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh 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 foreigne…

So, 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 ho…

> I assume they intend for you to supplement it.

That is true, but it provides a pretty good foundation. Most other methods don't focus enough on listening and pronunciation.

> "I would like to order two beers." but CANNOT, if you rely solely on Pimsleur, say "I would like to order seven beers."

That doesn't match my experience with Pimsleur. Have you completed a Pimsleur course?

I've done Hebrew and I'm now doing Arabic. Pretty much every new sentence is used as a template and repeated with multiple variations. E.g. in Arabic, numbers are inflected, and they teach you that right in the first unit. So if you know how to say "two beers" then you know how to say "seven beers". It's definitely not an audio version of a phrasebook.

> I get made fun of for sounding like a northerner

Being made fun for sounding like a native is a win on my book!

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

#136

Post by United857 »

westiseast wrote: post #129

Gonna 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…

He is probably the first CEO of a American $200 billion dollar company to do so though -- and in public.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

#137

Post by kyllo »

ezequiel-garzon wrote: post #33

Even 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.

Well, his wife is a second generation Chinese-American and a Cantonese speaker. So that wouldn't be a very compelling reason to learn Mandarin.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

#138

Post by hawkice »

nandemo wrote: post #135
hawkice wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, 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 ho…

> I assume they intend for you to supplement it. That is true, but it provides a pretty good foundation. Most other methods don't focus enough on listening and pronunciation. > "I would like to order two beers." but CANNOT, if you rely solely on Pimsleur, say "I would like to order seven beers." That doesn't match my experience with Pimsleur. Have you completed a Pimsleur course? I've done Hebrew and I'm now doing Ar…

Hahaha so, not sounding like a native so much as adding r sounds everywhere, which makes you sound a little silly in the south independent of how good you are. Imagine a four year old speaking in a southern drawl here in America, it'd sound pretty odd. See wikipedia's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua

My comment about those two sentences is specifically applicable to people who have done the first dozen or so lessons of Pimsleur's Mandarin Chinese I, which literally contains the sentence "I would like to order two beers" but doesn't cover the numbers until... not sure, I learned the numbers on my own and was liable to have skipped that part if it came later, but I don't remember them in Pimsleur at all.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

#139

Post by westiseast »

United857 wrote: post #136
westiseast wrote: post #129

Gonna 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…

He is probably the first CEO of a American $200 billion dollar company to do so though -- and in public.

I 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.
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