Mark Zuckerberg Answers Q&A in Mandarin at Chinese University

Post by cvg » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 11:44 PM UTC

Post by ericglyman » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 11:47 PM UTC

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #71

I 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 readi…

Post by Pxtl » Wed, Oct 22, 2014, 11:51 PM UTC

therealdrag0 wrote: post #19

sampo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Per 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.

Post by dhbanes » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 12:02 AM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #73

What 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 tal…

Post by jackvalentine » Thu, Oct 23, 2014, 12:04 AM UTC

ravitation wrote: post #50

newhouseb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch 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.

I 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.