the best languages to learn (article)

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leosmith
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Re: the best languages to learn (article)

Postby leosmith » Thu Jun 01, 2023 3:25 am

Gaoling97 wrote:When Mark Zuckerberg speaks in Chinese, literally almost every single tone is wrong, and I have not otherwise seen anything that indicates much more than a very elementary level of speaking.
I completely agree regarding his tones, but based on this 30 min interview in Mandarin, I'd say he was a solid A2. And that was 8 years ago - he could possibly even be in the Cs by now.

Imo, his level is very comparable to Benny's after his 3 month challenge. Benny's pronunciation is a bit better, but Zuck appears to have a wider range. Benny was claiming B1, so it doesn't surprise me that the media is saying Zuck is fluent. I don't believe in that word, so it doesn't bother me as much as it used to.
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Re: the best languages to learn (article)

Postby Sae » Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:35 am

I did see a couple of reaction videos to Zuckerberg's Chinese from Chinese speakers. It sounded like his vocabulary and grammar was good but his tones weren't, which seems to correlate with what you're saying too. But they didn't say what they think his language level was.

But I think it is one of the struggles with tones is that we naturally change our tones in English, like for emphasis and not realise we're doing it and doesn't do anything to the meaning and it was noted that this was something Zuckerberg was doing with his Chinese and it's something I fight with my Vietnamese sometimes, where of course it affects meaning. Like how we might raise our tone when greeting somebody excitedly, but in Vietnamese the word to say "hello" is a falling tone. 'Chào' is 'hello', 'cháo' is 'porridge'.

I feel like that's a potential joke...

Code: Select all

Một người Anh gạp một người Việt cho lần đàu tiên.

Người Anh (Hào hứng): Cháo! Cháo! Nó là một người Việt. Anh là rất hạnh phúc.
Người Việt (Bối rối): Em không có cháo...em đã ăn sáng rồi...


In English:

Code: Select all

An Englishman meets a Vietnamese person for the first time.

Englishman (Excited): Porridge! Porridge! It is a Vietnamese person. I am so happy.
Vietnamese person (Confused): I don't have porridge...I already ate breakfast...
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Re: the best languages to learn (article)

Postby Cainntear » Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:46 am

Random thought... Given the author's obsession with CEÒS and the omission of the world's allegedly second richest man... Can we conclude that Elon Musk doesn't speak Afrikaans despite being from Pretoria...?
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Re: the best languages to learn (article)

Postby Ug_Caveman » Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:51 am

Le Baron wrote:Alternative title: Some CEOs speak another (several) languages.

The premise seems to be: learn/speak other languages and you'll be a CEO. Or: if you're already a CEO part of your success is because you speak one or more additional languages.


This article was written by 10-year-old me - as we all know, learning Japanese "for business" is the best idea ever :D

tastyonions wrote:More seriously, Swedish is quite the wildcard in there. Swedish has more business value than Arabic? Than Portuguese? Than Japanese or Korean? Odd.


I wonder if that's based on niche value. I suspect far more people study the other languages than they do Swedish.
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Re: the best languages to learn (article)

Postby Cainntear » Thu Jun 01, 2023 11:07 am

Gaoling97 wrote:Seriously, I have noticed that, presumably because almost no westerners are actually at a very high level in Chinese, people seriously overestimate how good some people actually are/there is nobody to call people out when they exaggerate their abilities. And native Chinese speakers tend to be overly generous with foreigners speaking Chinese to a seriously comical extent.

Not just Chinese. There's a tendency across languages to complement the foreigner who speaks the language badly.

I used to find it insulting at my local Spanish exchange that people would have a deep conversation without commenting on my Spanish and would then exchange two sentences with someone who was pretty much a beginner and then shower them with praise for how well they spoke Spanish. All I had to do was cambiar el chip and start recognising that my Spanish was good enough that it wouldn't even occur to them to comment on it.

I now trrat natives compliments of learners with a rather large pinch of salt...!
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Re: the best languages to learn (article)

Postby Cainntear » Thu Jun 01, 2023 11:13 am

Ug_Caveman wrote:
tastyonions wrote:More seriously, Swedish is quite the wildcard in there. Swedish has more business value than Arabic? Than Portuguese? Than Japanese or Korean? Odd.


I wonder if that's based on niche value. I suspect far more people study the other languages than they do Swedish.

Two hypotheses:

1) you're reading too much into what might only be bad writing.

2) the site pushes Sweden for its own commercial interests. Whether that's advertising dollars from Swedish unis,higher commission on Swedish placements or Sweden just being a less competitive market among agencies and therefore something that makes them want to make it a captive market.
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Re: the best languages to learn (article)

Postby Ug_Caveman » Thu Jun 01, 2023 11:40 am

Cainntear wrote:
Ug_Caveman wrote:
tastyonions wrote:More seriously, Swedish is quite the wildcard in there. Swedish has more business value than Arabic? Than Portuguese? Than Japanese or Korean? Odd.


I wonder if that's based on niche value. I suspect far more people study the other languages than they do Swedish.

Two hypotheses:

1) you're reading too much into what might only be bad writing.

2) the site pushes Sweden for its own commercial interests. Whether that's advertising dollars from Swedish unis,higher commission on Swedish placements or Sweden just being a less competitive market among agencies and therefore something that makes them want to make it a captive market.


I won't lie I didn't actually read the article, only the thread :P

I still think Swedish can (and likely does) have a better commercial value than might immediately be obvious though when you consider some of the companies based there.
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Re: the best languages to learn (article)

Postby Sae » Thu Jun 01, 2023 11:41 am

Cainntear wrote:
Gaoling97 wrote:Seriously, I have noticed that, presumably because almost no westerners are actually at a very high level in Chinese, people seriously overestimate how good some people actually are/there is nobody to call people out when they exaggerate their abilities. And native Chinese speakers tend to be overly generous with foreigners speaking Chinese to a seriously comical extent.

Not just Chinese. There's a tendency across languages to complement the foreigner who speaks the language badly.

I used to find it insulting at my local Spanish exchange that people would have a deep conversation without commenting on my Spanish and would then exchange two sentences with someone who was pretty much a beginner and then shower them with praise for how well they spoke Spanish. All I had to do was cambiar el chip and start recognising that my Spanish was good enough that it wouldn't even occur to them to comment on it.

I now trrat natives compliments of learners with a rather large pinch of salt...!


It's why I quite liked one of Xiaomanyc's videos where he spoke Vietnamese. Many of his videos are full of "oh wow your [x language] is so good". And I think for some of the languages, it's just people not expecting somebody to speak their language, and are being nice and encouraging. I guess overall they don't want to discourage people who feel like they're still learning.

In a Vietnamese one a woman stopped to correct him. And his Vietnamese was basic IMO. Some of the comments called the woman rude, but 1) she probably pegged him for a learner and 2) I think most language learners don't mind being corrected and taught the right way because we can learn from it and improve our language.

Maybe when a native doesn't say you're good and talk to you like a regular person, maybe that's when they're truly complementing your language. If they complement you, it means you still have more work to do. ;)
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Re: the best languages to learn (article)

Postby Le Baron » Thu Jun 01, 2023 2:14 pm

Sae wrote:Maybe when a native doesn't say you're good and talk to you like a regular person, maybe that's when they're truly complementing your language. If they complement you, it means you still have more work to do. ;)

Without a doubt. As soon as someone doesn't alter their normal register when speaking to you they have already unconsciously judged you competent.
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Re: the best languages to learn (article)

Postby leosmith » Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:30 pm

Cainntear wrote:Random thought... Given the author's obsession with CEÒS and the omission of the world's allegedly second richest man... Can we conclude that Elon Musk doesn't speak Afrikaans despite being from Pretoria...?
According to your buddy:
chatgpt wrote:Musk has stated that he is proficient in Afrikaans
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