SPEAKER_02

Welcome to the changing script podcast. I have been documenting my experience learning simplified Mandarin Chinese on a YouTube channel for the past year and a half. I've been having conversations with anybody that would discuss the language with me. And I want to get some of those conversations on this podcast. There is some really interesting viewpoint about Chinese language, about learning the Chinese language, about language learning in general. My main focus on this podcast is going to be twofold. I want to capture both perspective. One is other people going through what I'm going through, probably further along the line of learning the Chinese language. So I'm going to interview people who are either in the process of learning or in the process of using the language. Don't worry, the interviews are going to be in English because I have that own linguistication myself. I'm going to interview Chinese people on their experiences, learning languages. We'll talk about methods, we'll talk about in and outside of the classroom. We'll talk about usage. Inevitably, we'll talk about pronunciation, reading, writing, whatever the people that I'm interviewing are most interested in about their language learning experiences or about the languages that we're talking about. So there's a whole lot of content that we're talking about here. So these podcasts are going to get all of my information are in the show notes, and I welcome your feedback and ideas. And if you are learning the Chinese language or come from the Chinese language and have learned other languages, I'd like to interview you. Contact me and we'll have that out. Lucy is a phenomenal, motivated, personable, and articulate young woman. She works for a local media organization in the social media side of that company, and she found me last year because I did a review of this organization on what is now the original XPAC podcast and invited me to a gathering of the company, and it was really exciting. At my current language level, uh I cannot have these conversations with people that grew up with Mandarin Chinese in Chinese yet. I hope to do that in the future, but I understand that's going to take quite some time. I feel really spoiled that the language I'm fluent in is in English, and I'm really spoiled that English is such a strong language in China, and that Lucy has such a high level that we can find out so much information about how Mandarin Chinese is learned in the first language here in China, as well as how she learned English as a child, and is still refining her English and speaking skills. I think those are most of the places that I worked. But when I went back to the US for graduate school, I also taught her to your writing to international students, and a lot of them were Chinese. We didn't have the time in that fast-based environment for me to sit down and really pick their brain on language skills. We were focusing on their writing skills, and we had a lot to do in the classroom. And so I never really had that those moments of being able to find out how they got where they are and ask them the other side of how they learn Chinese. So I'm really excited to now have this opportunity to find folks who can maneuver both languages and can bring that information into English, not just for myself and my former teacher, but for you who may never learn Mandarin Chinese, but might have some questions on how the language is learned. I'm sure a lot of you have come over from my YouTube channel and you've seen the look of the language, and you've heard me highlight other people using the language in its beautiful tonal form. And those are difficult things to do when you're coming from a language like English is to read those characters and to speak those tones correctly. And so to be able to have that insight into both learning Mandarin Chinese as a first language and learning English as a second language for Chinese people. To have that insight in English, I think is really, really valuable for people who may not be able to have the time to learn Mandarin Chinese, but want to understand that process and that people from that culture. And so I hope that having this perspective on the changing script podcast really aid in having that kind of understanding. Because let me tell you, as someone who's trying to go from English to Chinese, anybody in China that I meet that has any level of English, I have to respect it for this is a hard transition in the direction. Without further ado, I think you should hear from the woman herself because Lucy doesn't mean that I need anybody to hate me.

SPEAKER_04

I'm a Shanghai and I work for Six Tone, which is an English language web website based in Shanghai, and I'm working for the social media team.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Awesome. I'm so excited to have you here today. Yeah. Super obvious question. What was your first language?

SPEAKER_04

Of course, my first language is Chinese, and I can speak it since I'm very young. And I remember the first Chinese character I learned from my mother is Ren. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's easy to recognize. And technically, when we learn how how do we learn Chinese, usually we will start from Ping Ying. And after Ping Ying, we will start to learn Chinese characters. Usually in my primary school on grade two, we will start learn to learn how to use a dictionary. Because if we learn how to use a dictionary, then we can learn characters by ourselves. You know, there are two ways to find a character in the dictionary: bio pinging or bio character components.

SPEAKER_02

Let's slow down with Suzanne because you've got a lot of really good information into that. So when your mother taught you Ren, how did she teach that? How old were you at that time?

SPEAKER_04

Very, very young. I remember I was in kindergarten and my mom was reading uh magazines. Yeah. And actually I know nothing about the about these characters, but my mom will teach me, like she will pick some pick some very simple ones, like rin. Uh-huh. I I still clearly I don't know why, I still clearly remember this is the first yeah character I've learned from my mother.

SPEAKER_02

So did she say it a few times? Did she like trace it or did she have you write it or just no?

SPEAKER_04

She just pointed pointed to the character it's rin. Then I I I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. That's an easy one to remember. Yeah, yeah. And it looks very similar to and and later we I will be maybe confused with the Ren with Ru. I don't know if you have learned Chinese because Ren is right that. Yeah, yeah. Ren, right? Yeah. It's Ren. But ru means like go into Ru. Which does that one look like? Ru like that. Okay, I don't know that one yet. Yeah, this part on the right side is like higher than this one. It looks just the same. It looks very similar. Yeah, Ren is right this way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Ru is right this way.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh. So for listeners that can't see, I'll try to put a picture in my Instagram when I publish this episode. But basically, there's two strokes in both of these words. And one of them you do the left first and then the right. And the other one you do the right first and then the left. So that is probably one of the first situations I've seen where stroke order matters.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That is the best example I've ever seen of stroke order. I think it might be a little bit like confused for foreign learners. Yeah, yeah. Or for well, it was for you and you weren't a foreign learner. When you were a child.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. I think now it's it's very easy for us to recognize.

SPEAKER_02

So anybody learning it for the first time, those look very similar.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think when we were in kindergarten, many children will be confused with the two characters. Yeah, sure. Yeah, and later I think in um grade three, we will start to learn essays. Very simple essays with only um 100 characters, like like an introduction of my parents, my mother, yeah, and also write some diaries every day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Can I ask you about the pinion? So yeah. Right, we will write piny.

SPEAKER_04

First of all, we will learn how to write pin. Yeah and to be honest, I cannot remember clearly. Like a okay. It's quite like high uh English. Yep. Yeah, yeah. So we will start we will start like practice writing like this every day. Yep. And then learn how to use it.

SPEAKER_02

Right, yeah, right. And so those are individual vowels. And then you moved on to syllables? Like like ren is a syllable, but it's also a word, and like ping on ping. I don't know why I'm thinking of insurance company right now. But that's like two syllables. So did you learn syllables next or syllables? Okay, that's one syllable. That's one syllable. That's I'm trying to think of something around what's pen in Chinese? Pen, chen bi. Aha! Two syllables. Chenbi. So those those are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not individual sounds, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Wow, okay, but in second grade you were using a dictionary already. Yeah. In second grade. With the characters already.

SPEAKER_04

Because in second grade we kind of learn many characters. And then if and and then we will learn how to use characters, and then if if I see a character that I cannot recognize, if I learn how to use a dictionary, I can know how to pronounce it and its meaning. Yeah. I remember this part is my favorite part when I was in grade because I can learn a lot of new words. Yeah. New characters. Yeah. Yeah, by this.

SPEAKER_03

Why was it your favorite?

SPEAKER_04

I don't know because um maybe I can learn a lot of characters much more than my classmates, then I will feel like, yeah. Oh, so you would get this part. Yeah, I'm good at this part, and yeah.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

And so you guys were using a dictionary, you were using opinion. Were you writing characters in class at that time?

SPEAKER_04

Of course, we'll practice every day. I remember in grade one, our homework is to practice writing characters. And also we were learning um it's it's like extra curriculum classes. We were learning Chinese calligraphy.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

In second grade. In second grade, because in our school we kind of have such kind of lessons during the weekends, and uh I remember it was I was interested in that, then I take part in one classes here to write with Malpi. Is that the Shufu or that? Shufa. Shufa. Shufa, yeah. With with brush pen. Right, right, right. Oh that stuff is so beautiful. But I I didn't like continue, so I didn't write very well. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, but still I remember the first characters we write is like Ren, I mentioned to you, and the E, yeah, very simple like stripes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Too fun. Okay, so learning the characters and putting them together was easy for you, but was there any part of reading or the pronunciation that was difficult?

SPEAKER_04

For me, I think uh whenever in primary school, there is I I mean we have a lesson called like Chinese, and I love Chinese, and I actually am the representative of the subject. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So uh if you ask me the difficult part, I think it was maybe in senior high school we start to learn some ancient Chinese prose, you know. That's hard. It's maybe like Shakespeare's like literature, and I found that because you know in ancient Chinese prose one character may have various meanings, has had different meanings, and sometimes the and we were asked to recite these essays, and I find it very difficult and sometimes boring because it's ancient Chinese prose and many of them are related to like military or wars or history. This is I'm not interested in this part, so I find it hard for me to re-side these like three things.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and you had to memorize the whole thing.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Sometimes it's very long.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah. When I was in elementary school, we had to memorize a historical document for the for the United States, and we had to memorize it, and it was I can still remember the beginning because I remember when I started to get really bored with it. So it's like poem is I think poem is okay, but it's not long prose, yeah. I don't like that. Yeah, four scores and seven years ago today. We set forth on this blah blah blah blah. Yeah, yeah, horrible. Yeah, so incredibly boring. And I think for the same reason, as a child, I didn't really understand politics or history very well, and I was just like, I'm memorizing these formal words.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, there is a lot of like background information behind it, but you you also need to memorize that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, wait, you said that they had uh student leaders for each subject.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh wow. So actually I'm the student leader for Chinese and English. Is this in primary school or secondary school or both? I can remember in elementary school and junior high school, I was the I was always the leader for the Chinese subjects. Yeah. And in elementary school, I also the English leader. What did the leaders do? Usually they will like collect the homeworks, and if the teachers have something to tell the students, like today's homework, and I will tell them, and uh at the every morning we will have the morning reading part, and I will stand in front of the classroom and yeah, organize the students to read, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

No wonder your communication skills are so strong. You've been practicing forever. Wow, okay, okay. That's so interesting. That's very clever of the teacher too, because that helps them do one less thing, and then the students take on some responsibility and the teacher can focus on other things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's very, very clever. Yeah, in China, every subject will have a student leader.

SPEAKER_04

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_02

I've heard that some of the classrooms can get rather big. Um, how many people were in here?

SPEAKER_04

Well, in my elementary school we will have 50 students.

SPEAKER_02

That is rather big, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

40 to 50 students. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. And in high school? 40. 40. Yeah, still a lot. That is still quite big. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, wow, wow. With language, whether it's people's first language or other languages, people tend to gravitate towards one thing they like to do more. Do you like writing, reading, or speaking better than one day?

SPEAKER_04

I like I like speaking because I don't know if I have that. Um in in my elementary school we have like we we can perform, you know, with like reading some poems out loudly. I don't know how to describe this kind of like format, and I like this part. Yeah, and I think I remember in my junior high school, I mean my classmate we attend a coun contest, like reading, reading like these beautiful poems emotionally. Oh yeah, it's really cool. I love this part, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_04

I dream of like being or how to say DJ. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's really cool. What was your favorite poem to read? Did you did you have a favorite one to read?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I remember it's a poem from like Chinese poet po uh poet um Shu Jimo. It's called uh Zia Ru or Shi Do Shu Hua. Um it means like if I I'm Snowflake, yeah, snowflake, yeah. I love this one. That sounds beautiful. Yeah, I like I like these beautiful poems and read it with background music. I just enjoy it very much. That sounds really cool. I I remember when I was in senior high school, I would do it at my home myself. I would read it out and then edit it with the background music.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Did you ever do it in front of a mirror? No. Oh no, I didn't. One of my friends told me that it helps to have a mirror there to help you memorize so that when you're you can pretend to look at the audience, but you're actually looking at yourself and you can kind of see your facial expressions, and if for some reason it kind of makes you memorize it faster. But it's also very weird to stare at yourself while you're trying to look at the paper and the problem.

SPEAKER_04

There is I think there's no mirror in my room.

unknown

Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_04

Maybe I can go to the racing.

SPEAKER_02

Were there any particular language teachers in your any part in your education who really inspired you with your speaking skills or communication skills?

SPEAKER_04

I think I should thank to my kindergarten teachers because I think it was she who thinks I have the ability to speak in front of the yeah, in front of many people. So I remember she picked me to attend a storytelling contest. Like to I uh memorize, yeah, yeah, I remember that part because in when I was in kindergarten I don't know how to read, but I was supposed to attend a storytelling concept contest, and what we do the teacher asked my parents to read a story to me, and I should I should remember, memorize that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Okay, no pressure, no pressure at all.

SPEAKER_04

I I remember it's a very short story, right? Yeah, but I cannot remember it's like a wolf or something like that. Yeah. I think from the since then I start to love like yeah, reading and speaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you ever write poetry? When I was in elementary school, we have another like uh workshop or something like that. And teachers will pick students who are good at like writing essays, and every weekend we will go to that class to learn uh writing skills. And on that class, I remember the teacher taught us how to write like modern poetry. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. The style of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I remember what I wrote, yeah. But I I did that in in yeah, in that class.

SPEAKER_02

Which did you like more? Reading poetry or writing poetry?

SPEAKER_04

Uh reading. Yeah. I think I'm not good at writing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Me too. I enjoy writing a lot, but I given the choice, I will always want to read instead of write. Because I always think other people's ideas are more interesting than my ideas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels good to get the ideas out of it, but I'm gonna read somebody else's.

SPEAKER_04

When I was young, I I think I'm interested in writing, but since I'm getting old, yeah. I kind of like just reading what what other people's funny, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I did write a lot more when I was younger.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's so true. And now when I have an idea, I'll want to start writing it, and I'll go, oh, I want to write somebody, and I'll kind of search online first and look for either like a blog or a website or a video or a podcast, and then if somebody else is talking about it, I'll just look at their stuff.

SPEAKER_04

I think before we will write something like write blogs. Yeah. And now if you attend back to read back, you'll find that. Oh, what what did I write? It's so like, yeah. Oh, just I cannot believe it was written by myself. Oh yes.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, yes, yes, I relate to that. I have an entire podcast about that. Expat rewind. Anyway, um, I have to do self-promotions all the time. So Chinese class, Chinese language class, was that every year from elementary school through the end of high school?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. And was it a language class? Was it literature? Was it did it change throughout the we we we combine.

SPEAKER_04

You know, in in Chinese schools, we will have three major classes, uh Chinese, mathematics, and English. So usually we will have um Chinese class every yeah. Every day. Yeah, yeah. For how long?

SPEAKER_03

Uh one class like 40 minutes?

SPEAKER_02

Right, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's a good amount of time. And how long were the English classes?

SPEAKER_04

All the classes are 40 minutes. Oh, all of them were the English classes and the Chinese classes taught similarly or different or can you compare the Well you have different materials, so I think it's it's it's different. In Chinese we were on um we were learned different like um in our Chinese. textbook we have different passages articles and usually they are written by famous writers and then we will write these uh we will learn these like uh articles and we will analyze why the reader uh why the writer wrote this way like uh what the what what what's the meaning behind this sentence something like that okay and sometimes I think we just overread this because I remember there's uh one very very famous article by Lu Xing and he mentioned that in my king in my in my garden there is two trees one is uh I forgot one is what tree and the other is also the same tree and the teacher would just ask us why he wrote this way yeah we had very similar classes in English where I felt like we were spending too much time analyzing yeah like some of the even the ones I liked I was like okay that's enough can we move on now I think maybe the right didn't think about too much about it yeah yeah English class um you know in China we we we because I think my senior high school and um primary school the I think the teachers are I think English is very important so we not only learn um domestic English textbooks we also learn foreign like English materials uh like the new concepts English and also the how do you say that the Cambridge Cambridge young learners English yeah the materials are imported from like foreign countries very yeah okay I'm imagining it wasn't because it was learning the language outside of that context so it was probably easier material like the language it was probably simpler than the Chinese stuff that you learned. I think these foreign materials will be more interesting and the practical like the words because in in Chinese world and Chinese materials find like maybe some expressions are I don't know Qinglish I don't know it's not like like it's not native. Yeah yeah it's uh because this textbook was written by Chinese English teachers so they're different from like yeah authentic English textbooks.

SPEAKER_02

Sure sure sure yeah and some of them just use some old fashioned language that isn't used anymore.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah yeah yeah um like every Chinese people will joke that there is like nice to meet you nice to meet you too yeah we were still with this yeah yeah and we cannot we cannot learn a lot of like practical English words but from these foreign textbooks we can learn a lot of like yeah words.

SPEAKER_02

Interesting interesting similarly in a lot of the books for learning Chinese there's also a lot of language that seems overly formal or that used formal yeah yeah yeah yeah so when you try to use it for the first time people are like why are you saying yeah yeah yeah you get it not all of them because there's it's uh the market has really expanded and so there's the whole range but you don't really know at the beginning until you use the language and veil that maybe that's not what I need to say. If you're enjoying this conversation about the Chinese language and would like to participate if you're studying the Chinese language or if you come from the Chinese language and have learned languages I greatly appreciate email from my email Twitter and Instagram and Tumblr and LinkedIn so I look forward to hearing from you Mandarin Chinese in the you were learning Mandarin Chinese in the classroom I started to learn English when I was in grade grade third grade grade three it was like about like when I was ten years old.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Yeah people in my generation usually in northern China they will start learning English when I when they entered junior high school so it's later. Oh it is yeah yeah yeah yeah so so generally speaking people students from like in southern cities like Shanghai or Guangzhou their English language skills were better than students from northern China because they start to learn English early than them. Usually like I think three years earlier than them.

SPEAKER_02

Oh wow yeah and that makes a difference that that young has it changed or is it still about 10 years old?

SPEAKER_04

Now I think now I think parents in China all think English very is very important so they will let their children learn English since they were very young and I think now in China all elementary school have English classes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Are there there are many night classes too? Okay yeah so do students go to have the English class at the regular school and then go to the night classes as well for language?

SPEAKER_04

When I was young we didn't do that. Right yeah but now they do yeah they do that I I I one of my colleagues her daughter is very young actually her daughter is like four years old and he she she should go to kindergarten every day but she also but my colleagues just paid for English learning class like it should cost about like twenty thousand yuan per per year okay and she the daughter will go to that class once a week okay whole day long yeah yeah the whole day whole day yeah she was yeah wow just immersed in the language environment so you can tell yeah yeah how Chinese parents are yeah really want to get the language yeah um in there.

SPEAKER_02

So you started learning English at 10 years old you were good at the characters and you were good at memorizing vocabulary in Chinese did you feel like you had that skill in English too I don't think so because I was the in terms of like English learning I just the I can say above the average yeah but I can say maybe I'm the top one or top three students in terms of Chinese learning.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh so it's a very high standard to keep guys and because you know uh students in those who are good at English language they start at very young they start learning English when they were in kindergarten yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay okay so if you had to pick an area of English that you that you felt very comfortable and that was very easy to learn at that time when you were 10 years old was it writing or listening reading speaking none all of them still speaking still speaking yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I like like reading because I'm not good at like interpretation but I think I good at good at memorizing memorizing stuff so I like like during speech deliver lectures yeah maybe recite like famous lectures I have a dream like when I was in college we were asked to do that. Yeah did you have to memorize entire speeches in English?

SPEAKER_04

We have to and also we were we can memorize some classic parts from movies yeah really yeah uh sort of like old fashioned historical kind of movies or modern you can pick whatever you want really I I I can I forgot the movie about like the the lawyer the law school students who like to drink pink you know you know that movie I think you know that movie who like to drink pink yeah yeah uh I will search it yeah yeah of course and there is the famous there there is a lecture and she delivered during her graduation oh okay so we memorized I will search it for you okay I'm very curious about this you know that legally bronze oh that one yes yes yes yes yes I remember that oh my god really there is a lecture yeah it's so much fun I remember because I I I majored in international journalism journalism yeah it's also an English major so we should learn English language and then we have a lesson that it's it's a lecture lesson so we need to pick the these episodes we we love and to reset that mimic that yeah oh my gosh I'm sure Reese Witherspear is the act yes I'm sure she would be very flattered to hear that wow wow wow now was it something she said that you were saying or one of the her teachers she said she when she I mean she she said on her graduation of the law school she had a speech for that day yeah I watched that a very long time ago so I don't remember yeah yeah yeah too funny too funny wow okay if speaking was the easiest part for you what was the hardest part of functioning in the English language and learning it vocabulary and I think reading because in English there is a lot of like slang or idiom idioms and you sometimes you will find that you know if you separate the words you know make you know what it means but if we put them together you don't know what it means. Yep. Especially when you read some news titles they use very simple words but I don't understand like the cultural behind it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And another thing is that when I was in college I'm not confident enough to speak yeah my oral English yeah it's it's not very good. I'm I think I'm not confident enough to speak out and but now since my working environment we have a lot of foreign colleagues so our working language is English so I kind of like be more confident than before to speak in English. But when I was learning English it's also a very hard it's also a hot part yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh no idioms are really really challenging to learn and as well to teach. Yeah. Because uh understandably students when they start to learn a language will learn individual words and then they'll learn like maybe some phrases and then by the time you get to like intermediate or advanced level then they start becoming aware of the idioms. Yeah. But by that point they're so used to translating directly every word and getting out of that habit is really hard.

SPEAKER_04

And another hardest part is that how to speak like a native speaker. Yeah this is the hardest part.

SPEAKER_02

Well you don't need to you just need to be a comfortable flexible speaker. No because there's so many different versions of native speaker and uh fun fact English in the world today is used more non-native speaker to non-native speaker yeah that language is used more in that context than native speaker to non-native speaker so there's more non-native speakers talking to each other so it's more about comfort level and being able to ask what does that mean or what do you mean this or like kind of you know being able to navigate the language yeah more than being perfect in one variety.

SPEAKER_04

Because there's American English there's Canadian English there's British English South African New Zealand Australia there's Malaysian English Singaporean there's so many different varieties yeah and and also the accents you know big because my first job was uh working in a radio station uh I was a recorder there and some people will speak very like authentic American accents some people are British accents no authentic American accent really yeah there are so many different American but you know for our Chinese people we will just like admire those people who like sounds like American or who speak like yeah British accent.

SPEAKER_02

There's a very flat accent that we call like newscaster English the pronunciation that they use on in the news because they figured they would call it international accent. But but maybe but I don't think that most people speak that way.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah because uh we have some news anchors they're Chinese yeah yeah their accent is not American not British yeah yeah they call themselves we speak like international accent well it's funny because most of the news people that have that have that accent have to learn how to uh how to speak like that like when I started Chinese but then the news anchors yeah speak right and Mandarin exactly because a large amount of people have to understand them so they have to get rid of all of the nuances in their own language and sound like nobody so everybody can can understand them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah interesting interesting well you you work in an English environment do you hear quote unquote native speakers not able to understand each other even yeah yeah that happens a lot doesn't it like like colleagues from New Zealand yeah sometimes yeah yep it happens so much so I moved from one part of America to another pretty early on and so I knew there were different varieties of English yeah and um because I I think like American English American accents are easy to understand.

SPEAKER_04

Because when you like watch soap soap opera or when you watch like British soap opera it's easy for us to understand like American soap opera.

SPEAKER_02

I wonder if that's because your training was your your learning was was it mostly in Americanish accent when you're learning the language?

SPEAKER_04

I think in my in in elementary school because we we we should listen to tapes and these tapes are recorded by I don't know maybe Chinese people it's like more like what you said new newscaster newscaster yeah newscasters yeah so that could be it because I've heard people say different things with which one they can understand more from what they learned first. So I I know I don't know I don't I I never been to Britain but my colleagues who started in Britain tell me that in in Britain when when she studied in Britain she found it's very hard to understand people there but when she goes to America she will find wow it's a very different it's totally different.

SPEAKER_02

I would I would not argue but entertain that there's places in both countries where it's where there's a clear accent and where there are hard to understand accents. If you went like if this is I'm doing a map of the US on my hand right now listeners the northeast and the west coast are pretty clear to understand especially in cities. Okay. And the northwest northern part generally especially in cities is easy to understand. When you go to Texas that's a very specific accent you know what I'm talking about the southern accent is is really it can be very very interesting sounding but if it's too fast I have to ask people what what what oh yeah yeah yeah and there's different and some New York accents are hard to understand so it's just and there's different ones in different places that are that are challenging but there's a lot of different accents in the US and it's changing all the time because different folks well I don't know about now but we used to have different waves of immigration coming in and so there'd be different accents.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah I I I know what you mean. I think what I what I'm talking about is standard American accents and compared the as standard British accents. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah I don't know I I've been to the UK but I haven't um and I've worked with a lot of British English teachers but I think there's easy to understand and hard to understand accents in both places. But I've I've also worked with and listened to many different accents in English over the years so I can kind of switch my listening pretty quickly now. Like shop ear survival skills I'm sure you can because there's many accents in Chinese aren't there?

SPEAKER_04

I mean a gigantic country even even in Shanghai you know uh I was born in the suburban district of Shanghai our dialects actually are different from Shanghai dialects oh what what is the name of your the dialect that you have you ever heard about Songjiang? Yeah yeah yeah we call it the root of Shanghai because yeah and it's not Shanghai's and it's not Ku Donghua it's it's it's I think it's kind of the root of Shanghainese. Okay. Just because the tones are different. Wow so for for Shanghainese yeah I mean who live in downtown yeah they may find difficult to understand my dialect but but we can communicate but sometimes it's different.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah is it the same words but different tones?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah yeah I would sometimes in Shanghainese they don't have this tone it's only only my dialect have this word yeah it's very complicated it is very complicated and that's still just within Shanghai yeah yeah how many different dialects are there just in Shanghai and I say just Shanghai is what 35 million in Shanghai there's like the the dialect in um the standard dialect in the downtown dialect. Okay and we is the downtown dialect Shanghai's or it's not the the Shanghai it's it's it's Shanghainese. That is okay that is Shanghainese and then maybe Songjiang and Pudong yeah and Chongmei yeah I don't know most of the dialects are in the suburban yeah yeah and they're not accents they're dialects like it's not just a different just it's not just a different like a slightly different sound it actually has more differences than just more differences it has more differences yeah why do you think there are so many different dialects just within I can't say Shanghai is a small area but within one city because you know Shanghai is we it's a city that we call it an immigrant cities so actually when Shanghai first when we first have Shanghai we'll have people from nearby provinces come to this city. Yeah so maybe because of this scene sure because I found that my my boyfriend is from Zhejiang province which actually is nearby city of Songjiang my hometown district yeah so I found that my dialect actually is quite similar to his dialect.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah yeah yeah yeah my husband is from one state well I grew up on the East Coast but then I moved to California a lot of my language now is from the time that I spent in California and my husband's from what one or two states over so pretty close. Yes and especially our prepositions are very different. Yeah even just that close to each other in the US like generally speaking we understand each other but there are times that I'll be like I'll be waiting for him to finish a sentence and he's done like that's how different the word order is or something yeah vocabulary wise is different and I'll be like oh that's it okay or what does that mean or something you know even just that close to each other.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah so yeah and there's definitely differences within each state too but yeah it's hard it's hard for people who are not in China who are listening to this it's hard to explain how big Shanghai is and how big China is and I know nowadays um in Shanghai many children they cannot speak dialects they will just speak uh Mandarin yeah the standard and you know in Shanghai we even have like such a kind of campaign called like protect our yeah dialect yeah because they want to keep it going are any of the dialects used or taught in schools I know some schools were taught Shanghai okay yeah yeah yeah but not not all schools I just uh I just learned today it's a news item right now that Australia is about to hit twenty five million people like that just just

SPEAKER_02

An idea of scale. Shanghai is 35 million. That one city, this one city that we're in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The country of Australia is just about to hit 25 million people. Yeah. The city of Shanghai. 35.

SPEAKER_04

Can't you imagine what the kind of comedy is?

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. Exactly. And to be fair, in Australia, they're they are kind of around the perimeter. So they're far away from each other, the different people in different cities, but still it's like to hear that and go, wait, wait, wait. So they're about 10,000 people short of being this one city. People watching. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And I have to watch some Varo videos. I know in Shanghai some foreigners speak very fruit Shanghai. There is a German guy. His name is Af. I don't know whether you I don't know. And he married Shanghanese. Okay. And she he speaks very fluent like Shanghai dialect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Very interesting. I love watching YouTube videos of anybody speaking language, but especially if they're not from the video. Maybe you can interview him. Yeah. Oh, what a good idea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you. I actually I remember I once met him in yeah, because she he's very famous. Oh, oh no, then he probably doesn't have time for it. He has a lot of videos. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

What is his do you know his name? Af. Oh, af I like AFU? I will show you.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, thank you. Af is Chinese. I don't know if he's in the German name. Oh, I will show you his picture. Oh, yeah, this guy. Yeah, this guy. No, I haven't seen him.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah, I have a new channel. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my goodness. That looks hilarious.

SPEAKER_02

You can take a look at that. That's great, thank you. If you're enjoying this conversation about the Chinese language and would like to participate if you're studying the Chinese language, or if you come from the Chinese language and have learned other languages, either perspective is greatly actually perspectives are greatly appreciated on the channel. So I look forward to hearing from you. I'm always looking for new people to follow in any medium.

SPEAKER_04

I don't know if foreigners like that because we Chinese people like that. Like like like to see like foreigners uh speak Shanghai.

SPEAKER_02

I doubt I would understand most of it right now, but it would still be interesting to see what he's doing, and if it has subtitles, that's kind of cool. It looks like it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, very, very cool. So, okay, so so far we've got uh manjar, we've got the Songjiang dialect, we've got Hudongfa, and we've got English. Have you learned any other languages?

SPEAKER_01

Japanese.

SPEAKER_02

You've learned Japanese.

SPEAKER_04

And I'll have an English major and it's a routine that's uh if you're majoring a language, you need to learn a second language in college. Of course you do. But we learn it like one one year or two years, but actually I forgot because I didn't practice it. Uh I remember we spent a lot of time learning that because Japanese is totally different from English, and but we just learned it and in the Japanese class. Right, right. I didn't practice it, so I just forgot. Now I I I can only speak. I cannot remember anything. The grammar is very yeah, the grammar is yeah, complex, it's different. Yeah, but you know, in my roommate who is a fan of a Japanese star, so she just keeps learning it. So now she can speak very fluent Japanese. Yeah, because she they they they want to watch like Japanese animations, like something like that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, motivation is motivation, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Japanese has and I always forget this, um, three or four different writing scripts, and one of them um is taken from the Chinese characters, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And some are taken from like English because in Japanese, America, what they say is America.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of the food the fine food words. Noodles, yeah, noodles, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, interesting. So, did that make it easier when you were studying it to to read the language? To read Japanese?

SPEAKER_04

When I was learning, um I think it makes me easier, but yeah. No, I just I kind of forget everything.

SPEAKER_02

Sorry to my Japanese teacher. That's fine, that's fine, that's fine. But do you find yourself reading a lot? Do you read a lot? Do you listen to stuff? Do you watch a lot of movies? Like, what kind of uh input do you get in any language? Like, what do you consume?

SPEAKER_04

In college, we will listen to now uh Phil Pauper. Do you? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And what like Chinese ones or foreign ones are a mixture or I think mixture, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And also I will listen to uh like Smalaya as a podcast station. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

It's becoming very popular. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um to be honest, I read I don't read a lot nowadays. Oh, we will just yeah, use small mobile phone. Yeah, we will read articles in uh a WeChat. Yeah, yeah. Hey, that's reading.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I ask people about reading and they say I don't read, and then they'll list off all these different newspaper articles, magazine articles, and all these blogs, and I'm like, that's reading.

SPEAKER_04

Because I find out nowadays I'm not patient enough to do long read. Yeah. I wonder I don't know why, because maybe because of we use mobile phones quite often. Yeah. Yeah, we cannot concentrate ourselves on a very long time. But do we need to?

SPEAKER_02

Are we missing something by not reading things that are much longer? We won't.

SPEAKER_04

We won't.

SPEAKER_02

Because I don't know if I'm still reading longer novels because I'm in some book groups. But I'm quite happy. It's a good it's a good habit to do shorter, just shorter articles and podcasts and videos and and things. For me, it's the information, not how it's packaged.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Because you know, nowadays in China is a trend to like watch short videos. Yeah. Yeah. I love short videos.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a bunch of video websites that are really popular here. Yeah, like uh. I don't like it. It's it's like uh every time I talk about this, somebody tells me a new one.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, meow pie, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I like short videos. What's happened in English too, and I'm sure you've seen this, is on um some of the video websites, there are even academics who are putting like their one hour, two hour lectures on YouTube and on different video sites for free. They'll just video themselves and just get the information.

SPEAKER_04

No, no, one of my clo colleagues was in a group to translate these lectures into Chinese. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

These online classes. Yeah, yeah. Very cool. For free. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02

Do you have any desire to learn any other languages in the future?

SPEAKER_04

Maybe Korea, Korea, because uh I love to watch like Korea TV s Korean TV series. And every year I will go to South Korea to travel for shopping. Yeah. So if I can speak Korean, maybe it will be easier for me to communicate. But you know, in South Korea they have a lot of like Chinese stuff there. But still I want to like learn maybe. It's still Korean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be nice to watch the shows in Korean too. The yeah, I will continue like improving my English language skill because yeah, it's my working language. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

See, your English is such a ridiculously high level. What do you how do you improve on this? Like, what are you doing to nowadays? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

I will have an app and every day I will learn some uh new words. Where like a word of the day type. Yeah, yeah, something like that. Okay. And also, uh, you know, I I just as I mentioned, I work in for English language website, but I will just read our own stories and communicate, communicate with our colleagues. This is very important.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

I can learn a lot from them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So you have to practice English every day whether you want to or not. Yeah, yeah. But that's also good because when you don't want to study, then you still have to go to work and you and use the language.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I have to use that. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's good. And also I found it's difficult that because I'm also responsible for our social media platforms, sometimes I read like comments.

SPEAKER_03

I found it's hard for me to understand some comments. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Huh.

SPEAKER_02

It's like internet language. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it and the the comments are they in English, Chinese, or is it English on? It's English, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's right, because sixth tone is in English, and then the sister paper, that's in Chinese. Yeah, the paper. Yeah, the sister paper is a paper.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, it's called the paper paper, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So all the comments on yours are in English. Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, so when people are leaving messages, they're being very informal. Yeah. Sometimes I cannot understand. Oh wow. If you ever have any questions, feel free to like screenshot and send it to me or whatever. I don't want to. That's code, that's code. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seriously, I'd love to help with that. Because it's kind of interesting, like when you grow up using that, sometimes you don't realize how much it's used, and then you see an example and you go, oh yeah, that doesn't mean like the meaning's not so simple. Like you really when you have to explain it, you realize how it isn't simple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So it's just, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Definitely. Yeah, send them, send them on. That'd be kind of fun. I want to talk about the Beijing dialect a little bit. Yeah. I don't, I'm only, I'm only up to HSK2 level, and reading, the opposite of you. Reading is easy easier for me than speaking, like a million times. Um, but I keep hearing people say or talk about the Beijing dialect and the R in the Beijing dialect and how different it is.

SPEAKER_04

I live in Beijing like for 10 years. Oh, you did? Okay, okay. Um it's it's really difficult when when to speak the ta the time to sp to put the R in that. Yeah, yeah. In Beijing, there is a place called Da Zha L. If if you know Chinese, you mean it's Da Zha Lan. But local Beijing Beijingers will pronounce it like Da Shlar. If it's standard uh it's it's it's ta jalan. But local people will just say. It's like Manchu, yeah. Manchu you know Manchu. Like the Manu. It's like ethnic yeah, ethnic language. Oh, okay, okay. The the Man the Manchu language.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04

So if you hear if you hear the Beijing dialect, does it they speak very quickly, especially like uh these like middle-aged Beijingers. Uh because I lived there in ten for 10 years, so it's easier for me to understand. But for my parents, yeah, actually they cannot speak very standard. It's really difficult for them to sometimes communicate with the Beijingers like in the on the bus or in the supermarket. Yeah. That different of an accent. Yeah. Wow. Like and also I don't know how to say um Wu Xiangha Nese, we cannot pronounce um the we call it Ho Bi Ying. I I don't know whether how to how to say that because like Feijing. It should be J-R-N-G. But we Chinese people, uh Wishanghai needs will say without the Jing. You drop the Ji sound. Yeah, we drop the Ji sound. But uh but it it should be called Bei Zing. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Yeah. The n sound.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. I think like not Shanghai, because that sounds like Shanghai, but there's there are some words that start with S H in pinyon. Like a ch sound.

SPEAKER_04

And S. And S.

SPEAKER_02

And in Shanghai, I feel like they mostly just say the S, not the SH.

SPEAKER_04

Like. Yeah. But like my parents, they will say. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a Shanghai thing. Yeah. Shanghai thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because all my textbooks are are Beijing based. Yeah. And so Beijing based is standard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I'll adjust later, but it's just like it's like ha I keep hearing how different this is, but I I can hear this difference. Yeah. I can understand this, but I don't hear that yet. And I've also heard the R at the beginning, like for Ren, I've heard that the R is also different.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, sometimes you will put R, sometimes you you should not like Yi Xinar. Yeah. Because like in in Shanghai we'll just say Na. Shinali. But in Beijing we'll say Shinar.

SPEAKER_02

So Nali, not nar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That's not too big a difference right now.

SPEAKER_02

But I also hear that a lot in Texas.

SPEAKER_04

Like Sahai. We will say children, and we will say Shahai. But in Beijing Dalak they will say Shahar. Sahar. Yeah, okay. You can recognize the R. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So when you're like when you meet like a new group of people and there's somebody from Beijing there, you can tell right away. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Is it is it do you think it's the strongest or most distinct accent in China, or it's just distinct. Yeah. It's distinct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Especially it's the it's I think it's distinct for people from southern China. And the people from northern China maybe they will not find it so difficult. Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Because they're used to it. What do you think is the easiest accent in China to understand? Beijing. Beijing. The easiest one to understand.

SPEAKER_04

Of course. Because Beijing, Beijing dialect is they should be the standard.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But they're it's the only dialect where they use that R.

SPEAKER_04

Um, I cannot say Beijing dialect is a dialect. It's actually standard Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay. Huh. What do you think is the hardest accent to understand in China? Um people say uh Wanzhou, you know, it's a city in uh 87. Uh yeah, it's it's a city in East China. Yeah. Wanzhou. Why is it city? People say Wenzhou dialect is sounds like Japanese.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04

And then maybe Cantonese. Yeah. Yeah, it's also hard to Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's a big difference between Cantonese and I uh generally speaking, dialects in south southern China are more difficult than dialects in northern China. Right, right, right, right, right. Okay. Some people also found find that Shanghai dialect is also difficult to I can't hear the difference yet.

SPEAKER_02

I can only hear individual words.

SPEAKER_04

Sometimes when I was in college, I was I would talk to my mom on the phone in Shanghai dialect. Yeah. Also, my my my roommates will say you sound like speak Japanese.

SPEAKER_02

I have heard that. Yeah. Interesting. So if you were to what do you think the the main uh the most frequent sounds in Shanghai? What would you say those are? Whoa. Because in Purangwa, I think I hear and ju a lot.

SPEAKER_04

I don't know, maybe the like the end of the of each sentence have the va?

SPEAKER_03

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So why are they did they ever tell you why they think it sounds like Japanese?

SPEAKER_04

Is there a certain oh I maybe the the tone or the pronunciations?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. Interesting, interesting, interesting. It's so complex.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I remember once I was shopping with my mom in Beijing and we speak Songjiang dialects and one one one shopkeeper said Anya Seo. Isn't that Korean? Yeah, Korean.

SPEAKER_02

Because she thought we are Korean, we're from Korea. It's funny, I've lived in Japan, I have not even been to Korea. But when I hear Koreans and or Japanese people speak, I'll often confuse the two languages.

SPEAKER_04

I found that one word do pronounce the same and have the same meaning with Sunjiang dialect. I was surprised to find out if you know Korean language, yeah, they will say oso, osoka, osoka means quickly. Yeah, ka means walk. Yeah, yeah. And also, and in Chinese in Sunjiang dialect, we also have oso means quickly. Okay. It sounds just the same, the same. Oh my gosh. I don't know why. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, who was it? There was a gentleman I was talking to earlier this week, and he lived in. I'm not gonna remember this. I just recorded it on Sunday. The first place he lived in in China, he was describing how the the F was pronounced like an H. And I remember in Japanese they pronounced the F like an H. And so I was wondering if there was a historical connection there. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Hwa Fa.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Does that happen in a lot of places in China?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, it it also happened in Shanghai.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, in Shanghai. No way.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Like Fuzhou Lu, how would you say that? Some people will say No. Shanghai, Shanghai people, you mean Fujolou in Shanghai Dara? Yeah. Fu Zhulu. Fu Zhulu. That still sounds like it. It's still ethical. Yeah, it sounds like it.

SPEAKER_02

Interesting, interesting. Because I live on Pan I live near Pan Yulu. And I thought that was going to be an easy street to tell the taxi drivers. But some not all. Some of my taxi drivers say when I say Pan Yulu, they say Fan Yulu. Ah. And they do a P to F.

SPEAKER_04

It's not pronounce agency. I think it's the maybe they don't know how to speak correctly. Okay. Yeah, pronounce the word correct correctly. I think Pan should be a pretty correct pronunciation. I know some people will pronounce it as fun, but it's wrong. Really? Yeah. Because you know, some some Chinese characters look like the same. So maybe because if we have this. I cannot read your script. That is awesome. Oh my god. It's it's different. Yeah. It's okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. But if if I put it this way, it's pan. It's usually used in the right. But they have the same part. Right, right, right. Some people were confused about that.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, okay, okay. But there's so many words that are like that. They have a similar component. Yes. You can't just keep matcin up those. Oh, that's so funny. Because I was thinking, because there aren't a lot of, I don't think there are a lot of streets that start with Pan. So I thought, well, this is gonna be easy. They can't confuse it with this other street. And it's like Panyu Lu and Hong Chao Lu. And the Hong Chao is easy. Yeah. Like that's a very big street. I think whatever you say you say Pangyu or Fan Yu, people, the drivers will all know about that. But I yeah, but at first I didn't know that they would confuse it with Fan Yu, so I was just like, I don't know what you're thinking. Then I just took a picture of it and I'd show them. I'm like, I I just want to go home. But I thought it was interesting because uh it happened many times with different taxi drivers. And I was like, okay, so this I wonder if this is a region, like they're from a certain part of China, and that's uh accent, or I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. It's not accent, it's just uh rump now. Okay, yeah, yeah. That's so funny. So I stopped using it. So Guang Yuang Lu is close by, so I just use that one instead. Guan Guang Guang Yuang. I I know my tones are completely wrong. G U N A N G Y U A N Guang Yu N G.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, G G G G U A N G A N G. And why you can't get the presentation.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're kind of between there's so many apartments, I'm not giving you anything away. We're between Shujongwei Station and Trail Road Venture Station. But exactly in between. So it's hard to describe. So I thought Pony would be easy, but it caused all these problems. And part of me just wanted to get home, and part of me wanted to like ask them where they're from and kind of keep a list and fig try to figure out where the mistake was coming from. Is it me or is it you? Is it me? Is it a good thing? So it's all it's all very, very, very interesting. Cool. A lot of my listeners are either just beginning to learn Chinese or they're trying to keep going, like they've learned to a certain level and they're trying to keep going with the language. Do you have any advice for them on especially for the higher level folks who are fluent in Chinese? They they didn't grow up with it, they learned it as an adult, they're fluent in it, but they want some materials, some maybe some you said you listened to podcasts, right? So can you recommend some podcasts in Chinese that they can listen to?

SPEAKER_04

Or I will listen to uh Xiao Shu. It's I uh I don't know if you know that it's it's a podcast hosted by Kao Xiao Song, who used to be a singer but um he is also very knowledgeable so he will have his own programs and um in each episode he will talk about like his experiences or his opinions or talk about history. Okay. Um and he's from Beijing, okay, so I think his uh pronunciation is very it's good and also it's very knowledgeable.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Yeah. That sounds super interesting. Um if there were any listeners who are interested in in reading Chinese, um I've heard newspapers are kind of difficult, more formal language. Can you recommend any blogs, websites, or anything that they can news website? Not necessarily news, it's just also watch some like Chinese talk shows. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Can you recommend one of those? I'm putting you on the spot, sorry I didn't have this on the list.

SPEAKER_03

Well, numbers like um talk shows. I I know one, but it at the show site ended.

SPEAKER_02

Oh that's okay, they can watch past ones. Yeah. They're probably still available online somewhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Um it's called different people, it's it's like a debate program. People will debate on one topic. That's very cool. Yeah, but but these people are very like dramatic.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

It's very, very interesting. Yeah, it's not a like serious debate show. Oh like entertaining show. Is it celebrities? No, they are not celebrities, not celebrities. They they just they just pick contestants.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that sounds very, very casual. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Yay! Well, thank you so much for all of this information and just talk about the language. It's so, so interesting to hear how different people learn languages, what things they like about it, what things they don't like, and don't continue with and continue with us. It's all just a very, very, very interesting, yeah, very interesting topic. So thank you so much for coming and doing this. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Changing Scripts Podcast. Again, this is a sister project with my own language learning vlogging on YouTube, also called Changing Scripts. So come on over and take a peek at that. Again, if you are learning the Chinese language or if you're coming from the Chinese language learning another language, I'd love to interview you for this podcast. Please feel free to contact me in any social media way that you see. Go ahead and contact me, and we will find out how to get you sound created.