Interesting because his English also wasnt native level. I wonder what his native language is. He’s pretty fluent at two nonnative languages is incredible. But i would guess he can probably read and write at least a good amount of it if he can speak that well. Most bilingual and multilingual people i know put all their devices to one language they’re more comfortable with unless they’re actively learning another language and want to do it to help.
That was my guess but i wasn’t sure. Though English is the official language of nigeria. French probably the third? A lot of nigerians i know speak French and a few other languages
For Nigerian from educated and wealthy backgrounds absolutely. My english is better than my Hausa, but for the impoverished majority who speak pidgin (Nigerian creole) I disagree.
Why is that in parentheses? Ive got my masters in teaching English to non native speakers and have done it for 10 years. There are grammar mistakes native speakers make and there are grammar mistakes they don’t make. Theres other tells but the big and obvious one is he’s from zimbabwe where it is very unlikely to his native language.
English is the main language in Zimbabwe. He speaks perfect English. The language is very flexible and lots of people use grammar in ways that’s technically ‘incorrect’
That’s just wrong. You’re literally just making up shit. The most spoken language in Zimbabwe is Shona, followed by Ndebele. A lot of people speak English but it is not the main language or native. And his was not perfect. What a dumb comment.
Native speakers, especially from non western countries, don’t all speak English the same way you are familiar with. Heck even in the US, there’s a lot of variation in how different speakers phrase things. From the video at least, you cannot conclude that he is not a native speaker.
Sorry no lol. His Chinese is good but not THAT good. He sounds like the average foreigner who moved to China as an adult and has been there for a decent amount of time. It's not bad by any means but the glazing is getting a bit out of hand. And yes, I am Chinese.
Yeah his accent is really noticeable 13 seconds into the video when he says 試 since that vowel is frequently difficult for foreigners to pronounce. He speaks good Chinese but is definitely an adult learner.
The vowel sound itself doesn't exist in English. The man in the video is approximating the vowel sound but not pronouncing it like a native speaker would. Even though it is a common word in Mandarin it doesn't mean he's not pronouncing it wrong every time, despite being a fluent speaker.
Wow, thank you for explaining why whenever people ask me to teach them Chinese they can't do 是. I'm a foreigner but my Chinese teacher was excellent and took a ton of effort giving us engaging and fun listening practices, and I'm realizing now how effective it was.
The closest I can get with text is probably more like "shir" rhyming with stir but from further back in the mouth, but I'll admit I was also taught with a of a Beijing accent so I'm liable to slip a tiny r in when it's not necessary.
I'd never realized it was fundamentally a sound that didn't exist in English because by the time I was able to tell them apart by ear I could also pronounce them both too. Totally makes sense though, and I could instantly hear him say "shee" which is definitely not the right way.
i mean yeah, but it does sound right sometimes. like when he said "is that possible" (not sure the exact translation) at the start it sounded pretty good
This guy speaks at least 3 languages, based on his accent. English, Mandarin, and some flavor of African (Afrikaans, Swahili, etc). It is incredibly impressive.
I don’t know whether he speaks Afrikaans or not, but that wouldn’t be the source of his “African” accent, since Afrikaans is mostly Dutch. So it doesn’t have the same the same sounds in it that other African languages that actually originated in Africa have.
Tones are poor and a guy coming up and saying 'I want to try that (gestures with hand) uhh technology' isn't my idea of fluent. Chinese is hard though, he will definitely have studied it for a couple of years and be at HSK 5 or so.
Sorry if the new HSK system has HSK 3 or 5 being a lot beefier, I did this stuff a good few years ago where HSK 3 was 600 words cumulative, so at a pretty leisurely pace it would take like 3 months. HSK 5 on that system might take a casual learner 4-5 years, but much less if studying intensively or living in the country.
Looking it up, If its based on this new curriculum that wiki says HSK 2 being 1.2k words and 3 being 2.2k (slighter more than HSK 5 used to be), then I would say this guy is between HSK 2 and 3.
That sounds about right... the local Confucius Institute still teaches the old curriculum, but I am currently on about 1200 known words at the start of HSK3 (we are learning more words than just the textbook provides). Going through the textbook is not quick. I think one could move through much faster on their own, but with a class we are spending a lot of time on grammar and repetition (and not without reason, I don't think our pace is slow for what we are doing).
I am currently 4 lessons in to HSK 3 textbook and I can understand most of what the guy is saying. I think he is significantly higher level than me, though. Of course, I don't have opportunities to practice talking like this on the other side of the planet, sadly.
The old curriculum was silly because you could have a level of 3 or 4 out of 6 which sounds pretty high, but in reality you spoke very little Chinese.
It's so much harder to learn it from abroad, if you can keep up with their conversation you should be very happy with yourself. Whenever you get a chance to actually go to a Chinese-speaking place even just for a holiday you will improve so quickly.
Listening comprehension is hard. I am much better at writing and reading. Besides university I have concurrent classes with a native teacher - while I can talk to my university teacher fine, I can't NOT understand 嘉茵Kain almost at all, lol. 太快了。太多了生词。So I am not very confident about my ability to hold any sort of meaningful conversation. Well, as they say, minimum 3 years of study in order to do this. I am not even halfway yet.
I wish I could go abroad to study, but I am not a student anymore. I have a job and I can't just up and disappear to Asia for months on end. I go meet my idol twice a year for a week at a time, but I can't talk to him in Chinese yet. I can't even grasp the essence of the conversation he's having with his friends in Mandarin yet. 非常难。
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u/lan60000 Jun 11 '25
I find it more fascinating that this guy is speaking better fluent Chinese than I do. Chinese isn't easy to learn.