文明之旅 - some very interesting interviews with Chinese/English subtitles

[kroy123]

Just wanted to mention this show 文明之旅, worth taking a look at no matter what your level of proficiency in Chinese - each episode is interviewing an expert on a particular topic and all have Chinese and English subtitles. Many episodes available on Youtube. One I particularly enjoyed was this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2APOCKyB3k where Kevin Rudd (former prime minister of Australia and mostly fluent in Mandarin) is interviewed.

[tooironic]

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm halfway through the Rudd interview now, it's really interesting. I noticed he kept using the word 亞語 ("Asian languages"), this is a new one for me.

[Olle Linge]

If anyone is interested in getting all of them, they are officially (I think) posted here:

http://cctv.cntv.cn/lm/wenmingzhilv/index.shtml

Also accessible from within China.

[tysond]

Regarding the Rudd interview, I was interested in this one too and showed it recently to my teacher for an opinion on his level of Chinese.

 

She said his pronunciation is, for a foreigner, very good, obviously fluent in that he can respond naturally and simply to questions and is relaxed in how he uses the language.  We both noted his vocabulary, while good, is not much higher than my own - so either he chooses to keep it simple, or perhaps his active vocabulary is diminished a bit since he lived continuously in China.  

 

I couldn't, just by watching the interview, notice any mistakes, but my teacher said she noticed one in just 30 seconds.  Comparing to 大山 was a laughable matter to her, 大山 is clearly miles ahead and has great pronunciation for a Chinese person, vocabulary of a educated Chinese, can use all the slang and so on. 

 

But you know, to be fair, 大山 has not been a diplomat, federal minster and Prime Minister of a country, so may have had more time on his hands.

 

As a result of watching the video I have picked up the habit of saying 对不对 a lot more too.  Not sure if it's a good thing.

[tooironic]

I was going to comment on all the tonal mistakes he made but then I thought against it. We can't blame him for being a bit rusty (if he indeed is), since as you said he was busy being the prime minister of a country and all that (!).

 

As an Aussie I've heard him speak English countless times and I can tell you he speaks his first language almost exactly the same way he speaks Chinese, which to me indicates that he hasn't quite got there yet in terms of absolute fluency. There were times when he kept mispronouncing a few different words that really made me cringe. But again you can't judge someone for those mistakes, since they don't have any real effect on his ability to communicate with others. And he's definitely someone to look up to as a Chinese learner - I don't think there are any other examples of Western heads of state who can speak fluent Mandarin. (On a side note, are there any high-ranking Chinese politicians who can speak English to an equivalent level?)

[Carl Chen]

I agree with #5 that few people speak a foreign language very well.

 

It's definitely hard to speak a foreign language correctly and fluently.

 

Although Kevin Rudd speak Chinese well, I still can tell that he is not native speaker of Chinese.

 

Regardless of his pronunciation, for example, at the very beginning, he said, 謝謝. 很高興.

It is a little bit odd to merely say three words, 很高興, at this moment.

 

Later on, when talking about tea, he replied, 在我的辦公廳也有類似的茶壺

The host, Miss Liu, also felt a little bit odd, and paraphrase it, 在您的辦公室裡面,用中國的茶壺喝茶

 

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However, what i mentioned above is not the point.

 

The point is that learning a foreign language is to communicate.

 

In a word, he speak Chinese well because I can understand what he was saying.

[MPhillips]

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