Man awakes from coma, speaks Chinese

[studychinese]

A man awakes from a coma and finds that his Chinese ability is much improved.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2740708/Aussie-man-wakes-coma-car-crash-speaking-MANDARIN.html#v-3762984305001

[li3wei1]

So there IS a way to learn Chinese quickly!

[Demonic_Duck]

I'm a little sceptical about this - not that it happened at all, just that the extent of the improvement was as miraculous as claimed. The reasons being:

1. The nicest thing you can say about the Daily Mail is that it's useful when you run out of toilet paper. For the online version, you can't even say that much.
2. There's no actual footage of the guy talking Chinese directly after his accident.
3. His current level sounds good, but it's difficult to tell how good from the snippets in the video. He'd learnt Chinese for a while before the accident, and has since continued learning (by the sounds of it in a pretty dedicated way), so I'm not sure the level displayed is all that surprising.
4. He woke up speaking "fluent Chinese". Since "fluent" (especially in the context of a trashy newspaper article) can basically mean any level at which one can string a sentence together, that's not really saying much.

Most likely, I think he learnt a decent amount of Mandarin in school, studied reasonably hard and acquired a decent amount of vocabulary. When he woke up from his coma, his ability to speek English had been temporarily disabled, so he used his Mandarin skills to get by. Perhaps his Mandarin skills really were "activated" in a way that they hadn't been before, but most likely he was still speaking at a fairly basic level - understandable to the nurse (assuming she actually could speak Mandarin - I don't think that was ever specified in the article), but with a fair few grammatical and pronunciation errors.

 

In other words, it's still an interesting story, but very likely sensationalised.

[Kenny同志]

I am just a little curious. Why do people think so little of the Daily Mail?

[Demonic_Duck]

Because they print a mixture of bigoted bullshit, scaremongering about immigration, scaremongering about other stuff, trashy celebrity gossip (take a look at that sidebar on the online version), smear campaigns about opposition politicians' dead relatives and blatant lies.

 

Edit: and also, as in this case, potentially interesting human interest stories which are then sensationalised.

[MPhillips]

It's owned by Rupert Murdoch right? He bought the NY Post and did the same thing with it, although ours is a little less far gone.

[Demonic_Duck]

Nope, it's owned by a guy called Jonathan Harmsworth, whose family has a history of supporting fascism. Murdoch has plenty enough influence over the British press though, don't worry.

[geraldc]

Daily Mail isn't Murdoch owned, it's publicly listed DMGT. I'll admit to buying shares in it. 

 

The thing with the Daily Mail, is that it either dictates what the man/woman on the street thinks, or mirrors it. Depending on your viewpoint.

 

It's famous for stories about house prices, things that cause cancer, and immigrants. It's also famous for flirting with Fascism before WW2.

 

Recently it's just been trawling the Chinese net, and just reprinting stories. Stories that appear in Chinese social media hits about 1 to 2 weeks later. I'd expect the story about the rich mainlander killing his dog in a washing machine in HK to hit early next week.

 

It's the biggest English Language newspaper on the net, mainly thanks to its strange mix of stories. They've cleverly targeted celeb gossip and strange stories to attract readers in an attempt to go global. 

 

It also has more typos per page than any other major news site.

[liuzhou]

 

It's owned by Rupert Murdoch right? He bought the NY Post and did the same thing with it, although ours is a little less far gone.

 

 

No. It's mostly owned by Harold Jonathan Esmond Vere Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere.

 

It was in the past owned by Lord Northcliffe, friend of Hitler and Mussolini.

Little has changed. It is a disgusting rag which makes even Murdoch look squeaky clean.

 

They have stolen my pictures in the past. Scum.

 

And the editor Paul Dacre lied all the way through his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry.

[MPhillips]

Yet another malefactor to keep me up nights worrying. BTW he sounds like a character out of "Kind Hearts & Coronets" with Alec Guinness--noblesse oblige!

[Shelley]

The article mentions a Croatian girl who after a coma starts talking German and an American who starts talking Swedish, The guy who woke up speaking mandarin did actually take classes and was trying to learn Chinese, did these other people have any of the other languages because I find it very hard to believe that out of the blue with no previous experience speaking these languages that you could start talking them.

 

From the age of 6 months to 3 years of age I was sent to a Hungarian nursery, my parents thought i was not speaking at all, just baby talk, till we had a Hungarian babysitter who I chatted happily with (at a 3 year old level) when my parents returned the babysitter remarked how chatty i was and my parents said "oh that's strange she doesn't speak a word of English" and the babysitter says "Oh no but she speaks fluent Hungarian." (fluently for a 3 year old)

 

I was immediately changed to an English nursery and my Hungarian faded away to be replaced with English.

 

Now I could see how in this situation I could wake up speaking Hungarian because it is actually in my brain.

 

How these other people started speaking these other languages may have a similar sort of reason, unremembered exposure to the language in question.

 

Complete languages don't just pop into your brain, you have to put them there ie learn them, so I don't believe this happens with out some language learning going on.

 

As to the Daily Mail I have to agree with what has been said about it as a newspaper, I never buy it but when I see the headlines in the shop I always think wow more rubbish about this and that curing illnesses and dementia, losing weight and improving your brain power etc.

 

If every headline was true there would be no more problems in the world health wise.

[Kenny同志]

I see. Thanks for furnishing me with the information, folks.  Is the Sunday Times any better?

[Kenny同志]

Stupid question. I am sure there's 天淵之別 between the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail.

[Shelley]

Yes there is a world of difference but all newspapers have there own slant on the world, so not anyone paper is wholly good.

[Kenny同志]

Thanks Shelly. : )

[Basil]

What a lot of people don't realise is that in the UK many journalists do not confine themselves to only one paper.

 

There's a lot of cross-fertilisation between the Times-Telegraph-Mail-Sun comment writers. The writers and the topics are the same, just the register and depth of argument changes. It is the same with the Mirror and the Guardian.

 

There is one writer who really plays it especially well. A practising muslim, she writes very popular articles on the guardian on topics like multiculturalism yet also writes very popular articles for the Mail about the decadence of modern society... and so neatly covers both left and right sides of the political spectrum.

 

For day to day journalism, the Mail is pretty error prone and really quite lacking in scope. This is as much to do with plummeting pay for the in-house desk bound hacks as it is for the demands of the readership.

[simc]

Funny how this is considered news, I heard about this a year ago.

[geraldc]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2751696/Chinese-factory-workers-walk-bosses-refuse-serve-carrot-cake-promised.html

 

An example of how inaccurate the Mail can be.

 

Mooncake is never called carrot cake. 萝卜糕 is sometimes called carrot cake, and that's served at Chinese new year, so all round pretty inaccurate.

[Johnny20270]

Because they print a mixture of bigoted bullshit, scaremongering about immigration, scaremongering about other stuff, trashy celebrity gossip (take a look at that sidebar on the online version), smear campaigns about opposition politicians' dead relatives and blatant lies.

 

 

True its sensationalises everything, and blames everything on Europe or Muslims and has many comments about the nasty Chinese. It is bias like many papers and no more bias than the BBC.  However it is refreshing to see some journalists like Melanie Philips who are not afraid to write about sensitive and controversial issues rather than many papers who are scared of their own shadow or find racism in a cup of black coffee. 

 

Many of the issues today like Europe and immigration only became dominant about because the Mail and parties like UKIP highlighted them for years all the while were called facist from the leftists and politicians. Yet now as it has become such an issue and a major concern amongst voters, the wimpy politicians in westminister have all jumped on the band wagon now. Its pathetic

[Guest realmayo]

Why do people think so little of the Daily Mail?

 

These people are perfectly confident about it: "英国《每日邮报》，英国可信度比咱高多了吧，英国每日邮报"