This White Guy’s Chinese Is Not Perfect, Here’s Why (Xiaomanyc REACTION)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ย. 2024
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This was a very fair critique and even though I was born in China, I found your pointers and tips helpful. Some of these comments are not it though. I think when he goes around NYC speaking in Mandarin and other Asian languages, he really makes the native speakers feel more comfortable in a different country. You can really see the way they light up when a ‘white guy’ speaks their language to them. He’s doing a good thing. His Chinese isn’t ‘perfect’ (but what is these days) but it’s really good and he’s doing an admirable thing with his TH-cam and Mandarin teaching classes.
The thing is though, when you title your videos as "perfect" and fail to deliver said perfection, people are going to roast you.
Yeah that's just the unfortunate side effect of the TH-cam algorithm. Many TH-camrs I watch actually I've seen apologize for their clickbait. Then they show the numbers, when they don't use a clickbait title or thumbnail, those videos sometimes get only 10 or 20 percent of the views they get when they reupload/change the video with the clickbait title/thumbnail. They don't really like it, but it's a necessary evil. It's a bit of a dilemma, do you take the principled route and take a major hit in your income? Or do you acquiesce and play the game to make the money, getting more views, and maybe getting people that you wouldn't have that perhaps got baited, but found they did enjoy your content and stuck around.
It's when he networks with the people in NYC that makes his videos appreciative and allows the learner to perfect their practice of languages
@@lordofentropy I mean, I don't think this is terrible clickbait. He's not being super false. Sure, "perfect" is a big word, but in the long run, he's speaking amazing Chinese for someone who did not grow up hearing half those sounds, and his content isn't misleading. Like, he's not speaking Chinese for 3 seconds and then the video changes into a vlog of like, nothing. It's like a news headline when they simplify and grab your attention, but then everything that follows elaborates and shows more nuance.
@@Kraska93 Facts.
this video actually helped me fix the same mistakes i make as xiaomanyc! thank you!!
That's great to hear!
@@ChinesewithJessie Actually my Chinese is great to hear.
@@ChinesewithJessie Cantonese And Mandarin Are Really Hard Languages.
Wow some of these comments make me feel ashamed of my language learning like of course It’s not going to be perfect. I’ve never heard a foreigner speak English and thought “wow their English sucks” or “they actually think their English is good?” I’m always proud of them for everything they can say
Yeah, I would tend to agree. There seems to be a right and a wrong way to provide criticism to someone's language abilities, the key difference being that the criticism doesn't come in the way of judgement but as tips. It's the difference between:
A. "You're pronunciation sounded unnatural, but I could understand it."
B. "Wow, I could understand you perfectly! Here's how I would pronounce , you're doing great!"
The difference isn't necessarily the intent, as both are meant to help the learner grow and improve. I think it comes down to keeping anxiety low. Reassuring them on what they are doing well and giving light guidance showered in compliments. By doing so, it gives them more confidence and a safe environment to speak and try new things. As a result, they are going to get much more exposure in the long-term.
That seems to fall in line with Steven Krashen's theory of "We all learn in one way, when we understand messages in a low anxiety environment"! So I always try to encourage more, and let the issues iron themselves out with more input and exposure. For a really advanced learner, sure the critiques could provide them that insight on where to focus next, it's just important that the same criticism be applied to someone too early and scare them off from their language for good.
@FichDich InDemArsch Not necessarily a race issue, though in some places it absolutely can be. In the US, typically you would assume them to be foreign if they had an accent non-standard to the region. However in a place like South Korea (where my wife is from), no matter how good my Korean is, they will always see me as a foreigner because I stick out from the majority ethnic-monoculture.
So, despite the fact that it could be racist in certain countries, it could also be an indication by the regional slang, accent, or hearing the use of a different Native language that would make them think they are foreign, aka a non-native English speaker.
So I see what you mean, and I've experienced that very issue, but I wouldn't be so quick to label them as racist. There's plenty of reasons for them to assume that without accounting for their appearance. Especially since the context of this video and comment-section is second-language acquisition, I figure we're all language nerds here.
@FichDich InDemArsch I said when I HEAR a foreigner speak English. America is the most diverse country everyone is foreign tf you sound dumb😂how is someone gonna look out of place I’ll wait for that answer😂 Listen next time dipshit. The fact that you think being a foreigner is a bad thing is racist in itself. All of my family were immigrants once and I also have an African American parent. Everyone here comes from a different country and background.There is a reason why you only have one like on your comment
@@plumpdolphin Everyone from America is a different ethnicity and has a different background this isn’t South Korea how the hell am I able to tell if someone is foreign by their looks? I have so many foreigner friends I’m talking about their English when they speak I’m proud of them. Fr don’t reason with someone calling me a goddamn racist pls
@FichDich InDemArsch so tell me again how I am racist? and make it make sense this time so I can understand. you don’t know what racism is so watch it next time or you’re gonna run into someone who’s gonna knock you in your head for saying that shit for fun. Especially to an African American or any American in general sick of so many foreigners watching the news and shit you have no idea what it’s actually like here and call us racist. what’s racist is how y’all say shit about Americans but you don’t look at it like that. It’s okay to say it about us yeah that’s a whole lot of hypocrisy honey. leave me tf alone because I’m not even gonna read another word you say
He doesn’t believe his Chinese is perfect. It’s a clickbait title as an inside joke with old trends in the language community. If you actually follow his channel you’ll see him admit on multiple occasions his Chinese has many things to be improved in.
One time he literally named a video “shocks natives in PERFECT korean” when he literally doesn’t even speak a word of korean. It’s all a clickbait joke he has with the polyglot community, not meant to be taken seriously
RIGHT
The Famous Laoshu started it 😂
To be fair she did say she knew it was for the clickbait at the beginning but even so it can be off-putting and uncomfortable for some people, especially since it's her native language here.
I am Korean and I didn't get any offense honestly. I think she didn't get any offense as well, possibly she just felt like this is great content to introduce mandarin pronouncation.
Saved me 8 minutes, thank you kindly
I'm a native English speaker and I don't speak perfect English. I'm not sure I know anyone who does. I can't imagine Mandarin is any different. But, to be fair, I've always read into his titles as a type of satirical caricature of youtube in general. Like, he definitely knows his Mandarin isn't perfect. There's one where he hires some Chinese tutors to critique his Chinese and he gets a lot of really honest feedback from them
What do you mean by speak perfect english? If you are a native English speaker, what would you not know other than crazy long scientific words?
For native speakers, a difficult part of Mandarin is putting phrases from poems and from old text. Imagine having to quote a line from Shakespeare during a normal conversation.
@@8P3ths I mean that, if you were to critique my English based on "correctness", you'd find a lot of times where I use phrases which aren't grammatically correct (like how people misuse "less than" in situations when they should use "fewer than"). Or sometimes I find a common word that I don't know, or have been using wrong, or haven't been pronouncing correctly (sometimes for decades). Yet I think people know that English is my first (and only fluent) language.
@@jameslay6505 english intonation is more like an expression or emotion, nothing complex with the dialect or pronunciation like chinese for example...
@@8P3ths It's just the fact that no one really speaks a language perfectly, not even native speakers, with all the rules and such. What's more, there are mistakes that are usually more common between native speakers than learners (like, just for instance, English isn't my L1 and I'm sure this is very evident but I don't remember getting 'then' and 'than' mixed up while I always see English native speakers doing that... so I wouldn't be surprised if someone, who is learning Spanish and is very committed to it, remember rules about it that even I don't 😅).
He's attempting to pick up more than just Cantonese, there's a sizeable Fuzhou community where he lives and he has tried to pick up some 福州话 and tries to use it with locals as well, much to their delight. Leaving aside the provocative video titles which clearly are meant to grab attention when passing through someone's suggestions, and the fact that he seems to be a pretty extroverted personality in general, he seems pretty humble and respectful of other cultures. It seems to generally make people happy to hear him speak it (with the possible exception of some exhausted restaurant servers with no interest in the bit and just want him to finish ordering already). Most people who find his videos are Chinese learners, and they quickly realize "Perfect" is tongue-in-cheek.
He is more respectful of Chinese people than Chinese people to themselves. Most Mandarin speakers won't even bother to learn Cantonese or Fuzhounese. Even worse, they disparage these languages as vulgar dialects.
我会福建话
@@faustianfellaheen Exactly. It's sad that this is the reality... and something similar can be said about Russia's attitudes toward minority languages
@@faustianfellaheen What nonsense are you spewing? Are you a Chinese hater? How do you even know or prove to us that he is more respectful of Chinese people than Chinese p3eople to themselves? What if I say that Americans are the most racist, the most genocidal race on earth and the most uncivilized? See, you need to provide irrefutable proof for your claim instead of spewing nonsense. My claim is as valid as yours.
@@faustianfellaheen Not sure why you would get this impression. Let say if someone is from Guangzhou and they speaks cantonese, do you consider them to be disrespectful just because they don’t speak the Fuzhou dialect? Aren’t what you called “Mandarin speakers” also from some part of China and have their own dialects? On the contrary the dialects of China are so diverse and most of them got preserved because people from different regions speak different dialects. There are a lot of humble foreign who work and live in China who don’t try to get famous just because they know a second language. (I’m not against him though, after all his videos are still entertaining.)
I follow Xiaomanyc and also Ryan Hale. For me it's not so much about admiring their language skills but more about the reaction of the people they speak to. A person who is being very matter of fact suddenly reveals their emotional side when spoken to in their own language. For me this reinforces the importance of learning a language rather than relying on translation/interpretation apps.
By the way I love your high energy videos Jessie :)
That's a good way of looking at it!
I agree with you! I also know those videos are captioned to get folks to view it.
Yeah I love when Xiao Ma shocks the locals
Same :') I like they want to spread other cultures
Half the time these "impressed" people seem annoyed or disgusted instead, or seem to feign amazement to be polite on the job or just to get make him go away.
I can totally understand how someone new would find his titles off-putting. I've seen a lot of his videos and he's a genuinely good hearted guy who cares about the language and the people. He is typically quite humble. I think those crazy titles are sort of an inside joke in the western language focused youtuber world (e.g. "Black Guy Stuns Locals with Perfect Chinese" etc). Aside from being clickbait its not really meant to be taken 100% seriously. Still appreciate you voicing your opinion though!
EDIT: In case anyone is interested, the channel Oriental Pearl did a video titled "Why are People ANGRY at Polyglots? Debating Man who Claims to speak "29 Languages" th-cam.com/video/niwGrzoX44k/w-d-xo.html which discusses this meta-topic. Worth checking out if you have the time.
Also, westerners are attracted to titles like "White guy with Perfect Chinese." because realistically they think it's hard to even learn another language, all they know is English. And most don't even know that his Chinese is good or not, unless they are Native speakers. So, of course people would praise people and say "Yes, that is so perfect and amazing." blindingly
There's some ignorant people out there.
@@ad_kk16 westerners only know english? Pls look up the definition of "west" before throwing it around. Hint: it doesn't mean "America"
@@pia_mater I mean, in the UK there’s some ignorance of foreign languages. 🤔 Kind of like what they did to the Native Americans, the Queen was also involved. Trying to force the people to speak in English.
@@ad_kk16 TH-cam pays about $2000 per million views (on average). Is it really that surprising that he has clickbait titles? Look at his view count. He's earning 5 figures a month. He doesn't actually believe his chinese is perfect, that's just for views
@@ad_kk16 Just a friendly reminder that the US and the UK ain't the only countries in the west. Please don't confuse that.
I used to think I would hate Xiaoma bc of his clickbait titles until I watched the videos and realized he truly is so humble, wants to learn and is sincerely interested in the culture. I honestly came to love him, also his videos help me a ton as a Chinese speaker because it gives me examples of useful conversation structure!
I hate the clickbaut titles. "White man shocks store owner with perfect Cantonese!"
No thanks.
I was really put off by his titles at first until I watched a few of his videos and realized it was clickbait and also went along with his sarcastic but sometimes humble humor. It's really subtle and as an American it took me about 10 videos before I put it together, so I get that he probably just comes across as an arrogant white guy to most people. His videos are definitely intended to encourage a white American audience to explore Chinese language and culture by portraying it as accessible, welcoming, and local
The problem is that the epidemic of clickbait inherently punishes people who don't do it. It also means you end up clicking on a load of rubbish before finding something you want.
If people simply didn't click on them, it would go away, but of course people can't know beforehand(but can avoid subsequent videos from the channel)
You know there are a lot of polyglots who just sit in a room and have those predefined question and answer sessions but he is not sitting at home and doing this in public. He is going and talking out there. It is not like this all questions are planned. As much as you are saying it is clickbait, it is not like he paid those people just to say he speaks good Chinese. He pretty much can speak B2 level Chinese which makes him a polyglot in every way of the word. As for perfect, that is a bit difficult for non-native speakers and not even native speakers are perfect. Go and watch some news people who make real click baits and exaggerate everything. He still admits he isn't perfect.
yea I recall he makes fun of the titles in the videos sometimes lol
You're still missing the point: her videos are intermediate Chinese pronunciation lessons.
i understand that but not even able to pronounce the basic sounds is kinda...
i'm sure you can make better titles without deceiving like, "i spoke mandarin in the market and see what they gave me free". you can always hook to good developments you don't have to resort to shock and boom to get attention. it disrupts the peace you know ?
what it is is just arrogant and disrespectful to the point of mocking. he should stop if he's humble because these type of titles hurt everyone and not achieve intented goals anyways. there are people who use alluring titles and building bonds and making things better for everyone.
please stop excusing wrong behaviour.
Good critique, but I would have never started learning Mandarin if not for Xiaoma’s videos. It may not be perfect but he’s introducing the western world to other cultures and helping to ignite a passion for language and empathy for others.
Did you use his course? Where did you learn?
That's a bit of an overblown ignorant comment. Apparently Westerners needed a random white guy to speak foreign language in foreign conclaves for us to be come more empathetic? How did you work that one out?
@@sopronunciareglignocchi7255 ye that was kinda wack to say
@@sopronunciareglignocchi7255 Even I do not watch that guy and actually I do not watch white guys at all who do that kind of videos, because it seems to me they are bragging and flexing, is weird for me. But there are other guys out wo do not do it like that. It can motivate to learn the language like "he's from my country and did it, So maybe I can do it also".
@@sopronunciareglignocchi7255 a lot of Americans, and to be a little racist a lot of white Americans need a white guy to do something first to feel comfortable with another culture. I also see this in my own black American community but it's more a sense of indifference.
Nice dress!! Really interesting critique. I like how you also make it a learning experience.
Thank you 火锅王子 :)
I'm only a few month into learning Chinese because of this man. I just want
Show some respect to my chinese friends and learn the best I can. As they struggle learning English I want to put in the same effort to learn Chinese.
So you need some white guy to speak Chinese to learn Chinese….?? The fuck
@@catsballs9657 loll
@@catsballs9657 it’s not that deep lol. see video = like thing = want to do thing.
Boohoo. Asians immigrants speak perfect english all the time and Americans mocking their accent is a cultural staple. Entitled as usual
They are lucky to have such a thoughtful and considerate friend!
I was born in China, but I immigrated to various countries throughout my childhood. My first impression of Americans was that they were very open and friendly. There were other countries I lived in briefly where people were much more reserved, but it was mostly due to cultural/ societal issues.
the word perfect is unattainable, we all have different perceptions and opinions, denotations, connotations of what the word 'perfect' means to us. Ofc his Chinese isn't going to be as clear and concise as a native but at least he's making a living by creating good quality content that inspires us adults to not be afraid to make mistakes when we learn Chinese and to most importantly enjoy it too.
agreed.. even having perfect Chinese for a native speaker is extremely difficult because one would assume that they would need to know many proverbs.. which require alot of historical context understanding also..
Also it’s not like anyone is going to be perfect in ANY language. I make grammar mistakes while talking in my only language, all the time. Also when people critique “accents” in language like what? Everybody is going to have an accent from the native language they speak. Imagine getting mad at a French person for having an accent when they speak English.
@@fart63 Agreed. Like when I speak with my friends I will mumble or slur words and use slang. If I’m giving a speech only will I speak with ‘perfect’ English and pronounce every word perfectly.
Yes, he also speaks other languages and he's inspired me in the past to use my Spanish and Polish in Public with natives. Yo se mi espanol es no perfecto. pero yo peudo hablar con Mexicanos en mi ciudad. Me encanta todo los Mexicanos, me gustan voy a Bailes, tiendas, y yo puedo hablar con mi amigo Mexicano todo en Espanol en Publico.
His mandarin may not be perfect but it will always be better than mine
"Perfect" is a loose term when it comes to language speaking. I recently watched this video that had two native Korean speakers listening to and judging four foreign speakers who spoke Korean and one native Korean speaker without being able to see their faces. Then the two native speaking judges had to guess which one was the native Korean speaker and which were the foreign speakers. They both guessed incorrectly. I guess what I'm saying is that at a certain fluency level, "perfect" can sometimes be "imperfect." As an English speaker, if a fellow citizen were to say that he or she speaks perfect English, I'd bet that you could pick apart so many grammatical, pronunciation, and vocabulary anomalies and question their "perfect" English as well.
I don't understand in that case perfect would be the perfect word to use, if natives can't distinguish you
I've seen the same video, I think. IIRC some of the people got pissed for being misjudged by natives and you could see it in their body language. lol. Well Korean is HAF...I've been learning it for a bit over year and have put in hundreds of hours so far. Fluency still seems very far away but like I always tell everyone, I will die before I give up learning Korean because I'll feel like a failure forever if I do.
Honestly I think he just uses those titles to rank higher in the TH-cam algorithm, as any serious TH-cam brand would. Don’t really blame him for maximizing his views since this is his business.
"TH-cam brand" ... You mean people who have to do that because their content is not real content. There are hundreds, if even not thousands of people who do not work with that shitty attitude and gain enough audience.
@@ookayokay the guy is a nice guy and have real talents. He doesn't have shitty actitude with anyone.
@@ookayokay I would love to see you do what Xiaoma does. Then go on to say his content isn’t anything. 🤣
@@ookayokay It seems that you have no subscribers, unless this your personal ID. Pretty hard to be knowledgeable about something you don’t actually know.
Serious? I don't think you know what that means.
Thank you for this video. I've been learning Mandarin for about 3 years. I find the "J, Q and X" sounds some of the most difficult to master. I went to a fish and chip shop in the UK last week that is run by a family from Beijing and practised ordering my fish and having a chat with them. I told them I don't want to speak English (lol) and we just spoke Mandarin. 鱼= 很难说
His videos promote people to learn other languages due to the amicable and heartwarming exchanges he has.
A nice constructive video. I'm sure he appreciates a native speaker giving him advice, when learning a new language. I would much more appreciate brutal honesty than sugarcoating. Keep making more videos like this one!
A friend of mine has been speaking Mandarin for a while, and she says that you know you're starting to really get the language when you stop getting the, "awww, so good!" headpats and start getting brutal honesty about your mistakes.
I would rather have people correcting me, else my learning would be slower.
Despite the "click-bait" aspect of Xiaomanyc's titles, he is very humble about his abilities and he really uses learning languages to connect with people and I totally respect that aesthetic.
His videos always make me laugh....that's why I subscribed and watch him often. Thanks for your comments.
Are there any tv shows or movies you'd recommend where they speak Mandarin in like a natural non-performative or exaggerated way?
Watch any stephen chow movies if u love comedy. Well they mainly speak cantonese but some of his movies are mandarin too
I say look up some Chinese dramas on Netflix! Thats what I do, listen to it in chinese and read subtitles when needed
Love the way you annotate your videos with both characters and romanization, including Lee's Cantonese! Thanks!
She just said she knows it’s click bait but people keep telling her this anyway? Guys she knows shut up.
Fan boy/girl behaviour is so annoying
You shut the fuck up, A GOT7 Fan
she says she knows but makes a whole video critiquing his so called "perfect" chinese. So obv she felt the need to stroke her ego by making the video
@@user-lk8ez8jd7n Everybody's just making a living out here. This is just advice for language learners wearing a react-content hat. He got more engagement in part by deliberately baiting people to point out why it wasn't perfect... including other video creators. She gets more engagement by people going "um actually" in her comments. But everybody who watches a video like this is learning something! So, shocking twist: everybody wins, as long as nobody takes it too seriously.
He is super humble and he only wants to learn every language he can . The perfect in the title is mostly to catch people attention he is still doing his best compared to people that don't try with people of the culture.
Super humble?? Super humble people don’t go around showing off their language skills
@@FransceneJK98 lmao then how the f you learn a language. The best experience is talking with natives or speakers. You're being silly
+Talking with native speakers 👍
- Saying you learn a language in 1 week or recording 90 videos where you say your Chinese is so good that people kneel before you : 👎
If you really believe you are good at a language, I don't think it's necessary to show off like he does. Its obvious that he makes these videos not to practice a language, but to impress people. And obviously, that's not being humble.
@Colorful Animations shut up bro theres nothing wrong with talking to native speakers. Thats not showing off
Dude is a fucking clown!
Looks like Uncle Roger in 7:12 is making waves with his MSG comments. 😁👍
Whenever I hear someone speaking English and it’s not their native language, I always think, “Wow they’re really smart”. Just a bit of encouragement for anyone trying to learn other languages!
Yes, but I can bet you none of them would claim to speak "perfect English" and "stun locals", that is just a white bro thing
@@astrolillo He's just doing it for the clickbait, I honestly have no issue with it, the content of his videos is always so wholesome lol
@@astrolillo The way the algorithm works, you get more views by getting more comments. Those comments don't have to be positive. If you put something in the title that makes people want to correct you before you've even seen the video, more people will see the video. It's TH-cam's stupid algorithm problem, but at least this version is educational.
Being perfect has so many aspects. Fluency, accuracy, pronounciation, vocabulary, grammar... I am not an expert, but as long as his mistakes are derivation of his accent, he is allowed to classify himself with the "perfect" tag. Your accent has an influence on your english too, still wouldn't say that you make mistakes as long as you make perfect sense and understanding you isn't a struggle.
I agree completely.
This video is a perfect example of this because I would label her English perfect because I can understand her clearly, but there was a handful of words she pronounced that wasn't pronounced clearly. The goal of a language is to communicate and as long as what you are saying is being understood that qualifies as perfect in my book.
Everything outside of being able to communicate is nitpicking to me. She can hear him talk and understand him the same way we can hear her talk in english and understand her...
I don't know about that. I was working in a bar in Switzerland speaking German (Hochdeutsch actually, not the very special Swiss dialect) and I served a Canadian family there over a period of about a week. When the family were leaving the lady of the family gave me a nice tip and said "I must congratulate you on your English, it's almost perfect". I thanked her for her kindness but wondered ever since what would have made my English absolutely perfect. Perhaps a Canadian accent? I don't know, but I spoke only English for the first 28 years of my life so I reckon it was as near to perfection as an Australian can manage.
@@justinpearson9170 I think its morea bout claiming to be perfect but not actually, which was kinda what she was saying. Ig she didn't really like his arrogant title. She was only being so nitpicky because of the title. If you see her other videos she does not try to perfect everyone's Chinese, just critiques to an understandable level.
I can't stop laughing at the pinned comment. He states that you "aren't winning." If you don't use clickbait titles...and then proceeds to cry about you using a clickbait title.
Actually I didn't get any negative impression from you here. I thought it was going to be "hating" but it was honestly a very fair critique. You gave credit to him for the things he does well, and pointed out where things can be improved.
Personally, I'm not a fan of clickbait titles either. But they work, so I get it. I do appreciate the content he puts out. If I watch his videos without reading the titles...I'd get the impression that he's just a guy having fun and making peoples day by connecting with them in their native language. At this point I honestly think he is not only using these titles for the clicks they draw...but also as a meme. He seems like a pretty smart guy, I figure "perfect Chinese" is more of a marketing strategy than an true self assessment.
Anyway, great vid! I can't wait to check out more from you!
Even tho I was born in chinese, your tips still helped me! It's been 20 years since I've moved abroad so your videos even help me :)
This is a fun format. I’m learning Chinese. I think it’s good to note that the word perfect has been downgraded in recent times. Some people have even been using it where we would normally say ok, or great. “Anything else?”, “no, thanks”, “perfect”.
And it’s often used to say something is good enough to be surprising. “Nobody knew she could sing and then she goes and does a perfect version of Adele’s song” That’s what I think of when I see this guy’s titles.
I am a fluent French speaker, but I live in Texas and can't speak it everyday. Most of my coworkers and friends are annoyed by my French. But occasionally I will have a customer from Africa, and they love that I can speak with them in an easier language for them. Of course, my French is getting corrupted by Spanish a little since I have to use that far more often.
Typical Americans lol
Tu vas rendre le français à nouveau grand 🫵
Obviously the “perfect Chinese” is just a hyperbole.
I've loved reading the comments about how many people were inspired to learn Chinese from Xiaoma.
To be fair, when he says his name while speaking English, he's not speaking his name in Chinese anymore, he's speaking it in English, so the tones are irrelevant. It's just like how there's an English word for Beijing and a Chinese word for New York and neither sound like the native words for each place. You wouldn't suddenly use the English word for New York when speaking Chinese just because you knew the correct way to say it in English.
Thanks for the quality content, Jessie! Mandarin is an interesting language for sure, with a huge history. Cantonese is also interesting as south chinas language. Good fortune to you and to your folk!
I love that you have a living Cantonese dictionary upstairs 🤣
Fish dumpling is a Cantonese dish. I love eating it in HK. The full name is fish skin dumpling 鱼皮饺. As per it's namesake, the wrapper is made with fish paste mixed into the dough. It's one of the best type of dumplings I've ever tasted, I ordered it when I was in HK with my friend, as I had remembered the taste of it from a previous trip. My friend could not believe how good it was, so when we went back again, she told me that we need to make sure to eat the fish dumplings again. If you see 鱼皮饺 on the menu, order it.
Tifa Lockhart? :D
You talk too much
I first started watching his videos when TH-cam recommended them 3-4 years ago and I was sooo prepared to hate him. But he comes across as just a really sweet and humble guy and after a few videos he won me over! (There's one where he even says yeah, sorry about the clickbait titles, they're kind of necessary.) There's a really funny one from 2020 when everyone was in lockdown and he couldn't go out to restaurants, so he hired some online Chinese teachers to critique his chinese! What was hilarious is they all thought his accent and fluency were good but they knocked him down for failing to ever use references to ancient chinese poetry while talking! They said that's how they could tell he didn't grow up in China. :D I love that he will also go and try languages he didn't know that well, like Yoruba and other African or Indian-subcontinent languages, and it always makes people so happy he wants to know more about their culture, the food, etc etc.
Is your mother tongue English ?
Thanks for making this video. I saw some other videos of youtubers making videos to call out fake polyglots/bilinguals on youtube but without any reviews or critiques. I think this is the proper way and it shows that this youtuber is actually quite skilled as long as you can get past his clickbait titles. I saw a few of his videos before and yes he has the clickbait titles but you can clearly see him struggle here and there a few times.
This is all semantics. It's just a click bait title but the content has good intentions. Guess what? Yours is click bait too.
You know as a Chinese person who can speak Chinese but not well at all, his enunciation may not be the best but honestly? He’s better than me in terms of vocabulary and communication skills. You did a great job at the critique it was very fair, good and detailed you criticised with when needed and praised him when he did something right. Also I wish my Chinese was better but I have Chinese dyslexia or something (I’m kidding I just have a hard time reading Chinese despite growing up with it)
He’s trying to get people excited in learning other languages. And to experience the culture and also be kind and welcoming to people by speaking in their language and he is trying to honor the country’s culture and language he is trying to highlight. Kindness and interest in other cultures always wins. It’s the only free education.
He also tries to encourage people to visit these people’s businesses. Which is helpful, if you can speak some of the language. And know something of their culture. More Americans need to learn other language.
Jessi nailed it. I agreed with all, especially the spoken Cantonese. I'm fluent in Cantonese but definitely still have tone issues. 👍
The problem isn't just that he calls himself a perfect speaker. Even if he didn't self-apply the word perfect, nearly all of his videos are of the same thing: him ordering food in a restaurant and a bit of modest small talk. He's never speaking to students about academics. Never speaking to adults about their workplace. Never discusses pop culture or current events. No pets, no books, no sports, no religion. So he's exhibited a high level of proficiency in an extremely narrow social setting. Not what I think of when you talk about fluency.
Good point!
he speak 17 languages give him some slack who are you the language police ?😂
I'm crying, cause shes coming for him for saying "perfect" 😂😂 I'm so glad I ran into you. I feel like i will learn Mandarin someday. Watching upur videos makes me feel closer to the language.
Oh i wont get bothered too much with “perfect”. People throw it out all the time... but they dont really mean “perfect”
4:47 The Cantonese tone is wrong - "a little" is siu2siu2 少少 not siu3siu3 It's a high rising tone,not a mid level
I had a roommate from China and he said he had spent over 10 years learning English and that our grammar was hard.
Chinese has basically no grammar compared to european languages
Breaking down someone's Mandarin in a Zapruder-level analysis is the most Chinese mum thing ever. Haha.
Definitely can't stand this xiaoma kid, but gotta give him credit he's earning that sweet youtube cash by putting out his own brand of clickbait content.
it's double standard. There are more of them than US technically. Chinese can't even speak the same language.
Ratio/no one asked u mad that he not broke like you😂😂🤷♂️🤷♂️
Yo, a racist
his videos make my blood boil a lil🥲
People with hearing disabilities must go through hell in China and other countries that speak tonal languages.
The weird thing about Mandarin or Anything chinese is that there are intricacies to the tone, the same in Vietnamese. In most other language like English, as long as you understand it, that's good enough. For me who speaks different languages (English being my 4th), I never wanted to learn and will never try to learn language that has a lot of focus on tones.
Note that if English has tone intricacies, I would rate yours at 7/10. But since it doesn't have it, that's a 10/10.
I love your advice and I totally agree as another introvert. I will what you said and just keep watching TV shows and movies and imitating native speakers. I hope my Mandarin can be as good as your English some day :)
I have been saying this too! I could not believe he thinks his mandarin is perfect
I didn't see him actually say this in his videos though (well, at least not in this one), so I'm not sure if it's just for the click-bait or he actually thinks so.
@@ChinesewithJessie yes I think clickbait. You should critique Frankie light too😄
It's just click-bait, he doesn't really think that.
@@ChinesewithJessie Hey Jessie, could you do a video on the mandarin of Laoshu50500? I want to know how well he spoke!
Brian Clickbait title. The more clicks, the more $ he gets. Lol
I've seen many videos in which he actually says that the title is just clickbait, and that his Mandarin isn't perfect.
3:06 Actually the chinese ü, which is an umlaut, is a sound that exists in Germanic languages like German, Dutch, and even English (Anglo-Saxon influences), so native English speakers can actually make this back vowel sound. But it’s hard for American English speakers though.
it’s not a back vowel
/y/ doesn't exist in english, and it's not a back vowel. delete this comment, you're misinforming people.
A Person listen to what ,,Learning Chinese with Rita" said. Contrary to popular beliefs, ü does not pose much problems for Europeans, I said ,,even" English, because it can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon languages, but it has decayed through time.
I never heard an English managing the ü sound. There is no ü in modern English. When English tried to, they always THOUGHT they had said just that, but it always was an u
@@Mr35diamonds you don't know what you're talking about. as someone who has read many books and articles on phonetics and phonology over the course of 2 years... you're definitely wrong
His video titles are, of course, exaggerated. In his videos he doesn't pretend his Chinese is perfect at all, and often has humble replies when people complement him on his Chinese.
Yeah, I give him that about the courage of actually practicing his Chinese with strangers. I'm learning Chinese right now, but I hardly ever use it outside my class. With all the difficult sounds and tones, I'm afraid to sound stupid or say something stupid to a native speaker. I only use it if the other person doesn't speak any other languages, which only happened once, and I think I did a very amazingly bad job lol. The other party was very kind and didn't judge me though, but still, I was dying of embarrassment lol.
I like how people get happy when they hear him speaking Chinese to them 😊
你的英语口音真好．真好的印象！
Your English really impresses me. Your accent in English is excellent!
She is good but she makes mistakes. C'est la vie.
1:02 I saw some videos from him and hear clear an accent in his tones, same in most of the chinese based thai folk here in the Kingdom of Thailand. I thinking nobody is perfectly in perfection of own mother language - specially mother language speaker talk near 100% wrong in opposite to the writing of this languages.
Just English:
lorry => truck
a pair of trousers => trouser
colourful => colorful
children garden => kindergarten
car => auto
couch => sofa
elevator => lift
folk => peoples
stronghold => castle
😂
Everybody knows its kot perfect... But who cares, its fun, and they are happy... And he motivated a lot of people to learn different languages... Nobody needs to be perfect, just put some joy to what your doing and it will work...
1:26 shouldn’t "xie xie" be pronounced as "sie sie" not "shie shie"?
Yep, another example of "American Chinese"
@@goysgoysgoys Idiot
fish dumplings 魚皮角 are good! Part of Cantonese cuisine
You really helped with my pronunciation of fish/yú. I could not figure out how to make that sound. Thank you so much for the explanation!
I mean, you could still call it perfect or "perfectly fluent" since he has no apparently difficulty employing the Chinese language to communicate smoothly with a primary Chinese speaker. Plenty of people who speak "perfect" English natively don't pronounce common words like "February" or "hierarchy" correctly.
I am completely in love with the refined style of Chinese culture... keep being like that, please!
what the fuck is refined style of culture?
Why you have to include word “white” in the title?
Because that's the dude video tittles.
Calling yourself perfect is arrogant in English too.
What I don't like about these videos is that it implies that it's amazing that a white guy can speak Chinese. It would be like you making a video with the title "Chinese woman orders a hamburger in perfect English."
I'm Asian but I really want to know how to talk to people like XiaomaNYC. I want to know how it feels like to talk to people in their native language. It seems interesting and enjoying in the same time. Would love to learn Chinese language just to speak with the Chinese people in my country but I know the accent would differ. But I'm going to do what he does so I could enjoy my daily life when encountering with some Chinese.
Im american in florida:) i study mandarin and cantonese
He’s a sweet guy.
At least he´s fluent in different languages and tries to improve a little bit more. Not to be arrogant, but the point of a language is to communicate with success. He doesn´t even speak Spanish with a native accent, but Spanish speakers understand him and that is what counts. We all have some mistakes and we all try to improve on our mistakes, actually it is pretty hard to achieve that level, maybe in a couple of years he will speak like a native. I speak Russian and Greek and at the beginning I messed up with the phonemes, but after a year I could speak with a pretty decent accent, some native speakers really thought I grew up in Russia or Greece. Now I'm learning Gaelic and I make mistakes but I practice to improve my Gaelic every day.
Claiming perfection is a tall claim though. Typical American exceptionalism.
@@therefep9723 I don't think it's exceptionalism, but rather clickbait. Face it: his videos get a lot of views.
@@therefep9723 it's necessary to make money (by beating the algorithm) dude.
Still, that doesn't make it 'perfect', I'm tired of random gringos claiming to speak Spanish 'perfectly' when we can barely understand them but try hard to, and their ego inflates quite a lot from that.
Since I'm not white, people expect me to talk English perfectly and no one will recognize it, because they think it's my obligation to do so.
@@quetevalgavergaaahis claims to speaking languages "perfectly" is clixkbait. If youve actually watched any of his videos hes very humble and just likes surprising people by speaking in a language people typically dont go out of their way to learn. You also have a nice racist undertone in that comment so i can see why you'd say that
I think the largest cringe factor is him pretending to be nonchalant when he's filming their SHOCKED!!!! reactions. He speaks like "Oh, there's nothing special to see here" and then uploads it for tens of millions of views. Of course, I understand that that hustle does bring him in tens of thousands of dollars per video as well, so hey, he found his niche. It's just also strange how a language with well over a billion speakers is something people would feel is something that can still be shocking for even one white guy to speak. The language of a hill tribe in Vietnam, maybe. Chinese? Really? Yet that super power of knowing one of the largest languages (particularly regarding Mandarin) in the world and filming yourself speaking to others apparently garners such attention. And then there is this video which is kind of reaching to find anything to say about his videos, and honestly there's not much...but even this got well over 200k views, including one from me...
I am Chinese，trust me this guy@口语老炮儿马思瑞 Laoma Chris ，his Chinese so amazing，beijing accent makes his Chinese more perfect
老北京人。。hahaha
Good enough for white guy and speaks better than most ABC
I don't like his title either. first because they sound kinda arrogant, second because they are misleading. I get the clickbate thingy but he makes languages sound easy to learn and people can actually get sad they can't get his *perfect* level with the same practice.
I know this is an old video but I have to say I LOVE that dress ❤
Great film Jessie laoshi! I like watching reviews of other speakers - it really helps to hear mistakes so we can try and avoid them. I know lots of youtubers use these click-bait titles like you said. I'm not sure why he does this anymore as he has millions of followers (including me!).
I find with my speaking (which is terrible btw - my youtube film would be called "WHITE GUY SPEAKS RUBBISH CHINESE") that I can make most of the sounds ok, but the faster I speak the more the j and x (like 饺 习 you picked out here become less and less Chinese.
I'll keep trying.
Thanks for great film - keep up the great work! I also like the addition of Lee and some Cantonese - as this is most widely spoken here in England.
Thanks! I'll definitely try to include more Cantonese in my future videos coz I found it really intriguing.
And yeah, just keep practicing with the sounds before you go for the speed, some people try to speak as fast as they can hoping people would neglect their accuracy but end up in the opposite way.
It took me a long time to practice the "dʒ"/"ð" sounds in English, all my English teachers at school were Chinese and they couldn't really pronounce those well, so all I did was to imitate how people talk in movies/TV series(Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory helped a lot coz he speaks so slowly and clearly).
It’s click bait chill
After watching a lot of these videos I realized....I should probably just learn Spanish.
Very fair evaluation. We all love you and Xiaoma and I'm glad you like him a little more after giving his videos a chance. I'd love to see you react to his video about professional Chinese teachers rating his Chinese.
This video helped me so much with my own prononciation mistakes
I am Belgian and my motherlanguage is Dutch
Also I have to be careful to pronounce the ‘j’ sound nice
Thanks a lot
I'm glad it helped!
Als je een beetje IPA probeert te leren, de uitspraak van heel veel talen wordt makkelijker. For the most part, veel basisch geluiden zijn tussen meeste talen shared.
Same here, also flemish. 'J' prononciation tip helped me indeed
@@St44rtb33ntje haha Ik spreek ook Vlaams ma omdat ze me zouden verstaan zij ik ‘Dutch’ 😄
Zo raar om andere belgen op youtube te zien lol
Mandarin is just so hard to pronunce (it is fun to learn tho).
Especially if you come from France like me. Our language is monotone (we pretty much sounds like we are dead inside when we speak ha ha).
Therefore it is very hard to learn tonal language (even English troubles me sometimes).
I dont like his clickbaity titles but it does sounds amazing.
Your review was very interesting !
Jessie, you have fantastic teeth!
Appreciate the insight on Xiaoma's vids. He's a good guy but it's nice to know where he could improve.
Thanks, one does not receive compliments like that a lot 😂
My video title: "Hey! Do my words sound duct-taped?"
He talks so fast that it is hard to hear some tones. Although, some things he could talk some time to pronounce them. He has an accent but can’t really tell what is wrong 😂
Sure but come on, when you speak a language who doesn’t speak with their own tone according to their voice etc. It’s just like music. When people sing, they sing words in a different tone compared to how the words are supposed to be pronounced. Everyone would sound robotic in their language if they spoke like that. That’s what makes us human and unique.
I like and sub to him, but really hate clickbait... PERFECT Chinese WOW!
His titles are clickbait and he’s actually quite humble including about Chinese
So, part of the reactions to him is missing context. People from New York are sometimes very rude or taken aback by surprise. The rest of the United States would find their mannerism aggressive or forward. I am not sure if there is any location in China that has this type of personality? Basically, he should have a slight New York accent because, that is who he is talking to at the time. The reason you see people suddenly react to him is most Americans have a hard time speaking just English let alone a difficult language.
"The rest of the United States would find their mannerism aggressive or forward."
You mean the rest of the world? haha.
Can there be another one of this since it's been over 2 years and he probably really improved
I think even that guy knows he's not perfect but with the video titles you gotta play the game. TH-cam doesn't reward modesty
Hi Jessie! Thank you for your awesome analysis. I stumbled upon your video while looking for something else, but listened and said to myself "I agree 100%". I love linguistics, and consider myself a "jack of all trades" (a good English expression for you :-) ) - capable of many things, but a master of none.
I am trying to teach myself Mandarin using Duolingo (been at a little over 2 months now), as well as watching TV shows, movies, etc. I'm doing this because I have a daughter in law from Taiwan, and 2 beautiful twin granddaughters. I want to be able to speak with them in their language.
I already have background in German, Swedish and Russian, but Mandarin is definitely the toughest. Although I often hear "you're really good" in the first three, I am very much aware of my shortcomings. I hate hearing/seeing the word "fluent", because it has such a wide variety of interpretations, especially in the monolingual native English-speaking world. I agree with your clickbait comment, and also feel that more humility would be better approach.
Take care, and good luck with all your endeavors! -Tim
me tragué el bait
pensé que ella iba a estar molesta o que genuinamente se iba a tomar a mal los videos de Xiaomanyc, pero más bien es la misma técnica que él usa con sus titulos llamativos.
Ya me estaba asustando porque Jessie se me había hecho bastante linda, calmada y relajada en cuanto a pronunciaciones de los no nativos.
Todos lo que ella criticó fue bastante útil
ppl treat msg like it’s such a bad thing when it’s literally just a flavouring
It is. Doesnt mean its great for you though. Many other flavourings are also bad for you too.
I’ve always felt like he pronounces some words like he’s reading pinyin with an American accent
It’s like when you say the word “dumpling” it sounds like “dumplen”