XiaomaNYC Uses His Fluent Chinese to Connect Cultures XiaomaNYC nutzt sein fließendes Chinesisch, um Kulturen zu verbinden Ο XiaomaNYC χρησιμοποιεί τα άπταιστα κινεζικά του για να συνδέσει τους πολιτισμούς XiaomaNYC utiliza su fluido chino para conectar culturas XiaomaNYC utilise son chinois courant pour relier les cultures XiaomaNYC usa il suo cinese fluente per collegare le culture XiaomaNYC、流暢な中国語で文化を繋ぐ 유창한 중국어로 문화를 연결하는 샤오마NYC XiaomaNYC gebruikt zijn vloeiend Chinees om culturen met elkaar te verbinden XiaomaNYC używa płynnego chińskiego do łączenia kultur XiaomaNYC usa o seu chinês fluente para ligar culturas XiaomaNYC использует свой свободный китайский язык для связи культур XiaomaNYC använder sin flytande kinesiska för att sammanföra kulturer XiaomaNYC Akıcı Çincesini Kültürleri Birleştirmek İçin Kullanıyor XiaomaNYC використовує свою вільну китайську мову для з'єднання культур 小马NYC用流利的中文沟通文化 xiaomaNYC用他流利的中文連接文化

hello Ari hey Steve what's going on hey Hallo Ari, hey Steve, was gibt's Neues? こんにちはアリスティーブ Olá Ari, olá Steve, o que é que se passa?

hey what's going on you're in New York ei, o que se passa, estás em Nova Iorque

no where are you mama do you're I'm in Nein, wo bist du, Mama, wo bist du, ich bin da no where are you mama do you're I'm in ママはどこにいるの？

New York

Rainy Rainy Rainy New York all right レイニーレイニーレイニーニューヨーク Rainie Rainie Rainie New York oké

well let me just differ though many Nun, ich möchte mich von vielen unterscheiden まあ、私は多くのことだけが違うようにしましょう

people know you you have a very popular

channel on YouTube and you speak Chinese

extremely well I looked at some of your sehr gut, ich habe mir einige Ihrer

videos I found them very interesting and

so maybe I could begin by asking you 所以也許我可以先問你這個問題

it　says somewhere that you are also you

teach Chinese you do these videos where Chinesisch unterrichten Sie machen diese Videos, wo 教中文你在哪裡做這些視頻

you a showcase your Chinese skills but I Ihre Chinesischkenntnisse zu präsentieren, aber ich di mostrare le tue abilità in cinese, ma io 你展示了你的中文技能，但我

think more important in a way you

introduce aspects of Chinese food and

Chinese culture to people who know very chinesische Kultur für Menschen, die sich sehr

little about it so can I ask you a 對此知之甚少，我可以問你一個嗎

little bit about your background 關於你的背景的一些信息

introduce yourself and then how you got

into doing all these things yeah so so I

would say my like my background as it würde ich sagen, dass mein wie mein Hintergrund 會說我喜歡我的背景

relates to Chinese I started studying

Chinese this sort of the summer after Chinês este tipo de verão depois de

high school I was a little bit bored 高中時我有點無聊

looking for something to do and so I 尋找一些事情做，所以我

just kind of saw an ad in the paper for 只是在報紙上看到一則廣告

a free Chinese class and I always knew 免費的中文課，我一直都知道

that I like studying languages and I was

good at it so I was like all right

Chinese sounds like a lot of fun so I 中文聽起來很有趣所以我

took that class and it ended up being a tive essa aula e acabou por ser uma 上了那門課，最後成為了

really really great experience I 我真的真的很棒的經歷

continued studying you know in college

sophomore year school I was like I ended 二年級的學校我就像我結束了

up getting a scholarship to go to China 獲得獎學金去中國

learn Chinese can I stop you for a

second can I stop for a second so why

would someone offer free Chinese lessons 有人可以提供免費的中文課程嗎

is this a way to get you in the door for 這是讓你進門的方法嗎

further Chinese lessons the wave is just さらに中国語のレッスンを受けると、波はちょうど mais lições de chinês a onda é apenas Дальнейшие уроки китайского языка волна просто 进一步的中国教训浪潮只是 進一步的中國教訓浪潮只是

the way for the for the Chinese 中国人的出路 中國人的出路

government to promote the study of 政府推动研究 政府推動研究

Chinese international okay Chinese 中文国际还好中文 中文國際還好中文

government yeah right okay

so sorry so then so then you went to

China mm-hmm so they're handing out それで、彼らが配っているのは China mm-hmm então eles estão a distribuir 中國嗯嗯所以他們正在分發

they're handing out you know que estão a distribuir, sabe 他們正在分發你知道的

scholarships to foreigners to go to to 為外國人提供的獎學金

go to China to learn Chinese I went to

China spent a year in Beijing I really

enjoyed my time there and this was my 在那里度过了愉快的时光，这是我的 很享受在那裡的時光，這是我的

year again it was it's like 2010 2009 mm 又是一年，就像2010年2009年一样 又是一年，就像 2010 年 2009 年 mm

mm academic area mm-hm so yeah so laughs

it came back to the states and I kind of

have like the language learning book の語学学習本が好きだ。

at that point slash Chinese culture bug هذه النقطة خفض علة الثقافة الصينية その点、中国文化のバグを斬る

so I started sort of started making like

videos on YouTube just like little

language learning videos and and accent

videos and just kind of like fun things

and I like doing that but I didn't I

never really kind of took it seriously

until maybe a couple years ago when I I

started doing this channel full-time このチャンネルをフルタイムで始めました

yeah so that's like the 30-second ええ、それは30秒のようなものです

elevator version but happened to happy エレベーター版だけどたまたま幸せだった

together like it's in more detail you もっと詳しくあなたのように一緒に

know what okay

yeah okay so before we get into your はい、わかりましたので、あなたの話に入る前に

videos which are very entertaining and I

think people will enjoy looking at them

um Chinese a lot of people think Chinese

is very difficult how difficult did you

find it and do you have any advice for

people who either are in the middle of

trying to learn Chinese or have

contemplated learning Chinese right yes задумывался об изучении китайского языка, да

that's a great question so I would say I

think that in english-speaking countries

we tend to view Chinese as like the the

pinnacle of intellectual ability right o pináculo da capacidade intelectual correcta

if you can speak Chinese then you must se sabe falar chinês, então deve

be the smartest person on earth which ser a pessoa mais inteligente do mundo, o que

anyone like any non Chinese person who alguém como qualquer pessoa não chinesa que

spent time studying Chinese can tell you

it's kind of nonsense like Chinese is это такая же ерунда, как китайский язык

not I guess learning to write is one не Я думаю, что обучение письму - это один из

phlearn to write and read as one there's phlearn om te schrijven en te lezen als er een is phlearn to write and read as one there's

a whole separate beast but actually

learning to speak Chinese is not really

the hardest thing on the planet you know

it's I think the biggest difficulty for

for non-native speakers getting over is

the tones initially you know but but I

think that like you you can you know the

grammar I would say relative to other gramática eu diria que em relação a outros

you know languages I've studied is

actually fairly similar to English the

there's a couple weirdness weird things há algumas coisas estranhas e esquisitas есть несколько странностей

there but there's also a lot of things mas também há muitas coisas

that make it easy to learn so honestly

like it's not like I was I had spent

like I had learned a year of Chinese

before going to China but I was like

conversationally fluent in Chinese

within a few months I would say I've

started

okay but but the fact remains let me now ok, mas o facto é que, deixe-me ver

study Chinese and to me there's really estudar chinês e, para mim, há realmente

two issues one is the characters and the duas questões: uma é a das personagens e a outra

other is the tones so I mean every outro são os tons, por isso quero dizer que cada

language has those things that are a língua tem as coisas que são

difficult if you get rid of the things difícil se nos livrarmos das coisas

that are difficult then it's easier but

you're still left with the things that

are difficult so eh how did you tackle

the tones and B how did you tackle the 音调和 B 你是如何解决的

carrot race so I would say with tones

with tones I kind of I kind of have a

like a jail what's it called get out of 牢獄のような......何て言うんだろう......外に出る

jail free card with that one to be

honest like I've always been good at at

languages and accents and so that just

kind of came very naturally and easily

for me I will say and I know a lot of I

know it's very difficult though for a

lot of people and and something that's

helped me and other people in the past

get over that is it's like audio

repetition so listening to like

recording yourself speak and then

playing it back and with with native

references to whatever you're saying

it's super super helpful for for trying

to understand where your where your

tones are wrong and where your accents

wrong and you definitely need to do that

but you also just need a practice like a

time like if you want to get good at

tones I mean you you can speak like I

definitely know foreigners have spoken

Chinese for a long time and still have

really crappy tones but like that's the tons muito maus, mas como se isso fosse o

first step right the first thing you

have to do is is speak and then you're

gonna notice that your tones are not

good so the way to get that the way to

get over that I feel like is through

deliberate practice with practicing your を実践しながら、じっくりと練習する。

own tones and comparing it to two native

speakers as far as as far as characters oradores até até até até personagens

that one that one definitely did not

come as naturally for me like first of

all my handwriting is really bad so I've

never been ate like I haven't been good nunca fui comido como se não tivesse sido bom меня никогда не ели, как будто я не был хорошим

with with with with with just writing

things and like I to hand memory that's вещи и как я для ручной памяти, которая 事情和喜欢我手记忆那是

not one of my strong suits so with that não é um dos meus pontos fortes, por isso, com isto Это не одна из моих сильных сторон, так что с этим

I would say I just kind of tried to

focus on like I tried to I tried to like сосредоточиться на том, как я старался Я старался, как я старался

separate what was important to me and отделить то, что было важно для меня, и

what wasn't so pretty early on I decided что не так уж и рано я решил.

like there's no way I'm ever как будто я никогда не

to be able to write Chinese well like уметь хорошо писать по-китайски, например

that's just not it's just not in the

cards you know like I am NOT a liquor карты, которые вы знаете, как я НЕ спиртное

free guy so so you know what I was like 自由な男だから、私がどんな人間だったかわかるだろう。

and I know that in introductory classes

they really try to stress like stroke eles tentam mesmo stressar como um AVC они действительно стараются подчеркнуть, что инсульт

order and you know you got to get the e sabe que tem de obter o

form ride all this stuff but like I I Форма для езды на всех этих вещах, но, как я

was I just didn't want to focus that

because there were things that were more 因为还有更多的事情

important to me so I made kind of a 对我来说很重要所以我做了一个

decision early on to not focus on that

and focus more on just recognition and

recall and so which i think is much more

important for reading and you know just

cuz all the stuff you do in day to day

life in Chinese even for even for

texting if you're typing in Chinese

you're probably typing with pinion which おそらく、ピニオンを使ってタイプしているのだろう。 Вы, вероятно, печатаете с шестерней, которая

which which is basically all recall all что, в сущности, означает все

you need to know is how the character

sounds and then when you type it in it's звуки, а затем, когда вы вводите его, он

gonna come up and as long as you can будет подниматься, и пока вы можете

recognize if that's the right character узнайте, правильный ли это символ

you get so so I just kind of focus on

recall and the way that the way that I

got good at that and I'm still not like

the best at recognizing Chinese

characters and reading Chinese but you

know the the the way that I the way that

I got to the level where I am now which

is that I can comfortably read most é que consigo ler confortavelmente a maioria das

stuff that I want to read on daily basis

is one you know lots initially it was

lots of Anki just lots of straight много Энки просто много прямо

memorization of characters you know it

sucks but like you got to do it you just

got to just memorize a whole ton of

stuff and just using it in context you

know like when I would use certain

characters I like I think there's personagens de que gosto Acho que há

there's some this one school of há uma escola de

philosophy that says all right you just

got to memorize the kanji is

individually and like you know it just

makes just like just like you know you

could figure out like what the original

meaning is and that will help you member

for me that never worked

I just tried to memorize the words like

and then I would learn from that I would

learn in context with the original what

were the individual characters would

mean you know cause Chinese language of

words not characters so like that that

was the way that I tried to memorize

things and then learn the characters

from there I mean now everyone has their

own approach I must say with regard to

the tones I focused a lot on listening

and in particular I listen to this sort

of Shang Shung comic dialogues where

they tend to exaggerate the они склонны преувеличивать

I didn't really try to listen to myself

too much because I didn't want to become

too self-conscious and I think you got

to be a little careful in terms of an

accent if you spend too much time

listening to yourself you get

self-conscious

whereas I found that if I just let it go mas descobri que se me deixasse levar

and but you have to do a lot of

listening if you if you just speak with

people every now and again you'll

continue to have poor tones but I think

you can train yourself to get better at

them and on the characters I agree with

you I have poor handwriting but when I

was studying Chinese we had to write we

had to write for my final exam I had to

be able to translate newspaper

editorials from English into Chinese so

the only the only you know objective was

to make sure people could read what I

had written it didn't have to look nice

but you're absolutely right nobody

writes today I mean I

similarly in Japanese or Russia and I

never write but I use my computer so I

can communicate you know writing on the

computer but but but I did find that

writing the characters out by hand

helped me learn them but I agree I had a

terrible terrible handwriting and I also

agree that that Chinese I mean I think

learning any language is not a matter of

intellectual achievement it's simply a 知的業績、それは単に

matter of allowing allowing yourself to questão de se permitir a si próprio

you know not resist the language and

allowing it to enter your brain and just

letting go and so none of these things

are necessarily a sign of great I'm sure

it wouldn't be hard to find some very

you know high IQ professors say

foreigners in the United States or

Canada who have who speak with a very

heavy accent for example so I don't

think fluency in the language is

necessarily a sign of a high IQ anyway

so you learn Chinese and now what got

you into these very entertaining and I

really encourage people to go and look

at them and you're getting like three

four five or more million views for

these videos and it's it's it's okay let

me ask you this - what do you attribute Я спрошу вас вот о чем - что вы приписываете

the appeal of your videos yeah to be

honest I initially you know I was sort

of a little bit surprised by it I think

that I think that one thing one thing

that I've learned

instead I think I think people I think

people want some sort of inspiration

when they're they're learning languages

like they want to be able to see a goal

you know like they want to be able to

see like what what what what can't like

what's the point of learning the

language like why why should I even

bother spending all this time with these не стоит тратить столько времени на эти

textbooks and like listening drills and

like like why do I even care you know so

like I think what my videos let people

do is is give them a reason to care

right like if you learn a language if

you learn a new language you're getting

a new personality you're getting a new

soul you're getting a new way to like

like interact with the huge number of

people on this planet that previously

you just weren't able to do and so like

I think that my videos you know I'm able

to show like what it's like to to have

meaningful interactions and

relationships with people that free that

for someone like me just growing up in

the US with only English is my native

language would otherwise have been a língua que de outra forma teria sido

impossible had I not learn this language impossível se eu não tivesse aprendido esta língua

so so I think that I think that yeah you

know and people message me all the time

just just saying like saying saying that

these videos help them like inspire them

to want to learn Mandarin or other

languages and yeah so I keep doing them

I think yeah what I think is great in

them is that I think for the average New

Yorker walking down the street seems

some Chinese food vendor I consider them

to be sort of very distant very exotic とてもエキゾチックで遠い存在になる

very strange may not want to even buy очень странный, может даже не захотеть покупать

anything from and so you bring these

people closer you you you approach them

and and they come across as being very

of course they're human but we see them

as very strange and we как очень странные, и мы

minh a sort of a sense of familiarity minh своего рода ощущение знакомости

with chinese street vendors Chinese

culture Chinese food so I think that's a

really good a really good service it is

interesting to note though that for a No entanto, é interessante notar que, para um

westerner to go and speak to some people

say in Chinese on the street is curious

interesting whatever I'm trying to

picture a Chinese or a Japanese person

goes to the states and does videos of

going around speaking to people in

English yeah I wouldn't be very

interesting at all nobody would be

interested in that so it does it is a

reflection of how I guess people in

China and Japan get much more exposure

to Western culture Western people

Western things and we get much less

exposure to them and their culture and

therefore they're perceived as more por isso são vistos como mais

strange and therefore when you go there

and you just you know really interact

with them naturally in their language

it's perceived as something interesting

whereas the reverse wouldn't necessarily 一方、逆は必ずしも

be the case

sure yeah I think that's very true I

think another I think another factor

contributing to this is that I I think

that I think that there's there's

whether it's due to the monolingual

status of English in you know many

Western countries or or what have you

the I think there's something about

language learning that is is kind of

prized as sort of like a good in its own

like regard in in Western countries

whereas in these videos I've noticed

like my Chinese were people and my Asian

fans from Asia are not as interested in

them as my Western fans and I think that

I think that there's something about

like you know sorry they're not

interested in in what like my like these

these types of videos where I you know

interact with people on the street in

Chinese oh I see what me yeah there are

less and less intermittent to a yes and cada vez menos intermitente para um sim e um

I think that part of that is is that in

Asia language learning is not

necessarily like it's it's regarding to

something

like you know you should learn English como se soubesses que devias aprender inglês

because it can help you get Economic

Opportunity but it's not necessarily

regard to something cool or something em relação a algo fixe ou algo do género

like just I I think there's a thing in

American culture where you know maybe

it's maybe it's all the movies you see

when like some guy busts out like seven 7人の男のように когда какой-то парень вырывает семь

different languages and like you know

it's like James Bond speaks like French

Spanish or whatever like this is

something cool about it that I think is

is is sort of inherent to too you know

Western culture that is not necessary

like it's not necessarily regarded as

like a pinnacle of intellectual

achievement in China to be able to speak

really good English like yeah yeah so I

would say that I would have to disagree

I think that that in the West and of

course the West is not just North

America the West is Europe the West is

whatever speaking many languages is

valued and it's also valued in Asia we

had a polyglot conference in Fukuoka and

there were a lot of people there from

Asian countries Japan China Korea

Indonesia whatever who spoke many

languages I think the difficulty is most

people are not prepared to put the

effort in most people would like to

speed one other two other three other

languages and when they discover that

it's a lot of work or at least a lot of

time then a lot of people are

discouraged or because they use methods

that are not very effective

but I think generally I don't think

there's not much difference in my

interaction with people from Asia there

is appreciative of people who learn ценит людей, которые учатся

languages yeah as as we are I don't see

a big difference there except that I

would even go as far as to say that in

North America someone who speaks a lot

of languages is considered a bit freaky 言語というものは、少し気紛れなものだと考えられている

why would you want to do that to Zambia

to sound great but but hey everywhere

you got all kinds of different people

but at any rate you know I think it's

great to see and you're learning

Fujiyama or Taiwan Hong as well yes

Johan and Fudo haha yeah this one I've

been learning most recently which which

I think I think like back on the theme

of engaging with people's cultures like

for me right for me like the reactions

that I get from people

I can speak fuzhounese with them as Ik kan fuzhounese met hen spreken als

opposed to Mandarin are just so much

greater

I think the peep were you saying food Я думаю, что пипл хавает еду.

raha why are you saying in Taiwan no no

in New York or in food York

oh and no you are yeah okay yeah yeah

yeah yeah lots of people lots of people

in New York speak food Joanie is all I

say yeah okay which is kind of like one

of these weird accidents of geography

but yeah it just it just happens like

that so how about the Cantonese I speak

a little bit Cantonese to which I use in

my video sometimes just because there's

like in New York probably outside of

Mandarin the two biggest Chinese

languages that people speak or food

Rooney's in Cantonese okay yeah but so

okay no just to end up here we could go

on for quite a long time so where are

you gonna what do you do or intend to do

with all of this where does this lead to

are you just gonna continue making these

videos ever I see where you're teaching

Chinese on a voluntary basis in New York

yeah yeah yeah yeah that's that's just

kind of like for fun and you know it's

nice to giving back to the community but

you know yeah I don't that's a great

question I don't know I don't know where

it goes I mean I you know like if you

had asked me a year ago or two years ago

what I would be doing in a year from

that point mm-hmm I wouldn't have any

idea so to me trying to make long-term

plans is like it's like trying to nail планы - это все равно, что пытаться забить гвоздь

jello to a wall like I don't know what 壁に向かってジェリー。 прижать к стене, как будто я не знаю, что

I'm gonna be doing a month from now so

yeah so the only the only thing that

I'll say is just you know I want to keep

making things that you know that can

help share cultures and languages

throughout the world and just be able to

bring know kind of like inspiration and

joy to people's lives and and and

motivate people to learn Chinese or

other languages and you know for me I

got a lot of it you know like happiness

and and and probably I doing this so um

yeah well I recommend people go and

visit I'll leave a link in the

description box this is this Yama

speaking different languages and

bridging the cultural divide anyway colmare il divario culturale in ogni caso

thank you very much for chatting with us

thank you so much see really appreciate

it okay bye-bye

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