@@kathleenking47 Admit it, she also doesn't speak mandarin, nor cantonese. It's by the pure grace of the Chinese that you deceive yourself otherwise. Btw, everytime I see a resume that dares claim "bilingual", I immediately turn the interview into a roasting session. For example, does "bilingual" mean one is equally illiterate in both languages? And why should anyone believe the rest of the claims on the resume?
Lol owning your accent works as far as the accent is more liked and accepted. For example, a French accent vs an Indian accent. The connotation is obvious.
@@sheridan1700 Not really. Like the example with Arnold in the video and the criticisms of his accent, which wasn't liked or accepted for many years. He still embraced it and "owned it" and made it a strength instead of a weakness. I personally prefer the south Asian phonetics to the phlegmy sounds of French. I'm sure many people feel the same way. It's very difficult to speak a foreign language perfectly without some level of an accent, and even if you can it doesn't necessarily make your communication any better.
I loved this. My German teacher said that even though my German isn't very good, my strength is that I'm "fearless." I have embraced that... even if I'm not entirely sure it was meant as a genuine compliment! 🤣
Funny thing about Arnold Schwarzeneggers accent; you would think when they dubbed “The Terminator” in German, that he’d be the one to voice it since German is after all his native language. But turns out his particular Austrian accent was considered too “rural” for the part so he couldn’t even dub the movie he starred in, in his own language 😭 the man legit could not escape criticism of his accent no matter where he went.
but Arnold's accent is fake now. He admitted to making it thicker on purpose. it was kind of obvious, no person would pronounce "work" as "werk" after living for 50 years in US.
@@CoolGobyFishit's got to be a habit at this point. your voice just becomes your voice sometimes, even when in new places and especially if you make an effort
If I had half the time he has I'd be learning not one but three languages simultaneously at the current high intensity. Kudos to him, but money make such things easier.
@@marikothecheetah9342 fuck you mean half the time he has, he's a movie star and WWE wrestler, do you really think an athlete and movie star has time? Jesus Christ...
Tones being off isn’t a big problem. There are many dialects in China and each has very different tones. Native Chinese people also struggle with getting the correct tones in Mandarin.
His Mandarin is atrociously bad, this is coming from someone that is an almost native speaker. It sounds worse than google translate, and with the tones all off.
@@loremasteringwion9930Can he have a conversation with people in Mandarin? If so then it isn’t atrociously bad. People learn languages to communicate with different cultures and it appears he does that so who cares if he isn’t perfect.
@@CloudCoderChap I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just being honest. The closest metaphor I could give you would be if someone put it through google translate, then chose to garble it up even more, to where it's almost unintelligible, except if you translate each word word-for-word back to English.
I'm japanese, and I learnt English in two years by moving to new york, and my way of learning is to learn some English from actual people who have experience, learn some basic languages, Go on PBS kids, watch kids shows for 3 year-olds for about a month, keep moving up the age ratings by a year for every 2 moths, and keep reading the magic treehouse while you're at it, now that you know basic language and some level of fluency, go read harry potter with your knowledge on fantastic words, because you should know to infer the meanings of difficult words and use them in day to day conversation to develop an understanding, watch the movies to get better speech, move up to marvel movies, watch a few, and boom, the speedrun is complete and i can speak fluently in english, and heck, i was better at it than my middle school classmates who were born to speak english
@TropicAOE4 he obviously doesn't live in China and has lots of more important stuff to do than learn Chinese all day so I doubt he's really studied that much in the last few years since the WWE kind of flopped in China.
@@TropicAOE4 to say this about someone who has tried to learn something new says more about who you are and how much you hate yourself for not being perfect than it says about this man trying his best to expand his knowledge of the world. i hope you understand how much of a loser you are 😂 but I'm sure you do
@@VeritatisQ yea it’s difficult but 10 years, even as little as 30 minutes a day, you should be fully conversationally fluent with proper pronunciation and tones
Two weeks away from finishing my B2 French class with Alliance Francaise and still scared of a monologue Olly. Need to overcome it and understand that making mistakes is the only way to get better! Thanks for this!
Will you be taking DALF? If you want to prepare for a speaking part here are a couple of options: a) speak to a relative on a given topic (you can get past exams online and prepare based on that), or... to yourself. b) write a diary - it is an effective method to make you stop and think, but also use the language more freely. When I revised my first entries in English (I started them as a kid) I made so many mistakes :D Writing a diary made me so fluent in speaking I never had to actively learn how to speak English - I just did. c) this might sound weird but... - learn the dialogues from favourite films and act them out. I remember rewatching certain scenes from Wasabi and repeating what characters said. The 'tru' scene is my absolute fav :P
When he asks Rosetta Stone 🤣 Mandarin is tough, but the fact he lived in China for a few months makes a crucial difference. For me it's the tones that hold me back.
Mandarin is hard but if u spent a year in China, it would become easier cause there are many native speaker willing to become a speaking partner to perfected your chinese. Try speaking practice first then learn how to read later.
I'm ethnic Chinese, but different dialect. Been trying to learn Mandarin on and off for 50 years. Recently, I decided to just put that aside and try German instead. It is SO MUCH easier ! 😂 I feel like I'm making progress right away. The inflections and gender is irritating, but grammar is near identical to English. Feels like I only need to expand my vocabulary with an app or two.
No need to worry too much about tones. I was told that I shouldnt learn Chinese by myself because I would probably pronounce the words all wrong. Later I started using lagunage learning apps like Tandem or Hello Talk and started to use my Chinese in conversations with native speakers. I dont want to talk too much with other language learners in Chinese because I think it has a bad influence on my pronounciation. Even if you dont live in China you can kind of build your own language environment this way, it just takes time. I have been watching about 50 tv series and writing with a lot of people before I started to feel more confident about actually speaking Chinese. Now, when I travel to China, I basically only use Chinese talking to others and I tend to make some new friends every time, mostly people who only speak Chinese. People will also ask me for how many years I have been living there while I have only been there on vacation.
I've been speaking Spanish for 23 years now - and still learning new things! I have an Appalachian English accent - East TN - that... whoo boy.... it's still there. And probably will never go away. After all these years I'm ok with that.
I am a learner of Mandarin and Japanese. I find Mandarin easier because the grammar is easier and there are less verb conjugations to remember. Also the tones just came naturally for me and I watched a lot of Chinese movies.
"I watched a lot of Chinese movies" Um. I studied Chinese in the 2000's and I have no idea what Mandarin movies you'd be referring to. Typically HK is the one putting out movies in Canto, so I'm curious what recent movies you'd be referring to? What 'awesome movies' come from China recently?
@@_sparrowhawk Where did he say "Recent" or "Awesome" movies!? I dont think he referring to any specific Chinese movie or calibre of movie, rather that leaving a TV on in China while youre making tea and having the news reader or in this case a "movie" or "TV" show in the background running will surround you with tones and speech your brain isnt used to... instead of drowning out and ignoring the noise if we walk about in London... youre now listening and parsing specific words and tones in Chinese.... There are plenty of movies in China!?? im assuming China releases just as many movies as hollywood if not more!? considering the Chinese now even fund hollywood movies? heck RUclips is full of Chinese movies and of the mandarin kind too! What recent awesome movies!?? how about "YOLO" a comedy, how about the "Investitute of the Gods" their version of "TLoTR" "Wandering Earth" also by Cixin Liu of "3 Body Problem" heck Black Myth Wukong the game!? How about "3 Body Problem" on youtube TV series the Chinese version rather than the Western Netflix version I dont know where youve been to not have a clue about mainland Chinese movies!? but you know all about HK movies lol Again i dont think OP is referring to any specific Chinese movie for learning Chinese, just pick your favourite genre, actress or actor and learn Chinese off them, heck I got good by listening to Jacky Cheung etc
@@エヴァ2629You have to memorize a lot of letters in Japanese too (kanji). Chinese is easier to speak than Japanese, though. There's too many weird formalities in Japanese. Whereas you can just speak Mandarin like you'd speak English. You don't have to account for people's age, gender, relationship to you, etc. Just say what you need to say.
Great video, thank you! I am a white British dude and been speaking Cantonese since the early 90's. I used to live in Hong Kong, my wife is Chinese and my kids are mixed. I am now back in the UK but still speak Cantonese at home. Its amazing speaking another language as it opens up so many more doors and you will enjoy that particular country much more.
I appreciate this. About 10 years ago I gave a keynote talk in Taipei and wanted to use the little Mandarin I knew to apologize for not giving the talk in Mandarin. I botched it, of course. Afterward some students commented that they never knew a professor could have a sense of humor. The key is recognizing that you're the dancing bear -- it's not how well you dance but that you dance at all. As an aside, I wrote the words in Hanzi and also, to be safe in Pinyin. The students there were puzzled by Pinyin. I regret that I haven't had the opportunity to get beyond a dabbling level of Mandarin, but even that is useful. Even without mastering the language, I'm very interested in psycholinguistics. For example, in Hong Kong, I pronounced Taipei as the Chinese Taibei, but it confused them because they didn't recognize the Chinese word in an English sentence.
Thirty years ago having an accent was a huge detriment. Many of my colleagues and college professors made not-so-nice comments about it. I’m glad to see that the attitudes changed dramatically. I’m fluent in three languages and can muddle through a couple more, and I’ve acquired an accent even in my native tongue because I mostly think in English, but now nobody bats an eye at that.
This is my issue with French and Korean, I think in English and speak in another language. But since I learned English and Spanish at the same time, if I speak in Spanish I think in Spanish😅,
Look I do not like wrestling or fighting at all. However, John Cena looks 看起來 like a generally very nice person, and him trying to genuinely understand a different culture which is so different from the one he was raised in is very commendable. Despite never seen any wrestling, this makes him a sort of idol and example to me :)
Accent does matter in a degree. John Cena's tone being all over the place combined with his American accent makes me struggle to make sense of everything he's saying without captions. Besides, learning a native accent is fun
Bruce Lee spoke English with a thick Chinese accent in every one of his films, TV shows and interviews and no one ever made fun of him for it. Why? because he was BRUCE effing LEE. If you are good at what you do, especially in the entertainment industry, fans will forgive most of your flaws. Especially for something as inconsequential as what accent you speak a foreign language with.
God he was so freaking amazing! I really really hate that he was gone especially as soon as he was! I loved listening to his interviews and I absolutely adored his accent!
I had a high school teacher from Japan who moved to Berkeley, California in his 20's to attend university. He sounded American. He did not have a Japanese accent at all. He was 60 at the time. So he lived in the United States for 40 years. It takes quite a long time of consistent immersion to adapt to an accent
@@crosisofborg5524 Storylearning is a good program for Russian. BeFluentInRussian also has good material, as does BoostYourRussian. I would recommend any or all of them. I'm a little more than halfway through StoryLearning's Russian Uncovered 1, and will be starting Level 2 as soon as I've finished (already purchased it). Pimsleur Russian is good for what it is... Bear in mind the full 90 lessons amount to only 45 hours, and its main focus is on tourist type dialogues. I think the best benefits from it are accent development and familiarity with sentence structure. It (Pimsleur) was the first program I studied years ago, and have consistently received compliments on my accent from native speakers. Because I already had a background, when I started StoryLearning, a lot of it was review (maybe the first 5 modules), but I've definitely been learning since then, and it's also been tying together the knowledge I already had. I would definitely recommend it, the natural learning method works!
True. You listen to people from different regions in China speaking Mandarin, and the tones are all over the place, but you can still understand it (maybe just have to pay a little more attention).
Currently I’m trying to improve my spoken English and extend my active vocabulary. In fact, i signed up for an English class, and tomorrow is my first day. Not gonna lie, I’m somewhat nervous, but there is nothing i wouldn’t do for the person I’m learning English in the first place.
Good luck! You can do it! Also, embrace your accent! I think it's so unbelievably beautiful when people speak English, but they have their native accent. Not only because it sounds so beautiful, but it also shows that English is not your first language and how hard you've had to work. It's something to definitely be proud of!
@@alb91878 Thank you for your kind words :) Actually my accent in English is very natural. I don’t sound like a native English speaker by any means, but you wouldn’t know that I’m from Germany. My Girlfriend is from the UK, and she’s constantly telling me how much she loves my German accent.
For what it's worth, you're doing a good job of American-style conversational English right now. This comment doesn't immediately put you as being ESL. Don't worry about it ❤
Nobody over here cares about accents I can assure you. We've got plenty of obscure dialects and established dialects based on foreign people's accents even. I usually have a harder time understanding German southerners than foreigners.
I loved this video. First, I want to tell you that I have read your Short Stories in Norwegian, and it was mye godt. Second, I love the points you make about learning a language and the importance of not fearing judgment. When I was learning French, I was visiting a French family, trying so hard to sound French, but they would smile and chuckle as I spoke. They finally admitted they found my American accent "so pretty". It was then that I realized that no matter who you are, you have an accent. I have an American accent, but I have cousins from Texas with their accent. People in Australia and England also speak my language, but they have their own accents. As long as we all understand each other who cares if there is an accent? This breakthrough helped me when I learned to speak Danish, and of course I still remember it when I speak French. I am me. I speak how I do. The goal is communication and friendship, not perfection.
I notice that musicians, people who are very good at mimicry of sounds, become very fluent in a second language. It has a lot to do with the language of music itself, like going from one genre style to another seamlessly is easier for a musician to do. Not saying learning a secondary language is easy for any musician at all. But it’s a huge help as far as mimicking intonations and inflections and of course learning the culture behind these languages.
I’ve found exactly this. When I try and speak in my target language (I’m a low B1 level) I always get what appear to be genuine and surprised compliments on my accent. My vocabulary is pretty good. It’s everything else that holds me back. I think in some circumstances it could get me in trouble, if I do sound more fluent than I am and people aren’t just being unnaturally polite then I need to be sure to not accidentally agree to something I don’t fully understand if the other person thinks I get what’s going on. I was away on a work trip and there was a native speaker of my target language there who encouraged me to introduce myself to her and she said she really wouldn’t have guessed I’d never been to the country. She doesn’t know me and had no need to be polite. So I think there is a great deal of truth in the musician mimic idea. I also cheat the speaking tests on my mums duolingo for her when she’s getting stuck in a language I don’t speak. She understands it, but I can parrot it back.
0:23 I was searching for these Flip Clocks a few days ago, these from the picture are the cheapest ones. They said on the internet, they last only for a few months.
Good luck, I recommend learning the International Phonetic Alphabet and how Spanish pronunciation works, if you haven’t already. It will help you sound like a native and pronounce Spanish words easier.
Thank you for this, I wish the website had Tagalog as a language, here in Connecticut there are plenty that speak it, but I've always been too scared to be judged by mispronouncing something. I'm looking forward to trying to find a website that I can look at every day since I work from home.
I have the Rico Sauve accent and the Ladies always say some times I just don't know what he's saying but I just Love to hear him talk...yours very truly Alfonso Cantu USMC
I used to think he was just a silly WWE person but lately i have come to realize he is actually very intelligent in many ways not just in learning chinese
I remember during a marching band parade, I heard one of my friends being chastised by her mother yelling at each other in Chinese. I asked if she was ok and she said, oh yeah she was just asking if I wanted something to drink cuz it was so hot. I only understood after about the tones and ways of pronouncing things that often they weren’t arguing just legit speaking normally 😂
our local ESL school used "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for English language lessons. The series had a lot of fun with language (coined the term "shirty" for example).
I also learned Chinese Mandarin. Guess what: we long-nose folks sound as funny to them when we speak their language as they sound to us when their accent is strong while using our languages.
People act like Mandarin is hard, but it has no verb endings like Spanish, no declensions like German, and no grammatical gender. It's very different from English and the writing is hard, sure, but the grammar is so much easier than the European languages that people usually go for.
What's hard about it is principally that it's so unpredictable and flexible. Grammatical categories are extremely flexible until they're not, the distinction between subjective and objective is rarely observed, and causal description tends to be haphazard. And then, as with any language, most native speakers are just not very careful or accurate. Here's a genuine sentence I found on YT the other day: 如果是其他國家的話，台北就是治安非常好 ("What locals live & hate about Taipei: Easy Taiwanese Mandarin 22"). Clearly the speaker means to say that Taipei is very safe *compared to* other countries, but what he actually says is nonsense, because he doesn't bother to use 相比. To succeed in Mandarin, you need to tolerate a very high level of ambiguity.
The guy is loaded, filthy rich and WWE still paid for the language learning. Mind blowing. On a slightly more congratulatory note, he's done well in his career. So has Olly. Hello 😎
Yeah, I have a normal job, work in three languages at it, and in my spare time I learn Japanese. Where is my medal? Oh, that's right, nowhere, because I'm not famous :/
100% fear of judgement shuts you down. I studied Arabic in college and I never drank, except this one time. Alcohol made Arabic so much easier to speak. It becomes easier when you throw away all inhibitions.
I speak English (american) Spanish (half mexican and grew up in a 95% hispanic town) and Japanese. (Started learning in 2022) I don't really care to learn Chinese because Japanese is taking enough of my time. Japanese also aligned with my interest more. (Video games, anime, Japanese culture, music, ect)
Alright ! Great John Cena , a cool American who loves China and put the time to learn Chinese, and even stays there for 5 months! He speaks quite well actually! This sort of people to people exchange brings peace to the world! 👍👍👍
My native language is Iranian Farsi and the funny thing is since I spend most of my learning time playing games and watching movies I got an American accent while because of the classes I took with Iranian tutors I can also talk English with Persian accent lol. My next goal is Japanese and since I'm mostly relying on immersion methods, so far my Japanese accent isn't so much influenced by my 2 other accents.
I am a native Chinese speaker,when we started to learn English,we tend to use Chinese grammar with English,people call it Chinglish,his mandarin for me is definitely Engarin😂,but I really like him,he is very popular among young people in China.
''Friends'' was also a big part of my English learning. I wish I could find a show like that in Cantonese. Anyway... it's true that the important is the confidence. I do mistakes in the little bit of Cantonese I know but my husband (native speaker) always tells me he understands because of the context. But something weird about learning with someone not born in the country is I pronounce some words the old way... like I/Me. I've learned "ngo". But if you listen young people that teach Cantonese they often say something more like "ho". The "lazy" pronunciation is getting more and more common so now I speak like the older generations! Anyway! Learning a Chinese language is a huge achievement, great accent or not!
@@juanmacias5922bit of a strech isnt it? You probably eat pizza with a spoon Ive got the same amount of info to base that on as you had for the other guy😂
@@joedwyer3297 you say that, and I totally get where you are coming from. But going off of his username "copeandseethe" and comment, I can tell this guy has some right-wing ideals. Also, how'd you know I was from Chicago? HAHA! ;D
this is a completely word by word translated from an English speaking person's mindset, he should learn harder. But that Bing Chilling is hilarious lol
I really wouldn’t use him as an example of someone who speaks Chinese. Its great that he is learning, but his tones are way off, almost unintelligible.
@@Matt-jc2ml for basic vocabulary yes, but if you listen to a speech by him where he has to use a less common word, because he gets the tone wrong most of the time, you really have to think to figure out what he is saying
Despite learning Finnish for almost 10 years, I can still hear my accent. But both of my tutors have told me it's not as strong as I think it is, so that helps.
Yeah, his Chinese is a little bit hard to understand sometimes, but that doesn’t really mean people won’t like him. You made some really good points in this video. But even if one billion people love you, your own family may not approve.
Personally I think Mandarin is easier than the Spanish language. It is not hard for me. It just takes time to invest in this language. Thanks Oily for your video and the encouragement you gave us to get out of our comfort zone!😀 Woot! Let's do this!
As someone who studied Mandarin and lived in China for a couple of years, there's knowing Chinese....and KNOWING CHINESE. There's speaking Chinese...understanding Chinese being spoken...and reading Chinese. They are three different things and each has its peculiarities. The thing you have on your side is that Chinese characters represent a single vowel. That's where the easy part ends. In the Chinese language there are four TONES and depending on which one you use (and in what context) the same phonetic word can have a different meaning. To comprehend a Chinese newspaper, you need to recognize a minimum of 700 characters and really many people think 1500. And, it goes on...and on. To a Chinese person, John Cena's Chinese would be considered understandable (with a bit of difficulty), but a bit humorous. Still...I think people everywhere appreciate it when a foreigner (or "weiguoren") makes an honest effort to speak their language. As an ambassador for the U.S., John Cena has done just fine.
@@watersoup6270 In terms of defining the hardest language to learn, it is entirely relative to what one's native language is. For an English speaker, there are all sorts of languages with no commonality. Hungarian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian, Arabic, and Turkish are just a few. Having taken immersion Chinese in China, I can attest to how hard it is to learn a language with no similarities to Germanic languages like English.
@@watersoup6270 I am Kazakh, currently studing chinese and I find it easier than it was when I was studying english. Kazakh language has been culturally enriched with sounds and words from persian, arabic and russian languages. So I guess I can pretty much pronounce correctly any word from any language. It is only natural that countries which bordered ancient china and had contacts with it will find it easier to learn mandarin than english or any other european language.
I think there might be another level to all these situations of the especially persistent accents beyond the niche appeal. I think it is the languages themselves both intrinsically and extrinsically. I think like mentioned at the front the phonemes particularly when the adopted language phoneme acquisition is not an early intervention it is just impossible to acquire. Then there is the fact about the interference of dialect differences in a particular language when learning via immersion in an area with a strong regional accent of the target language. The most amazingly skilled rhotic American accent mimicry Brits for the life of them will always speak non-rhotic no matter what. I have a DC accent natively I can do a NYC or New England it is almost perfect, but I give myself away by forgetting the exceptions to the rule of the linking r and will default to always using the linking r even when there is no immediately subsequent vowel requiring a linking concept. I even Mandella effect-ed myself into believe it that New England accents use superfluous linking r's but listening to JFK speech to confirm the notion it turned out whether he said Cuba or Cubar was context dependent, and it was NOT the case he always said Cubar like I thought I remembered. My Castilian accent is spot on when speaking Spanish, as it is what I had formal experience in and started studying relatively young, and even though I can include or exclude the Castilian lisp at will, but my Spanglish always sounds funny to people because it doesn't reflect the dialect of Spanish they consider default. Now French can't pronounce a dang thing the right way, but I also refuse to improve on the basis that it is an inherently stupid language with unnecessary complications for no reason other than giving the pompous French people more reasons to use pedantry as a justification for being nasty people addicted to drama. No fricatives for me. they are gross sounds.
wait... I'm a native English speaker and the first language I decided to learn seriously was ... category 5?? I didn't even know LMAOOO oh well. I'll keep at it. I love the Japanese culture and how it revolves around respect. It's SO beautiful.
I loved the fact that the English language is not even presented in the chart @3:34 lol. Probably they did not consider it, but still I like to believe that it is no even in Category I LOL.
The chart is designed to show how difficult other languages are for native English speakers. You cannot rank languages for difficulty without a baseline. This chart uses English as the baseline. As an example if you are a speaker of Korean, then Chinese will not be a category 5 language for you because it may share similarities with Korean, but English may be a category 5 language for you.
Dude, as an English speaker it's litteraly the easiest thing in the world to make fun of someone's accent. It's also looked down on for obvious reasons. Appreciate they're learning. Everyone applies the sounds from their native language, which is how you can tell a German accent from an Italian accent from a Chinese accent.
For ten years, I would expect way better tones. I can't understand him without the subtitles. Tonal language teachers need to use songs to teach tones rather than lines and numbers.
If you actually study A LOT and for 4 years, it's no surprise you're going to learn. Do that for 10 years, and something is seriously wrong if you _don't learn._
I am polyglot, i can speak four languages fluently and in the way to learn chinese and russian. To be sincere learning chinese is very hard but not impossible if you have motivation
Some people make fun of his accent. But as a lifelong Mandarin speaker, I can hear that he puts effort into his tone. Not perfect at all, but he tries. Mandarin pronunciation is extremely hard at an older age. My accent is near native since I learned them at a very young age, my parents' accents, while understandable, I don't think will ever be native. I've seen many of my friends struggle too
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John Cena has a slight accent
My friends daughter speaks mandarin, and Cantonese
She's not Chinese neither
@@kathleenking47 Admit it, she also doesn't speak mandarin, nor cantonese. It's by the pure grace of the Chinese that you deceive yourself otherwise. Btw, everytime I see a resume that dares claim "bilingual", I immediately turn the interview into a roasting session. For example, does "bilingual" mean one is equally illiterate in both languages? And why should anyone believe the rest of the claims on the resume?
Hi @storylearning , It is John Xina
Shit even I don't understand wwe.
Love how you promote “owning your accent” and “no shame in speaking”. Great attitude. This works with acquisition of non-language-related skills too.
Accent and pronunciations are 2 different thing as you see.
Lol owning your accent works as far as the accent is more liked and accepted. For example, a French accent vs an Indian accent. The connotation is obvious.
@@sheridan1700 Not really. Like the example with Arnold in the video and the criticisms of his accent, which wasn't liked or accepted for many years. He still embraced it and "owned it" and made it a strength instead of a weakness. I personally prefer the south Asian phonetics to the phlegmy sounds of French. I'm sure many people feel the same way. It's very difficult to speak a foreign language perfectly without some level of an accent, and even if you can it doesn't necessarily make your communication any better.
I loved this. My German teacher said that even though my German isn't very good, my strength is that I'm "fearless." I have embraced that... even if I'm not entirely sure it was meant as a genuine compliment! 🤣
我也在学德语，我也许缺乏你这样的精神哈哈哈
Hi, quick question, what TV shows can I watch to help my german?
Well done for being fearless!
If your German teacher is German, it was. If they aren't, maybe not.
Ich lehre euch deutsch. Hallo from Austria. 🤝
@@TheCrabbersi duno but i like kika :D
I find digusting how some are criticising his way of speaking. His Chinese may not be perfect but he's trying so he deserves to be respected.
But it is REALLY bad, like REALLY, REALLY bad (I am the citizen of a Chinese speaking country...).
Funny thing about Arnold Schwarzeneggers accent; you would think when they dubbed “The Terminator” in German, that he’d be the one to voice it since German is after all his native language. But turns out his particular Austrian accent was considered too “rural” for the part so he couldn’t even dub the movie he starred in, in his own language 😭 the man legit could not escape criticism of his accent no matter where he went.
but Arnold's accent is fake now. He admitted to making it thicker on purpose. it was kind of obvious, no person would pronounce "work" as "werk" after living for 50 years in US.
@@CoolGobyFishit's got to be a habit at this point. your voice just becomes your voice sometimes, even when in new places and especially if you make an effort
@@nostalgiatrip7331 I can see having a slight accent. But that's it. He does it on purpose to keep his image. I am curious how he sounds off camera.
@@CoolGobyFish yeah maybe now it’s fake but I’m talking about when the terminator was being filmed.
This is like country folks intnhe USA and the country folks in England 😅
Whether he is rich or not, he certainly worked hard to achieve that. You can't buy it.
If I had half the time he has I'd be learning not one but three languages simultaneously at the current high intensity. Kudos to him, but money make such things easier.
"You can't buy it", i love this.
@@marikothecheetah9342 he still has a busy life, you make time for things you want. Chinese is still incredibly difficult.
@@marikothecheetah9342 fuck you mean half the time he has, he's a movie star and WWE wrestler, do you really think an athlete and movie star has time? Jesus Christ...
@@marikothecheetah9342 no one cares
Yea his tones are off sometimes but he’s way better than I.
They're off all the time lol
Tones being off isn’t a big problem. There are many dialects in China and each has very different tones. Native Chinese people also struggle with getting the correct tones in Mandarin.
His Mandarin is atrociously bad, this is coming from someone that is an almost native speaker. It sounds worse than google translate, and with the tones all off.
@@loremasteringwion9930Can he have a conversation with people in Mandarin? If so then it isn’t atrociously bad. People learn languages to communicate with different cultures and it appears he does that so who cares if he isn’t perfect.
@@CloudCoderChap I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just being honest. The closest metaphor I could give you would be if someone put it through google translate, then chose to garble it up even more, to where it's almost unintelligible, except if you translate each word word-for-word back to English.
I'm japanese, and I learnt English in two years by moving to new york, and my way of learning is to learn some English from actual people who have experience, learn some basic languages, Go on PBS kids, watch kids shows for 3 year-olds for about a month, keep moving up the age ratings by a year for every 2 moths, and keep reading the magic treehouse while you're at it, now that you know basic language and some level of fluency, go read harry potter with your knowledge on fantastic words, because you should know to infer the meanings of difficult words and use them in day to day conversation to develop an understanding, watch the movies to get better speech, move up to marvel movies, watch a few, and boom, the speedrun is complete and i can speak fluently in english, and heck, i was better at it than my middle school classmates who were born to speak english
TLDR: He got free tutoring for a few years and studied hard for 10+ years.
10 years for really mediocre Chinese? That’s pretty disappointing
@TropicAOE4 he obviously doesn't live in China and has lots of more important stuff to do than learn Chinese all day so I doubt he's really studied that much in the last few years since the WWE kind of flopped in China.
@@TropicAOE4 to say this about someone who has tried to learn something new says more about who you are and how much you hate yourself for not being perfect than it says about this man trying his best to expand his knowledge of the world. i hope you understand how much of a loser you are 😂 but I'm sure you do
@@TropicAOE4 isn't Cena some white guy from Ohio? Chinese is top 3 most difficult language to learn for westerners.
@@VeritatisQ yea it’s difficult but 10 years, even as little as 30 minutes a day, you should be fully conversationally fluent with proper pronunciation and tones
Two weeks away from finishing my B2 French class with Alliance Francaise and still scared of a monologue Olly. Need to overcome it and understand that making mistakes is the only way to get better! Thanks for this!
Will you be taking DALF? If you want to prepare for a speaking part here are a couple of options:
a) speak to a relative on a given topic (you can get past exams online and prepare based on that), or... to yourself.
b) write a diary - it is an effective method to make you stop and think, but also use the language more freely. When I revised my first entries in English (I started them as a kid) I made so many mistakes :D Writing a diary made me so fluent in speaking I never had to actively learn how to speak English - I just did.
c) this might sound weird but... - learn the dialogues from favourite films and act them out. I remember rewatching certain scenes from Wasabi and repeating what characters said. The 'tru' scene is my absolute fav :P
@@marikothecheetah9342 TCF then DALF. Thanks!
When he asks Rosetta Stone 🤣 Mandarin is tough, but the fact he lived in China for a few months makes a crucial difference. For me it's the tones that hold me back.
Mandarin is hard but if u spent a year in China, it would become easier cause there are many native speaker willing to become a speaking partner to perfected your chinese. Try speaking practice first then learn how to read later.
@@darthpapa696l actually agree with you
I'm ethnic Chinese, but different dialect. Been trying to learn Mandarin on and off for 50 years. Recently, I decided to just put that aside and try German instead. It is SO MUCH easier ! 😂 I feel like I'm making progress right away. The inflections and gender is irritating, but grammar is near identical to English. Feels like I only need to expand my vocabulary with an app or two.
No need to worry too much about tones. I was told that I shouldnt learn Chinese by myself because I would probably pronounce the words all wrong. Later I started using lagunage learning apps like Tandem or Hello Talk and started to use my Chinese in conversations with native speakers. I dont want to talk too much with other language learners in Chinese because I think it has a bad influence on my pronounciation. Even if you dont live in China you can kind of build your own language environment this way, it just takes time. I have been watching about 50 tv series and writing with a lot of people before I started to feel more confident about actually speaking Chinese. Now, when I travel to China, I basically only use Chinese talking to others and I tend to make some new friends every time, mostly people who only speak Chinese. People will also ask me for how many years I have been living there while I have only been there on vacation.
He's awesome. Anybody who puts in the effort is commendable.
I've been speaking Spanish for 23 years now - and still learning new things! I have an Appalachian English accent - East TN - that... whoo boy.... it's still there. And probably will never go away. After all these years I'm ok with that.
I am a learner of Mandarin and Japanese. I find Mandarin easier because the grammar is easier and there are less verb conjugations to remember. Also the tones just came naturally for me and I watched a lot of Chinese movies.
That's right, Japanese have many polite words . I learned Japanese and it's harder , but not imposible. Greetings from Guatemala 🇬🇹.
"I watched a lot of Chinese movies"
Um. I studied Chinese in the 2000's and I have no idea what Mandarin movies you'd be referring to. Typically HK is the one putting out movies in Canto, so I'm curious what recent movies you'd be referring to? What 'awesome movies' come from China recently?
@@_sparrowhawk Where did he say "Recent" or "Awesome" movies!?
I dont think he referring to any specific Chinese movie or calibre of movie, rather that leaving a TV on in China while youre making tea and having the news reader or in this case a "movie" or "TV" show in the background running will surround you with tones and speech your brain isnt used to... instead of drowning out and ignoring the noise if we walk about in London... youre now listening and parsing specific words and tones in Chinese....
There are plenty of movies in China!?? im assuming China releases just as many movies as hollywood if not more!? considering the Chinese now even fund hollywood movies?
heck RUclips is full of Chinese movies and of the mandarin kind too!
What recent awesome movies!?? how about "YOLO" a comedy, how about the "Investitute of the Gods" their version of "TLoTR" "Wandering Earth" also by Cixin Liu of "3 Body Problem" heck Black Myth Wukong the game!? How about "3 Body Problem" on youtube TV series the Chinese version rather than the Western Netflix version
I dont know where youve been to not have a clue about mainland Chinese movies!? but you know all about HK movies lol
Again i dont think OP is referring to any specific Chinese movie for learning Chinese, just pick your favourite genre, actress or actor and learn Chinese off them, heck I got good by listening to Jacky Cheung etc
I think japanese is easier because Chinese has too many characters to memorize but japanese doesnt
@@エヴァ2629You have to memorize a lot of letters in Japanese too (kanji). Chinese is easier to speak than Japanese, though. There's too many weird formalities in Japanese. Whereas you can just speak Mandarin like you'd speak English. You don't have to account for people's age, gender, relationship to you, etc. Just say what you need to say.
Great video, thank you! I am a white British dude and been speaking Cantonese since the early 90's. I used to live in Hong Kong, my wife is Chinese and my kids are mixed. I am now back in the UK but still speak Cantonese at home. Its amazing speaking another language as it opens up so many more doors and you will enjoy that particular country much more.
I appreciate this. About 10 years ago I gave a keynote talk in Taipei and wanted to use the little Mandarin I knew to apologize for not giving the talk in Mandarin. I botched it, of course. Afterward some students commented that they never knew a professor could have a sense of humor. The key is recognizing that you're the dancing bear -- it's not how well you dance but that you dance at all. As an aside, I wrote the words in Hanzi and also, to be safe in Pinyin. The students there were puzzled by Pinyin.
I regret that I haven't had the opportunity to get beyond a dabbling level of Mandarin, but even that is useful. Even without mastering the language, I'm very interested in psycholinguistics. For example, in Hong Kong, I pronounced Taipei as the Chinese Taibei, but it confused them because they didn't recognize the Chinese word in an English sentence.
Thirty years ago having an accent was a huge detriment. Many of my colleagues and college professors made not-so-nice comments about it. I’m glad to see that the attitudes changed dramatically. I’m fluent in three languages and can muddle through a couple more, and I’ve acquired an accent even in my native tongue because I mostly think in English, but now nobody bats an eye at that.
@@JuliaARubin English is language of business, anyway
Worldwide
This is my issue with French and Korean, I think in English and speak in another language. But since I learned English and Spanish at the same time, if I speak in Spanish I think in Spanish😅,
Look I do not like wrestling or fighting at all. However, John Cena looks 看起來 like a generally very nice person, and him trying to genuinely understand a different culture which is so different from the one he was raised in is very commendable. Despite never seen any wrestling, this makes him a sort of idol and example to me :)
Youre correct hes an incredible person for many reasons. John cena donates alot of his time to charity at childrens hospitals
Accent does matter in a degree. John Cena's tone being all over the place combined with his American accent makes me struggle to make sense of everything he's saying without captions. Besides, learning a native accent is fun
yeah... his chinese is terrible...
但是說實在的，感覺小時候沒有學中文的話聲調蠻難改的，特別是白人。好多歐洲朋友的口音我怎麼教也改不了
Bruce Lee spoke English with a thick Chinese accent in every one of his films, TV shows and interviews and no one ever made fun of him for it. Why? because he was BRUCE effing LEE. If you are good at what you do, especially in the entertainment industry, fans will forgive most of your flaws. Especially for something as inconsequential as what accent you speak a foreign language with.
God he was so freaking amazing! I really really hate that he was gone especially as soon as he was! I loved listening to his interviews and I absolutely adored his accent!
8:34 Soz, bro. As a Chinese, I have to rectify u. Chinese also repeat words to emphasis.
I had a high school teacher from Japan who moved to Berkeley, California in his 20's to attend university. He sounded American. He did not have a Japanese accent at all. He was 60 at the time. So he lived in the United States for 40 years. It takes quite a long time of consistent immersion to adapt to an accent
I'm learning Russian and watching the show "Кухни" has helped SO MUCH!!
Where do you watch it?
I’m trying to learn Russian too. Duolingo so far but it’s not that good.
@@crosisofborg5524 Storylearning is a good program for Russian. BeFluentInRussian also has good material, as does BoostYourRussian. I would recommend any or all of them. I'm a little more than halfway through StoryLearning's Russian Uncovered 1, and will be starting Level 2 as soon as I've finished (already purchased it). Pimsleur Russian is good for what it is... Bear in mind the full 90 lessons amount to only 45 hours, and its main focus is on tourist type dialogues. I think the best benefits from it are accent development and familiarity with sentence structure. It (Pimsleur) was the first program I studied years ago, and have consistently received compliments on my accent from native speakers. Because I already had a background, when I started StoryLearning, a lot of it was review (maybe the first 5 modules), but I've definitely been learning since then, and it's also been tying together the knowledge I already had. I would definitely recommend it, the natural learning method works!
I think you mean кухня? @Ghost_Os it's on youtube
@@joseffindradjaja5435 Many thanks!
Actually the tone can be changed based on different local dialects. People can still understand the different tone thru whole sentence or paragraph.
True. You listen to people from different regions in China speaking Mandarin, and the tones are all over the place, but you can still understand it (maybe just have to pay a little more attention).
Currently I’m trying to improve my spoken English and extend my active vocabulary. In fact, i signed up for an English class, and tomorrow is my first day. Not gonna lie, I’m somewhat nervous, but there is nothing i wouldn’t do for the person I’m learning English in the first place.
Good luck! You can do it! Also, embrace your accent! I think it's so unbelievably beautiful when people speak English, but they have their native accent. Not only because it sounds so beautiful, but it also shows that English is not your first language and how hard you've had to work. It's something to definitely be proud of!
@@alb91878 Thank you for your kind words :)
Actually my accent in English is very natural. I don’t sound like a native English speaker by any means, but you wouldn’t know that I’m from Germany. My Girlfriend is from the UK, and she’s constantly telling me how much she loves my German accent.
@@Ioannis.Stf.1996 That person you’re learning for is a lucky soul!
For what it's worth, you're doing a good job of American-style conversational English right now. This comment doesn't immediately put you as being ESL. Don't worry about it ❤
hey! how it's going?
Arnold's accent is 100% fake now. He mispronounces words on purpose. He even admitted to it. So it's not a good example.
I’ve just started my journey to learn German. I’ve got a strong Lancashire accent. He’s given me so much confidence to keep learning.
Nobody over here cares about accents I can assure you. We've got plenty of obscure dialects and established dialects based on foreign people's accents even. I usually have a harder time understanding German southerners than foreigners.
So John Cena is Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Chinese
You're a terrific story teller.
Another great Olly! You're one of the very best!
Arnold Schwarzenegger would lose all the charm if he lost the accent.
I loved this video. First, I want to tell you that I have read your Short Stories in Norwegian, and it was mye godt. Second, I love the points you make about learning a language and the importance of not fearing judgment. When I was learning French, I was visiting a French family, trying so hard to sound French, but they would smile and chuckle as I spoke. They finally admitted they found my American accent "so pretty". It was then that I realized that no matter who you are, you have an accent. I have an American accent, but I have cousins from Texas with their accent. People in Australia and England also speak my language, but they have their own accents. As long as we all understand each other who cares if there is an accent? This breakthrough helped me when I learned to speak Danish, and of course I still remember it when I speak French. I am me. I speak how I do. The goal is communication and friendship, not perfection.
I notice that musicians, people who are very good at mimicry of sounds, become very fluent in a second language. It has a lot to do with the language of music itself, like going from one genre style to another seamlessly is easier for a musician to do. Not saying learning a secondary language is easy for any musician at all. But it’s a huge help as far as mimicking intonations and inflections and of course learning the culture behind these languages.
I’ve found exactly this. When I try and speak in my target language (I’m a low B1 level) I always get what appear to be genuine and surprised compliments on my accent. My vocabulary is pretty good. It’s everything else that holds me back. I think in some circumstances it could get me in trouble, if I do sound more fluent than I am and people aren’t just being unnaturally polite then I need to be sure to not accidentally agree to something I don’t fully understand if the other person thinks I get what’s going on. I was away on a work trip and there was a native speaker of my target language there who encouraged me to introduce myself to her and she said she really wouldn’t have guessed I’d never been to the country. She doesn’t know me and had no need to be polite. So I think there is a great deal of truth in the musician mimic idea. I also cheat the speaking tests on my mums duolingo for her when she’s getting stuck in a language I don’t speak. She understands it, but I can parrot it back.
thats me! I play the piano and studied 6 languages
0:23 I was searching for these Flip Clocks a few days ago, these from the picture are the cheapest ones. They said on the internet, they last only for a few months.
I have an accent but I am always getting compliments on how nice it sounds. There is no way I'll get rid of it.
Ukrainian living in Canada.
12:41 they dubbed over his German in Standard German in Germany for his terminator movies even though he did his own dub
Did not know this.
Awesome!
I love this! As a speaker of 7 languages, I was nodding along the entire time, it's all about confidence!
Currently learning Spanish.
Good luck, I recommend learning the International Phonetic Alphabet and how Spanish pronunciation works, if you haven’t already. It will help you sound like a native and pronounce Spanish words easier.
Thank you for this, I wish the website had Tagalog as a language, here in Connecticut there are plenty that speak it, but I've always been too scared to be judged by mispronouncing something. I'm looking forward to trying to find a website that I can look at every day since I work from home.
When will Short Stories in Chinese be available? I can’t wait for it.
I have the Rico Sauve accent and the Ladies always say some times I just don't know what he's saying but I just Love to hear him talk...yours very truly Alfonso Cantu USMC
i love how german got his own category on the chart at 3.34 haha
I used to think he was just a silly WWE person but lately i have come to realize he is actually very intelligent in many ways not just in learning chinese
His enthusiasm carries him through!
Love this.
I remember during a marching band parade, I heard one of my friends being chastised by her mother yelling at each other in Chinese. I asked if she was ok and she said, oh yeah she was just asking if I wanted something to drink cuz it was so hot.
I only understood after about the tones and ways of pronouncing things that often they weren’t arguing just legit speaking normally 😂
our local ESL school used "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for English language lessons. The series had a lot of fun with language (coined the term "shirty" for example).
我也喜欢说汉语和我是美国人。by the way, Chinese book would be interesting, especially if you have short stories.
我也喜欢说汉语！
@@郝宝妍 太好了！你的汉语怎么好？
@@acwright 我说汉语说得很好。可是,我只会说一点儿。你呢？
平平。说一点儿。我的家只我说汉语。
@@acwright 我也是。 你为什么学习汉语？
Lol I wasn’t expecting a linguist ripping on John Cena’s Chinese. lol
Keen for that chinese story learning book.
I loooved your video (exactly this video). It was very interesting
I also learned Chinese Mandarin. Guess what: we long-nose folks sound as funny to them when we speak their language as they sound to us when their accent is strong while using our languages.
你不看到我got me cracking 😂🤦♂️
Jon Cena speaks Chinese not only very badly but his pronunciation actually hurts people's ears.
I started learning Mandarin but quickly found myself over my head
I just found your video here. Turns out I bought one of your books some time ago 😂
3:33 is that chart include the alphabet as the reason the language is rated as some of the hardest?
You explain well..
the your videos are amazing 👍🏻
Let's have the same forgiving attitude when we hear people "mangle" English grammar and accents.
People act like Mandarin is hard, but it has no verb endings like Spanish, no declensions like German, and no grammatical gender. It's very different from English and the writing is hard, sure, but the grammar is so much easier than the European languages that people usually go for.
这个很对!
What's hard about it is principally that it's so unpredictable and flexible. Grammatical categories are extremely flexible until they're not, the distinction between subjective and objective is rarely observed, and causal description tends to be haphazard. And then, as with any language, most native speakers are just not very careful or accurate. Here's a genuine sentence I found on YT the other day: 如果是其他國家的話，台北就是治安非常好 ("What locals live & hate about Taipei: Easy Taiwanese Mandarin 22").
Clearly the speaker means to say that Taipei is very safe *compared to* other countries, but what he actually says is nonsense, because he doesn't bother to use 相比. To succeed in Mandarin, you need to tolerate a very high level of ambiguity.
"I was watching Lucy Liu walking away and I was fascinated so I decided I wanted to learn Mandarin."
Fascinated by what? She's an Asian American. English is her native language.
@@_sparrowhawk It is only right that you learn about the culture that an ass comes from.
Day 83 streak of Mandarin. Is anyone else using Hello Chinese and / /Super Chinese daily?
The guy is loaded, filthy rich and WWE still paid for the language learning. Mind blowing. On a slightly more congratulatory note, he's done well in his career. So has Olly. Hello 😎
Yeah, I have a normal job, work in three languages at it, and in my spare time I learn Japanese. Where is my medal? Oh, that's right, nowhere, because I'm not famous :/
@@marikothecheetah9342 Impressive. 😀
100% fear of judgement shuts you down. I studied Arabic in college and I never drank, except this one time. Alcohol made Arabic so much easier to speak. It becomes easier when you throw away all inhibitions.
I speak English (american) Spanish (half mexican and grew up in a 95% hispanic town) and Japanese. (Started learning in 2022)
I don't really care to learn Chinese because Japanese is taking enough of my time. Japanese also aligned with my interest more. (Video games, anime, Japanese culture, music, ect)
He’s also a celebrity that has the most make-a-wish granted. Great guy
Alright ! Great John Cena , a cool American who loves China and put the time to learn Chinese, and even stays there for 5 months! He speaks quite well actually! This sort of people to people exchange brings peace to the world! 👍👍👍
My native language is Iranian Farsi and the funny thing is since I spend most of my learning time playing games and watching movies I got an American accent while because of the classes I took with Iranian tutors I can also talk English with Persian accent lol. My next goal is Japanese and since I'm mostly relying on immersion methods, so far my Japanese accent isn't so much influenced by my 2 other accents.
At least he is trying- most people appreciate your effort even if you aren’t very good at
I am a native Chinese speaker,when we started to learn English,we tend to use Chinese grammar with English,people call it Chinglish,his mandarin for me is definitely Engarin😂,but I really like him,he is very popular among young people in China.
He is also the best chinese rapper ever ,known as Zhong Xina!
Thank to you and to John i will continue to learn Chineese
''Friends'' was also a big part of my English learning. I wish I could find a show like that in Cantonese. Anyway... it's true that the important is the confidence. I do mistakes in the little bit of Cantonese I know but my husband (native speaker) always tells me he understands because of the context. But something weird about learning with someone not born in the country is I pronounce some words the old way... like I/Me. I've learned "ngo". But if you listen young people that teach Cantonese they often say something more like "ho". The "lazy" pronunciation is getting more and more common so now I speak like the older generations! Anyway! Learning a Chinese language is a huge achievement, great accent or not!
Yet another person bullied into apologizing for stating a simple fact about Taiwan.
Yeah, that's pretty sad.
cry
@@copeandseethe9279 says the guy who most likely defends child marriage.
@@juanmacias5922bit of a strech isnt it? You probably eat pizza with a spoon
Ive got the same amount of info to base that on as you had for the other guy😂
@@joedwyer3297 you say that, and I totally get where you are coming from. But going off of his username "copeandseethe" and comment, I can tell this guy has some right-wing ideals. Also, how'd you know I was from Chicago? HAHA! ;D
“早上好中国，现在我有冰淇淋，我很喜欢冰淇淋，但是，速度与激情9，比冰淇淋，速度与激情，速度与激情9，我最喜欢。所以…现在是音乐时间，准备 1 2 3，两个礼拜以后，速度与激情9，两个礼拜以后，速度与激情9，两个礼拜以后，速度与激情9。不要忘记，不要错过，去电影院看速度与激情9，因为非常好电影，动作非常好，差不多一样。冰淇淋，再见。”
-John Cena, 2021
being able to fully understand this (which i couldnt believe if you told me 3 years ago) is like transcending reality
perfect
this is a completely word by word translated from an English speaking person's mindset, he should learn harder. But that Bing Chilling is hilarious lol
@@nguyenson7073 thats honestly good enough, simply no reason to get that deep into it
@@miufke_ literally no one cares guy
I really wouldn’t use him as an example of someone who speaks Chinese. Its great that he is learning, but his tones are way off, almost unintelligible.
Wouldn't call it unintelligible, going that far sounds like your just hating on the guy. His accent is bad but it's understandable
@@Matt-jc2ml for basic vocabulary yes, but if you listen to a speech by him where he has to use a less common word, because he gets the tone wrong most of the time, you really have to think to figure out what he is saying
Nonsense, he is easy to understand
Despite learning Finnish for almost 10 years, I can still hear my accent. But both of my tutors have told me it's not as strong as I think it is, so that helps.
Yeah, his Chinese is a little bit hard to understand sometimes, but that doesn’t really mean people won’t like him. You made some really good points in this video. But even if one billion people love you, your own family may not approve.
Personally I think Mandarin is easier than the Spanish language. It is not hard for me. It just takes time to invest in this language. Thanks Oily for your video and the encouragement you gave us to get out of our comfort zone!😀 Woot! Let's do this!
3:25 id like to know where is english on that category
The chart is based off of the difficulty of a native English speaker learning a language, so English is not listed.
As someone who studied Mandarin and lived in China for a couple of years, there's knowing Chinese....and KNOWING CHINESE. There's speaking Chinese...understanding Chinese being spoken...and reading Chinese. They are three different things and each has its peculiarities. The thing you have on your side is that Chinese characters represent a single vowel. That's where the easy part ends. In the Chinese language there are four TONES and depending on which one you use (and in what context) the same phonetic word can have a different meaning. To comprehend a Chinese newspaper, you need to recognize a minimum of 700 characters and really many people think 1500. And, it goes on...and on. To a Chinese person, John Cena's Chinese would be considered understandable (with a bit of difficulty), but a bit humorous. Still...I think people everywhere appreciate it when a foreigner (or "weiguoren") makes an honest effort to speak their language. As an ambassador for the U.S., John Cena has done just fine.
作为中国人，我觉得看英文字幕比听他说汉语容易
@@Ultimate_Kevin LOL!!!! 👍
@@watersoup6270 In terms of defining the hardest language to learn, it is entirely relative to what one's native language is. For an English speaker, there are all sorts of languages with no commonality. Hungarian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian, Arabic, and Turkish are just a few. Having taken immersion Chinese in China, I can attest to how hard it is to learn a language with no similarities to Germanic languages like English.
@@watersoup6270
I am Kazakh, currently studing chinese and I find it easier than it was when I was studying english. Kazakh language has been culturally enriched with sounds and words from persian, arabic and russian languages. So I guess I can pretty much pronounce correctly any word from any language. It is only natural that countries which bordered ancient china and had contacts with it will find it easier to learn mandarin than english or any other european language.
A video on Viggo Mortensen and all the languages he learned in the future?
Great video! I hope you release a Story Learning Mandarin, and a second Brazilian Portuguese book.
He's John China now.😆
I think there might be another level to all these situations of the especially persistent accents beyond the niche appeal. I think it is the languages themselves both intrinsically and extrinsically. I think like mentioned at the front the phonemes particularly when the adopted language phoneme acquisition is not an early intervention it is just impossible to acquire. Then there is the fact about the interference of dialect differences in a particular language when learning via immersion in an area with a strong regional accent of the target language. The most amazingly skilled rhotic American accent mimicry Brits for the life of them will always speak non-rhotic no matter what. I have a DC accent natively I can do a NYC or New England it is almost perfect, but I give myself away by forgetting the exceptions to the rule of the linking r and will default to always using the linking r even when there is no immediately subsequent vowel requiring a linking concept. I even Mandella effect-ed myself into believe it that New England accents use superfluous linking r's but listening to JFK speech to confirm the notion it turned out whether he said Cuba or Cubar was context dependent, and it was NOT the case he always said Cubar like I thought I remembered. My Castilian accent is spot on when speaking Spanish, as it is what I had formal experience in and started studying relatively young, and even though I can include or exclude the Castilian lisp at will, but my Spanglish always sounds funny to people because it doesn't reflect the dialect of Spanish they consider default. Now French can't pronounce a dang thing the right way, but I also refuse to improve on the basis that it is an inherently stupid language with unnecessary complications for no reason other than giving the pompous French people more reasons to use pedantry as a justification for being nasty people addicted to drama. No fricatives for me. they are gross sounds.
Your thumbnail is blank btw
I too didn't see anyone in this video. I thought I eas going crazy with everyone seemingly commenting on someone other than Olly in the video!
wait... I'm a native English speaker and the first language I decided to learn seriously was ... category 5?? I didn't even know LMAOOO oh well. I'll keep at it. I love the Japanese culture and how it revolves around respect. It's SO beautiful.
This makes me be chilling with ice cream while watching fast and furious
Watching videos on learning Chinese instead of studying for my midterm✅
I loved the fact that the English language is not even presented in the chart @3:34 lol. Probably they did not consider it, but still I like to believe that it is no even in Category I LOL.
That ranked the difficulty for native speakers of English..
The chart is designed to show how difficult other languages are for native English speakers. You cannot rank languages for difficulty without a baseline. This chart uses English as the baseline. As an example if you are a speaker of Korean, then Chinese will not be a category 5 language for you because it may share similarities with Korean, but English may be a category 5 language for you.
John Cena is certainly wrestling with languages.
Dude, as an English speaker it's litteraly the easiest thing in the world to make fun of someone's accent. It's also looked down on for obvious reasons. Appreciate they're learning. Everyone applies the sounds from their native language, which is how you can tell a German accent from an Italian accent from a Chinese accent.
Finally I know the story behind BING CHILLING. 😁
For ten years, I would expect way better tones. I can't understand him without the subtitles. Tonal language teachers need to use songs to teach tones rather than lines and numbers.
This was a jolly good essay, Olly ;)
I don't speak Mandarin but I can see John Cena will one day flip the tone between mom and horse.
If you actually study A LOT and for 4 years, it's no surprise you're going to learn. Do that for 10 years, and something is seriously wrong if you _don't learn._
I am polyglot, i can speak four languages fluently and in the way to learn chinese and russian. To be sincere learning chinese is very hard but not impossible if you have motivation
Some people make fun of his accent. But as a lifelong Mandarin speaker, I can hear that he puts effort into his tone. Not perfect at all, but he tries. Mandarin pronunciation is extremely hard at an older age. My accent is near native since I learned them at a very young age, my parents' accents, while understandable, I don't think will ever be native. I've seen many of my friends struggle too