O.T.I.S.
Veteran
I speak computer languages
Learn Mandarin b/c China's the future
- Thread starter Tair
- Start date
Mandarin Duck
Majestic and Highfalutin
Its moreso for negotiations. You are setting yourself up for mike Tyson/don king level of embezzlement or upselling if you let the natives have the convo among themselves on your behalf.
Its okay for low level things like a single purchase of phone cases, but once you are importing/exporting large amounts or extremely expensive items those upsells will tank your profits.
There is also a lot of cultural nuance thats missed out on if you dont speak the language even if the convo is entirely in English. Things dont translate well. For instance, You may think being given a compliment is a good thing, while the natives severely look down on you for not rejecting the compliment during the negotiation. This is a crazy common occurrence in chinese, korean, and japanese bussiness culture.
I actually started learning it two weeks ago not because I have to or anything but because I enjoy learning (about) languages in general.
Just learning more about the general characteristics of the language has me surprised at how doable it seems actually. Practicing new characters is really quite enjoyable and meditative if you approach it from a calligraphy viewpoint and use good resources, e.g. the Pleco dictionary app which allows you to (attempt) to write characters and gives suggestions.
I also highly recommend watching the videos from this playlist:
It shows Chinese people on the street talking about regular The Locker Room type topics. I was actually considering making a thread with a game called Guess The Coli Poster
There are some hilarious interactions in there and you'll see how similar Chinese people really are to people in the West.
Try these ones for instance:
