谈笑风声的自我修养
Tech industry leaders from Silicon Valley to Beijing have at least one shared hobby – learning a foreign language as soon as possible – whether it be Putonghua for Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or English for Xiaomi’s Lei Jun.
我们已经见识过了刘强东的宿迁英语，雷军的仙桃英语. 相信你也听过马云，张朝阳，李彦宏的英文。科技大佬们学外语俨然成了一道风景。
这让我想起了曾经写过的一篇文章: 当Mark Zuckerberg访问清华大学时，全程用英文座谈的一些感悟，翻出来，分享给你。
下面时长2分钟的视频是节选自半小时的对话
Issac Stone Fish, put Zuckerberg’s skills “roughly at the level of someone who studied for two years in college, which means he can communicate like an articulate 7-year-old with a mouth full of marbles.”
马克的中文水平如同一个7岁孩子嘴里含着溜溜。
Victor Mair at Language Log pegged him at a level “about ¾ of the way through intensive first-year Mandarin,” but still found his efforts impressive. According to Mair, “his tones are indeed a bit wobbly, and his grammar shaky at times, but his pronunciation (vowels and consonants) is generally acceptable, and he has a decent range of vocabulary (actually surprisingly good for someone at his stage of learning the language).”
你怎么连话都说不清楚。
马克的正能量
1.自信
What is more impressive than Zuckerberg’s command of Mandarin is his relaxed and assured manner. Adults who try to learn foreign languages are most hampered by the problem of self-consciousness, the fear of making mistakes or looking foolish. Not so for Zuckerberg, forging ahead with a smile, on a stage in front of an audience no less. That sort of confident enjoyment in newly acquired language skills goes a long way toward building on those skills. That’s how you really learn a language.
能用自己新学会的一门语言去和当地人交流，这应该是enjoyment. 而不是“心惊胆颤”的“my English is poor". 当然，自信很大程度上来自于自身的语言水平。不过从马克的例子来看：中文说成这个样子就可以自信了！ 你的英文到这个水平了吗？人家是个身价几百亿的CEO都不怕吐槽，你怕什么? （甚至，经常的事实是：没人把你当回事的 <3）
2.态度
Learning the language was one of the many self-improvement quests the 30-year old billionaire has embarked on (others included a famous promise to only eat meat if he had personally killed the animal.) “Doing something for a year, I think you have all these interesting unintended consequences,” he told CNN last year.
马克的这种态度就非常好：每年都学点什么，一定会有意外收获的。还有，他在半个小时的访谈之中，一直都在坚持说中文, 想一想我们在英语学习的过程中，有没有珍惜讲英文的机会？
The Better Half
3. 所谓的“环境”
马克也提到了他学中文是因为他有个中国媳妇。于是问题就来了: 他妻子对他的语言学习有帮助吗？ 有多大帮助？ 没有他妻子的帮助他是否也可以达到同样的水平？
想通了问题的本质我们会发现: 环境不是panacea. 学会利用环境，创造一个"language immersion”的环境－－出国留学，嫁洋人娶洋妞是一种方法，但绝对不是唯一的,最可行的方法.
While learning Mandarin, he had Mandarin-speaking Facebook employees come to his office for conversation practice. He ended up learning about parts of the company he normally wouldn't have had interactions with and even had some realizations about himself.
"I was complaining to my wife one day that I was never that good at listening in Mandarine and she goes, 'Mark, you're not good at listening in English either."
“他出过国所以他英文好” “我要是出国我得比他强多了” －我身边有很多成功，也有很多失败的例子, 我想，如果我们懂得利用环境的话，我们在哪里都会找到合适的机会去提高自己；如果我们一心想依赖环境的话，我觉得, “生于忧患，死于安乐”。
午夜时分，写下这篇文章，想对你说: 英文再差，也要谈笑！很多时候我们差的不是英文，而是“自信和态度”-- 你不是在BBC,VOA,CCTV做主持人做broadcasting, 只是说话而已。
当然，这种话听起来很像“疯狂英语”。