Kevin Rudd’s Good at Chinese… Even Bad Chinese
November 30th, 2007 by MarkAt PR’s request, here are a couple videos of Australia’s new Prime Minister speaking Chinese. This first one is a CCTV interview (part 1 of 3), in which we get to hear him speak at length in Chinese.
This second video is bit harder to make any sense of. It’s a comedian making fun of Rudd.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
thanks, who is in that second video? Is that Bush speaking Spanish?
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:36 am
i make fun of chinese pronunciation when i want to tease my chinese husband, but i don’t do it in public cuz i don’t want others to make fun of chinese people and hurt my daughters’ feelings. they have heard the ching chong ching chong routine before, to which we have advised them to reply ‘ching chong ching chong- you daddy king kong?’ . once my husband was told by a guy in line with him to stop speaking chinese since this was america. my husband replied that since this was the united states of the american, had the freedom of the speak. that shut the other guy up good.
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:27 am
I think the common rule is to answer in the same language that you were asked in. In the first video Australian guy repeatedly violates this principle.
December 3rd, 2007 at 6:09 am
It was on a Chinese station. The interviewer asked him if he could speak some Chinese for his viewers. And, “the guy” is the prime minister of Australia.
December 3rd, 2007 at 5:33 pm
[...] UPDATE: Mark found some video of Kevin Rudd speaking Chinese. [...]
December 7th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Ow, listening to Rudd’s Chinese is a worry..is truly scary how rapidly one’s Chinese goes to pot if one doesn’t speak it regularly. That said I thought he a reasonable job, but he is certainly not “fluent”.
It seems your other posters missed the joke in the second video. I thought it was hilarious, and that when the guy started speaking Chinese he sounded exactly like someone wh o has been coached in the Chinese needed, and who evetually gives up cos he knows the audience doesn’t understand anyway ..great stuff. And the subtitles just got funnier and funnier.
January 5th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Any idea what school Kevin Rudd attended to learn his Chinese? He apparently learned his Chinese or “finished” it in Taiwan, but I’m really curious what school he attended. Both ICLP and the Mandarin Training Center now called something else I can never remember are good candidates. Could he be another Colin Pine (ICLP)?
March 6th, 2008 at 3:06 am
Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of Australia, and leader of the Australian Labour Party, majored in Chinese at the Australian National University,and in the ’80s was a diplomat in Beijing. He has no connection with Taiwan and never studied there.Australia recognises only one China, the PRC, of which Taiwan is an integral part.
Kevin Rudd is the only Western leader that can speak Chinese, and was the first to invite President Hu Jintao to make a state visit.He is very interested in fostering closer relations betwee Australia and China.
I don’t know whare Mingers gets his/her information but it is wrong.In mainland china, people from the top to the bottom greatly appreciate foreigners who try to speak Chinese,no matter how little and how bad, because it shows they have taken the trouble to learn it,which in turn shows an interest in China and its culture.
Vitaly,your point is also incorrect and equally ridiculous. There is no such common rule.If you think there is, state your reference and whose rule it is. if you cannot, then stop trying to introduce silly arguments.
It is quite obvious that just because someone is addressed in a particular language, he may not reply in that language because he nmay not speak it, so what are you talking about? Prime Minister Rudd is well known and popular in China, because whethere he is being interviewed by Chinese journalists, or addressing a meeting, or just talking to ordinary Chinese, they can understand him.If you can’t, that is your problem. I just wish I could speak Mandarin as well as him, but in the meantime, my mainland Chinese wife and all our family are quite happy with the little I know.
April 10th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Rudd studied Chinese at Taiwan Normal University in Taipei in 1980.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:07 am
[...] Kevin Rudd’s Good at Chinese… Even Bad Chinese Doubting to Shuo has video of Australian PM-elect Kevin Rudd being interviewed in Chinese. (tags: International) [...]