Good point. Julien Gaudfroy has the most impressive Chinese I have heard from a foreigner, not only it’s perfect but he also seems to have a deep understanding of Chinese culture. I don’t know if he considers himself Chinese though.
from a westerner?
The key point is that if she didn’t have an accent she would be accepted as a local. Westerners do not have that same opportunity.
3 Likes
That probably depends on where she is in North America. In some of the bigger more multicultural cities, sure, she’d be (mostly but not always) viewed as local - in other areas, maybe not so much.
@bingobango’s point may be, and I agree, if you are different from vast majority of the community members you are easily singled out.
She is by her accent, westerners in (East) Asia are by their appearance.
2 Likes
He’s really good but Westerners with a mainland accent make me cringe. 
I always thought Jeff Locker was good, spoke some Taiwanese too. Not a bad actor either.
Great point here – I did forget an essential detail…this was in Oklahoma. Not exactly the paragon of melting pot America
This is classic.
My vote goes to this guy:
1 Like
Not sure what you mean. I think Hailey’s Mandarin is advanced, and she can improve her pronunciation even more. It’s my Western friends here in North America who get all surprised.
Sorry, yes I meant from a westerner.
Ok understood. I’m assuming your Western friends wouldn’t be able to accurately judge good Chinese from poor Chinese. But maybe they can. Not to say she at all has poor Chinese, but I think you could get there with maybe 2-2.5 years at Shida.
My point was that Chinese native speakers as well as foreigners who speak and are familiar with Chinese have set a lower bar for what is considered excellent Chinese compared to what we would judge as excellent English. Its understandable because the language is friggin hard.
As a fellow Norte Americano, if they were a foreigner and had an accent maybe made some mistakes here and there we would say “Wow you’re English is goood!” to encourage, be polite, and genuinely appreciate their dedication. But maybe not 100% mean it.
If they were a foreigner and spoke with little to no accent and spoke very articulately which so many non-native English speakers do, we would say “Wooow you’re English is so good.” And 100% mean it.
I can’t type inflection.
There are so many Westerners that speak excellent Chinese nowadays that we should maybe raise the bar. And there seems to be a dearth of them on YouTube. I’ve only seen a couple a Spanish and French guy and the rest would still need English to assist them. Just a thought.
isn’t is just because the language is unfamiliar? English is as hard as Chinese for me.
Well IMO no because to lookup a word all you need is ABC. To read, learn some phonics. Once you get into more advanced Chinese you absolutely have to understand characters and be literate. Almost read before you speak at an advanced level. Having a good foundation of radicals and strokes just to look up words. You should know the everyday chengyu at least. And unless you want to go and read tons of 5000 year old stories to understand chengyu, you can many times just recognize the individual meaning of the characters and deduce the meaning. But you gotta learn how to read before you can do that or spend many years trying to absorb it through conversation.
Hey! (Actually I’ve lost most of it after thirty years, but…)
2 Likes
My vote is definetly for this guy.
1 Like
I had a friend’s daughter from Vancouver who was asked that fairly often. She was born, raised, and went to school in Vancouver, university in Toronto, and in Calgary still gets “Your English is so good”, “Where are you from? No, really from?”
I still haven’t watched this guy, but he sounds impressive:
He speaks Chinese with a Chinese accent though, which is cringey. My guy is way better 
1 Like
Bwahaha.
That is a blow in for most of us here. Those emigrants to the US are very fortunate in reality. They can live and work legally and become citizens bery quickly in multi ethnic communities and get high pay with all the rights of local born citizens except maybe becoming President… Nothing to really complain about.
To me somebody moved a country as an adult for seven years…It’s going to take me a little bit of convincing to take them as a local.