On October 22, 2014, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckberg visited Tsinghua University. In an interview(采访), to studentsˈ surprise, he answered all the questions in Mandarin(普通话). Although he made some mistakes, many students were impressed by his confidence(自信).
Zuckerberg started the interview by saying, “Hello, everyone. Thanks for coming. I am very glad to be in Beijing. I love this city. My Chinese is very bad, but Iˈll try to use Chinese today. ”
The host and the students were both surprised and asked him, “Why do you learn Chinese? ”Zuckerberg gave three reasons. Firstly, his wife is Chinese and he wants to better communicate with her. Secondly, he wants to know more about the Chinese culture and he believes that language is the best way to understand another culture. “ China is a great country,” Zuckerberg said. Thirdly, he loves the challenge(挑战) of learning a language as difficult as Mandarin.
The 34-year-old CEO started to learn Chinese in 2010. He often practices Mandarin with employees in his company.