I see the CRI correspondent has retained much that they learned during a lengthy posting in Arslikhan, as Private Eye used to term it. Order of the Brown Nose in the next media awards.

That may be the case, Jim, but as Tim Johnson points out, the guy only meets the Beijing press once a year, so some of those reporters must be positively giddy with excitement.

I think Yang is right. If Yang can learn the language, anybody can.

This must be part of Yang Jiechi's stump speech--I heard him use the same "Chinese is so easy..." line at a speech in America, when he was the ambassador years ago (he meant it as a joke). I'm just surprised to see he hasn't got any new lines after all these years!

Stupid, this Yang guy is just stupid. However I do agree Chinese is much easier than Korean and Hindi.

Uh... how about it was a joke?

As much as I love a good backward comment at a political shindig, are you guys sure that this wasn't just a joke that didn't come out in the translation?

I saw the conference and this guy, was in fact, pretty sharp and did pack a bit of a 'you mo' (sense of humour). In fact, I was quite taken a back at how directly he did try and tackle some pretty tricky questions.

2. errors:

1. not 1.3b speak mandarin, it's about 850m. 40% of Chinese speak no mandarin at all.

2. It's not everybody's mothertongue. Firstly see above, 2ndly most Chinese' mothertoungue is a local language. Mandarin will be their 2nd language.

But I agree that it's not that difficult. At least words don't change, go went gone etc.

Thanks for the reference. The following is now up on Beijing Sounds...

1.3 billion people speak WHAT as a mother tongue?!

On Mandarin learning challenges, the definition of language, and the best taxi-driver critique of hànzì ever recorded.

You’ll be forgiven if you missed the pins-and-needles press conference of foreign minister (wàijiāobùzhǎng, 外交部长) Yáng Jiéchí 杨洁篪 a couple of weeks ago (hat tip to Joel Martinsen at Danwei).