“Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome to this presentation regarding the acquisition of the company MySQL AB by Sun Microsystems.”

Since my speech on Sun / MySQL integration for about 400 people in Beijing last week, I have been asked a few times about what it’s like to give a speech in Chinese. Well, I wouldn’t really know, as all I did was read aloud a text for 8 minutes. I remembered what passage was about what topic, and I had noted which words to stress, when to raise my hand etc. But of the actual words, I understood perhaps 5-10 % (based on them being repeated often enough). So I know I am a fuzongcai (Vice President) with Sun Microsystems, I know the difference between a kèhù (customer) and a yònghù (user). I live in Munihei (München), but I am not deguoren (German), I am fenlanren (from Finland). And, nüshìmen, xianshéngmen, that’s Ladies and gentlemen.

So far, hen hao.

I read aloud from this paper (no, not the Chinese characters, just the pinyin).

But the ambition level could really be a bit higher. Not stressing every syllable. Speaking a bit faster. Repeating the tones once (ok, five times) more. And I could memorise more words, not 5-10 % but perhaps 25%. That would be more enjoyable for both the audience, and for myself.

That said, giving a speech in Mandarin was a very positive experience, even at my level of delivery. My ambition was for at least 70% of my message being understandable from a pronunciation standpoint, and I heard estimates of the outcome being 80% to 90%. And I got interrupted by applause at least five times, and laughter at least once (even at the intended spot). So I’m happy. And I recommend using Chinese for more than the mere greetings, for any non-Chinese wishing to be well received in China.

Xìexìe, thank you, xìexìe.

References:

• Kaj Arnö speaks Chinese to the Sun/MySQL crowd: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3036893738929286405&hl=en
• Wikipedia: Pinyin (Chinese spelling): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 5:37 and is filed under MySQL, MySQL Users Conferences, Sun, Sun visits, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.