Hacker News Reader

Comment by tsukaisute | Hacker News Reader

Chinese speaker here. His comments were all over-the-top excited, repeating and exaggerating others' words, almost like mocking the Chinese staff (see around 2:20 mark for example.) Think Borat-speak. Seemed very strange and unfit for this otherwise good piece.

View on HN

> It seemed to me that he was interjecting with arbitrary comments

No, he's having fluent and meaningful exchange of words with those interviewees.

> Chinese speaker here

You're definitely not a native speaker.

> almost like mocking the Chinese staff

I'm not sure why you interpreted it that way but there's absofreakinglutely no mocking people in there, hey.

All of those whom he interviewed were speaking Mandarin with different degrees of accents and apparently the guy has some pretty decent level of command of the language so he can still converse with most of them no problem. The last one he interviewed (starting from 03:30) spoke with a heavily accented version of Mandarin so even I had to pay attention to understand like, 80% of what he was saying; the reporter probably had issues understanding him as well so he just smiled and nodded. Overall I found the reporter's usage of Mandarin as well as his interaction with others to be very natural.

I am a native Mandarin speaker.

Hey, I never questioned his fluency, just not being able to speak in a professional/serious tone to match the other people. If you liked it, great. Also, you're assuming too much about a 鄉民 on the Internet. :)

Now I can pinpoint which province of China you come from:)

Another way of looking at it: respect. In the past, translators were always used on news stories from China. Now, English speakers are going through the effort to learn Chinese because they know it is in their best interests as China ascends to the spot of the(!) world superpower.

I agree, Feels very natural and comfortable speaking Chinese.

I think he's just trying to sound excited, to make the video more compelling.

That is just how these interviews are done by the BBC. It would be the same if both participants were in the UK speaking English.

I think it's perhaps because the BBC does a lot of educational material aimed, at least partially, at children and schools, and the presenters are trained to be very exaggerated and enthusiastic in their reactions. Experts like scientists and engineers can be quite placid in their delivery, and so the presenter's job is to make whatever it is they're talking about seem more "exciting". E.g. some engineering project, scientific experiment, historical fact, etc.

Really? I think its fine. Pretty normal response from a layperson being impressed by a major engineering feat without being interested to dig too deep into the technicals.

Maybe a bit of pandering, but I think he is just trying to be polite, but I don't see any sign of mocking.

It's not intentional I'm sure. Just that the tone mismatch, serious/professional local speakers vs. over-excited/happy interviewer, were off-putting.

Well you have to take in to account that they both know that he will put on a show for the camera. Both men obviously knows they are being filmed.

But from a certain point of view(where you assume this is just a normal conversation between two people), i can see what you mean.

FWIW, if the BBC reporter were also chinese and speaking the same dialect, then his excited remarks would not be viewed as mocking. Similar gushing happens on other Asian variety shows. I would say the perception of him condescending his interviewees has more to do with the insecurity of the viewers[1] than it does with the presenter.

[1]"Man of Race-or-Country Y is exaggerating something in our language? Race-or-Country Y must be looking down on us!"

It's not just foreigner either, you'll get a similar level of interaction with someone who speaks very unaccented Mandarin coming to an area where people normally speak a different language (there's dozens in China) and don't speak Mandarin nearly as fluently.

Sort of like mocking hick accents in the US, real funny until you're talking with someone who actually has a hick accents, and then it's just kinda mean.

Think you're reading too much into it. His behaviour and inflection is what you get if you were to splice polite British reporter mien with an idiomatic way of speaking Chinese. Fun to watch in its own right.

Don't think there's any malice there, must be hard to context-switch between speaking a non-native language while interviewing for a foreign audience.

EDIT: if you've watched other BBC productions, the level of enthusiasm would be familiar. I think it is a BBC company culture/style thing. Drawing a blank at the moment, had someone very specific in mind, but maybe anything by Clare Balding, Sue Barker or Lizo Mzimba though none of these are the person I have in my mind...

It is a bit over-enthusiastic but I don't think there is any mocking going on there. I as a layperson would act the same if I were the reporter.

(I'm a native Mandarin speaker.)

Native mandarin speaker here.

I agree with you that this reporter really didn't add to the conversation. Like you said, it is more of repeating/exaggerating.

Programs like this can be paid to make with purpose of showcasing a government project instead of actual "reporting".

This is par for the course on any "Great Feats of Engineering" show, English or not.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com