Lessons From My First Chinese Speeches

I’m sure you all speak a dozen languages, write in a half-dozen, and give speeches in a random mix on a weekly basis.  Me, not so much.

I am a typical American country boy who spoke English and little else, until studying in Japan for graduate school.  I didn’t pick up Chinese until 20 years later as part of moving to Shanghai, where I’ve been for nearly ten years now.

You’d think that ten years studying Chinese or any language would make me fluent on many levels, but reality is quite different; mostly because I’m a poor student of languages who struggles to remember any words in any combination.  Not to mention founding an Internet company and having a child along the way.  Somehow lack of sleep doesn’t help my language memory.

But I’m finally making progress, and while my listening is still a challenge and some would say my speaking similar, I’m starting to give major talks and speeches in Chinese to hundreds of people.  

I like giving talks on various business and technology topics, and while I’m not that good at it, I can easily do it off-the-cuff on a variety of subjects; even better when I plan and practice it.  You can see a few of these on Slideshare.

I’ve given a couple Chinese talks over the years to small audiences, but never to 100+ in a more formal conference or event setting, so this was my goal. 

How did I do?

I’d say fair-to-middling.

But I’m getting better, and the only way to do that is to do it more often.  Plus,  the novelty of being one of the few foreigners to speak Mandarin in public talks helps keep me motivated.

So I have a few lessons from along the way that may be useful as you work on giving talks in tongues other than the one your mother gave you.

Confidence & Mindset

You’ve got to have confidence that you can do it, that it’s not so scary, and that people are interested.  In places like China, people are shocked, and I mean shocked, that you can stand up as a foreigner and even greet them properly in Chinese.  So doing the speech in Chinese is pretty rare, and as long as you are intelligible, and even if you aren’t, you still get lots of credit.

Of course, you need to be a confident and decent public speaker, so if you aren’t there yet I’d recommend ToastMasters for you.  ToastMasters even has many bi-lingual groups around the world, which can help ease you into speaking in a new language.  For example, I used to attend a great Japanese/English ToastMasters in Silicon Valley.

Brain Language & Mindset

Work hard to get your brain working in the new language in and around your talk.  I only do 1/3rd or less of my work in Chinese, and I speak English to my son, so my brain works in English most of the time, much to my detriment.  

But around the talks, this means speaking only Chinese as far as practical so my brain is in Chinese mode.  Thinking in Chinese, Chinese dreams here and there, etc.  I even isolate myself the day before and of the talk in order to practice and be in Chinese mode.  It makes a big difference to brain flow on stage.

Speak Slowly

I’m a fast speaker in general and tend to mumble too much, something my parents have been trying in vain to fix since birth.  You’d think this would be better in a new language, but no - I speak nearly as fast in Japanese or Chinese.

In a speech, the problem is this speed also tends to raise my pitch and flatten the intonation or tone.  This is annoying in any language, but a major problem in Chinese, especially as the Mandarin 3rd tone requires a slower, drawn-out syllable.  The other tones get similarly squashed and pushed up into what sounds to the listener as the high-pitch 1st tone for everything.  Not to mention losing natural pauses in and between words.  So, as they say, slow is pro.

I’ll try again to be slow next week.  And again the week after that . . .

No New Words

It’s critical to only use words I'm familiar with and know how to use.  This seems obvious, but during practice runs and PPT translation with my lovely Chinese wife, she kept suggesting to “say it this way,” or “this word is better.”  Well-meaning, but a disaster in practice as you have to use what you know or else you get hung up in the talk, groping for words, breaking the already choppy flow, etc.

You can learn a few new key vocabulary words (less than five per talk), but otherwise stick to how you speak and converse, even if this is less formal or even irregular.  The audience will understand, and it will flow; anything else will create a mess.

Simple Pictorial Slides

I am migrating to the new ‘modern’ PPT style, with few bullets and a focus on a single image and message/sentence per slide.  While absurdly time-consuming to create, this does help my speech in many ways.

It drives up the slide count a lot, at least 2-3x since it’s one idea per slide, not 5-8 bullets each.  This helps pace out the talk, gives me time to orient and think between sentences/slides, and ensures I hit the key messages.  

It also helps tip me to the sequence I want to tell on this slide/topic and lets my brain focus on one thing at a time.  And the pix are usually funny, so the audience can laugh instead of cringe at my language ability.

Bi-Lingual Slides

This is a pain with bullet driven slides, as there is no real estate. But with simple sentence-per-slide formats there is always plenty of room.  This lets the audience read and get the main point when they can’t understand me, plus having English on the same screen lets me read, too, as my Chinese reading is too slow for this in real-time.

Final Thoughts

In the end, it’s interesting to reach this milestone where you can give public talks in a new language.  A bit scary and you need a viable audience, starting small and working your way up in size, complexity, and length.

But it’s also fun and challenging at the same time, plus some cool recognition when you eventually pull it off in some reasonable way.

Embrace and enjoy it.