ariinbeijing's video: Meet a Jewish Chinese Language Learning Genius

Super excited to present everyone with this interview with my friend Hien, an accomplished Jewish Chinese polymath and insanely proficient language learner and accent imitator. Hien is one of the world’s only speakers of Middle Chinese, the form of spoken Chinese as recorded in the rime dictionary Qieyun in the year 601 AD. He speaks several Chinese dialects in addition to Mandarin, Japanese, Hebrew, and (obviously excellent) English. In his spare time he’s a junzi, or gentleman, proficient in calligraphy, tea, and tai chi. Oh, and I did I mention he’s a software engineer with a PhD in mathematics? This is a bit longer than my typical shows but he’s just such a brilliant guy I wanted to give him the full opportunity to express himself. But here’s the breakdown of what we went over if you just want to skip to the parts that interest you: 0:55 Hien’s background 2:43 Middle Chinese (and hear him recite a poem for us in Middle Chinese!) 6:47 Hien’s thoughts on language learning in general 13:29 Conclusion And if you’re interested in hearing more of what Middle Chinese sounded like you can check out his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/Phjong Thanks for visiting Ari in Beijing! I've honed my Mandarin Chinese to nearly native-level fluency through a variety of tips and tricks that I share with you each week. So whether you're studying Mandarin, Cantonese, English, another language, or are simply interested in language in general, please SUBSCRIBE and stick around for a while! https://www.youtube.com/c/ariinbeijing