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Proof that learning English can be beneficial.

Danmairen (510 posts) • 0

Congratulations to China's Li Na for qualifying for the Australian Open final. This little gem took place during the post game interview in front of millions of viewers:

Q: "As you probably know, Justine Henin is retiring for good. Do you think it's a big loss for women's tennis?"

Li Na: "Why?"

QQWEN (22 posts) • 0

Well, I think Li Na certainly deserves more credit.

Compared to other Chinese athletes Li Na's English is so much better. She knows how to make small jokes which I think it'd been quite a bit of achievement giving the seriousness in Chinese people's personality.

Sometimes my friends and I laugh our eyes out when we hear some foreigners response to our questions in Chinese – that is just a laugh since we are sensible enough to know that is more a language barrier than a person being retard.

Master Shake (20 posts) • 0

Daliluver and danmairen are the real retards. I'd like to see either of you handle a press conference in Chinese, much less get to the Australia Open final.

Danmairen (510 posts) • 0

Relax buddy. I follow tennis and I've watched all of Li's matches during the Open. I think she is great and I just thought it was a funny exchange of words, nothing else. So with all due respect, pipe down.

onomatopoeiaaah (51 posts) • 0

danmairen is famous on these boards for his razor wit. He's clearly very intelligent and open minded, his mind is so open in fact, that ideas simply pass straight through it...

Congratulations to Li Na. No shame in losing to the 3rd ranked in the world. No shame in not being fluent English either. Why should she be anyway?

laotou (1714 posts) • 0

LiNa studied tennis, not english - that she was able to respond at all, as opposed to, "Huh?" is actually pretty good. A translational error does not make her a retard - not a very nice comment - although her response was rather cute and funny.

On another note (thanks for bringing this up Danmairen) - it's absolutely fantastic to see Chinese tennis players breaking into the top ranks into physical skill and endurance sports other than the usual dominance sports. I'm sure golf isn't too far behind, given the prolific number of golf courses springing up all over Yunnan and greater China. I'm still waiting for China to bust into the F1 and similar leader boards - although I doubt we'll ever see cricket on that list.

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