Chinese Comedy: Cross Talking with Julien Gaudfroy

[FullCircleMystic]

I am American and if someone doesn't laugh at Monty Python, they have no sense of humor at all.

[Mreleezy]

听朱利安在国内说中文之后，在突然让他说英文感觉有点奇怪。。。­就好像突然让一个中国人在说英文一样。。。。

[shmilyx007]

julien's chinese is amazingly great!!! as a chinese, his chinese is even better than me !!!!!

He's genius!!

[teleixi2]

he is awesome

[cmmndrblu]

If I didn't know his background I would have pinned his accent as "international school" i.e lexically flawless but with some twang or echo of other languages. (I'm a Brit but I have a lot of cousins in international schools)

[AlnNewt]

@NeoTranshuman ...LOL. Small comments from a small minded whitefuck. I speak four languages when you speak Skankanese, fucktard. Get out of your mama's basement, stop playing COD, WoW or other loner fucktard games and get a real life by working the streets like your dick sucking daddy.

[SanguineBullet667]

i'm trying to learn mandarin and it's going nowhere ... it's depressing how impossible it seems.

[AlnNewt]

@NeoTranshuman ...listen up, puto chingon. FUCK YOU you fucking moron. So you better learn how to say "I'm a stupid American faggot boy" because that's what you are, faggot boy. XD

[AlnNewt]

Most Americans choose to be ignorant of other languages simply because they think they are the best...NOT. They better start learning Chinese because they own America.

[reinasmexicanas]

you missed typing 墨西哥 (moxige) (Mexico) just before United States and Canada

[eileentien1]

我說這位小哥ㄚ, 麻煩您給咱台灣人...留點面子ㄅㄟ

～eileen...O M G

[TheFloridaoranges]

sigh, as a chinese , i feel sorry for myself cuz i cant speak as first as he does

[oberonson18]

md说顺口好鸟呀

[windboy1976]

he is the third person i found who is my kind, a talented vocal imitator. I bet he can sing very well too.

[Mreleezy]

他的中文比我们一般中国人的标准，他老婆是四川人

[jaylias]

great interview! thanks for sharing :-)

[annakwan78]

I wonder if he has ever met Mark Rowswell, also known in China as Dashan ...

[psc209trk]

@annakwan78 Near the end of the interview they talk about why people shouldn't hate on Dashan.

[ilidionbeurkley]

As someone who has a BA in a foreign language and who has studied 6 languages, I find these comments about what language is better to be rather foolish and unnecessary. There is no academic way (or necessity for that matter) to prove that one language is better than another, and therefore, at least in my mind, trying to quantify such asinine assertions is rather pathetic. Grow up, watch the video and move on

[chuey1988]

@ilidionbeurkley EXAAAACTLY

[st515041]

Actually if you listen to his Mandarin closely, he does have a slight accent evidenced in some tones which sound just off.

[jaylias]

@st515041 i dont speak Mandarin. Does he have a slight foreign accent or is it an accent that would be spoken by native Chinese in another part of China? He's been speaking Mandarin for 10+ years now so i would think that he could notice his own mistakes? I'm just interested thats all :)

[st515041]

@jaylias Should I not know he's a foreigner, I would take him as a southerner putting on a northern accent. Chinese Mandarin is based on the dialect spoken in Beijing. He articulates every single word correctly, but doesn’t pass for a Beijing native, intended or not.

[lucirz]

wow his english is good

[ShinyRedGloss]

I am an American and I learned Spanish in high school and Japanese in college. I'm not fluent in either, but they weren't difficult to pick up. I think the problem with Americans compared to lets say Europeans is the lack of people to speak Japanese, Chinese, French, or even Spanish.

[Eboe89]

I'm American and his accent in English kind of reminds me of listening to Roger Federer speak. Very slight!

[ash2bold]

@2:22 lol is it dr. who? ^^

[ash2bold]

HE IS AMAZING

[rayusaki88]

Funny Juliene! Very inspiring!

[timothylhm]

very linguistically gifted

[Boboua]

I'm a Canadian and I can speak English, French and Chinese. I must say his English and Chinese are awesome. He has no accent in Mandarin, he has a little bit of an accent in English.

[terribrad24]

I understood singapore and sri lanka, rest was too fast :-D

[iMerryZou]

he's brilliant!!!

[DAIGORO14]

he's pretty easy to understand but learning all the country names isn't something that you learn as a novice Chinese language student. but cross talk is hard and quite cultured. I think this is a really good interview.

[mumpsimus80]

I really like him in this interview. Maybe I should start watching and listening more to 相声, so far I just found them plain annoying to be honest. They are hard to understand though...

[DistinctlyMe]

lol at the cut at at 5.17. "At some point you realise *cut* never forget who you are".

[zenyricardo]

I'm half chinese and I don't even et what he is saying half the time. His mandarin that is..

[HunterMann]

@zenyricardo Maybe he's speaking Cantonese?

[ilovetcpjg]

i think i love him...........................­..

[justonly246]

From 2:40-3:00 this is the most important part that he is already understand and why its easy 4 him to learn well chinese

[justonly246]

He is so nice, and he is right, if you want to be really good develop in China , just learn chinese well, no matter what you want to do in China, he also if you can speak a very good chinese you are HOT in china haha

[matloicthomas]

this french boy must be a machine or an alien or something... Does he speaks other languages?

[HunterMann]

@matloicthomas Perhaps too many Americans have been conditioned to thinking that English is the best language to know and that it is impossible to learn other languages. I speak 5 and never studied formally. So, to answer your question, no... he is not a machine or an alien, he is just using more than 5% of his brain. Obviously it's more work to learn a Chinese language and read & write it, than it may have been for me to do that with Spanish and other languages, but it is not rocket science.

[Wisefish99]

@HunterMann

English is...the lingua franca of the world. Naturally those who grow up speaking and living with English are under less cultural pressure to learn other languages, particularly the isolated US, geographically away from the rest of the world.

[Dodianer]

@HunterMann

The whole 5% crap is a myth btw. Just saying. Other than that. Nice comment

[MrChipotleman1]

@HunterMann You are correct, however, I must point out that Americans are at a disadvantage compared to Europeans because geographically the United States is surrounded by only two nations, Canada, which is Anglophone unless you go to Quebec, and Mexico, which speaks Spanish. This is different from Europe when you are in a country like France which is surrounded by Spanish, German, English, and Italian speaking cultures. The opportunity for immersion is much greater in Europe than America.

[Dahvood]

Is it just me, or does his english have a slight chinese rhythm to it on occasion? Maybe I'm just listening too hard lol

[riseagainphoenix]

His English has almost no French accent! (I live in Canada and the francophones who are bilingual usually have at least a slight accent, so I'm surprised.) And obviously his Chinese is great. I think he's just the kind of person who can naturally pick up native accents very well.

[Cienstin]

@riseagainphoenix

No, he has an accent that is typical of an advanced French non-native speaker of English. His typical cues: pronunciation of z instead of s, or vice versa, pronunciation of a weak diphthong, typically the long I and A, his use of articles and his intonation/his stresses could be further perfected.

Yes, his ability to use the languages he had acquired is impressive.

No, France and Quebec do not share the same socio-political milieu, so accent development would not be ...

[Cienstin]

@riseagainphoenix ...would not be the same in Canada as in French. I find that the English accent acquired by advanced French learners of English and the English accent acquired by the Quebecois are rather different, because the emphasis in certain characteristics that distinguishes the Quebecois from non-Quebecois in Canada must first be readily understood by Canadians when both speak English. This relationship with English is absent in France.

[chris12121]

@riseagainphoenix I can hear a slight French accent, but you are right, his agent is very good.

[sjtugaorong]

@riseagainphoenix hard work was an important part too. At least Julien said so.

[crystalmira76]

u can say that anew. From my English learning experience, Mandarin as mother tongue, I'd say it's much easier for great actors and actresses to pick up a foreign language since articulating like a native assists one's performance to a greater level. Thus, whenever I speak English, I'd try to imitate what I heard from either films or music to reproduce my own phrases. Last, as much as I intend to polish my English proficiency, communication is the key not accent. :)

[shwwnn]

@riseagainphoenix He has SOME sort of accent. Whether it's French or not.

[lonewar]

@riseagainphoenix Yes and his Chinese pronunciation is perfect.

[DywenFuu]

OH GOSH HE IS SO GOOD AT THIS...

[cruel2003]

i totally agree with him

[DAIGORO14]

love he ends with 加拿大

[sjtugaorong]

i've no idea why the discussion below turned into a linguistic debate. :(

[fvxter]

The interviewer's chines is not bad too

[5thMeditator]

He is so talented..! i am impressed~!

[viharsarok]

How good is his English?

[jugglingotaku]

@viharsarok Very Good, with a very very slight French accent.

[kakhakaladzemilan]

Let me put it this way, to an untrained ear, chinese mandarin sounds like ching-chong-chang simply because there are less possibility of syllables (For example there is no such syllables as : "cra", "nya", "bla",etc) compared other languages ,despite the fact that beneath these syllables, there are tones that expand each of them for different meaning. If you go to imdb and check the cast list for any chinese made movies, you'll understand what I mean. Limited syllables.

[jasonUKbristol]

that is brilliant!!

[wikct2]

He is Jewish.

[cruel2003]

@wikct2 haha, you are funny

[angmohtsao]

idiot/...

[stefano0613]

OMG This guy gotta have a HUGE talent in picking up languages, I mean a frenchman speaking Chinese AND English both without an accent. AMAZING

[gaozhi2007]

He is really insightful and actually pretty down to earth. I think hearing Julien speak English I can get a better sense of what type of person he is. Hearing him in Chinese he comes off a bit cocky, but in English he is way more articulate and a lot more humble sounding.

[wcgfreetheslaves]

@gaozhi2007 Because English doesn't sound shitty like Chinese.

[gaozhi2007]

@wcgfreetheslaves

I couldn't agree with you more. English really does sound shitty. It's just a pastiche of other, better languages. I really think everyone who speaks English should learn a second language like Chinese or even Klingon.

[extrekkie13]

@gaozhi2007 As a English-speaking Chinese person I find that offensive. I grew up in Australia and there is nothing wrong with English. Stop being so ethnocentric. I don't think any language or culture is better than any other. They're all part of the human heritage.

[gaozhi2007]

@extrekkie13 Your offense stems from the fact that you are an ex-trekkie. Clearly my comment about learning Klingon offended you. (Are you realizing that I was being sarcastic yet? Heh heh. My whole post was said sarcastically. If you read the person's post I was responding to, he said "English doesn't sound shitty like Chinese." Well, that was too good to pass up, so my entire post is said sarcastically. As if I would actually believe that ha ha no worries mate! )

[ZhangMingXuanIsABabe]

@extrekkie13

im chinese australian as well

but lol english sounds ugly here. u know the aussie accent? O_o i dont even mean te bogan one either.

[ZhangMingXuanIsABabe]

@wcgfreetheslaves

lol english sounds way worse than mandarin. it can be on par with german of cantonese. dont think so highly of ur kind. it could be because the person in the vdeo like the rest of ur kind pronouce mandarin like ur a bunch of monkeys with low iq.

[wcgfreetheslaves]

@ZhangMingXuanIsABabe Sorry to break it to you, but Cantonese sounds much better than Mandarin. People who speak Mandarin sounds like a bunch of dogs barking. How about writing English properly because "ur kind" is polluting the English language with your bad pronunciation and grammar.

Let's not talk about the Mandarin spoken in Shanghai. It sounds like shit. I hate replying to a bunch of monkeys with low IQ who can't understand their own or other people's language.

[macro312]

@wcgfreetheslaves

Wait! Cantonese originated from Mandarin....

[wcgfreetheslaves]

@macro312 The sound system of Ancient Chinese (dating back at least 3000 years) actually had consonant clusters and more resembles Tibetan. No modern Chinese language has such sounds. Please refer to 漢語語音史 (王力) for a treatment of Chinese sounds from 200BC onwards, and for a treatment of Ancient Chinese see 漢語歷史音韻學 (潘悟雲) p101, and 上古漢語音系 (金理新)

[macro312]

@wcgfreetheslaves

Hey man, don't have to be condescending and all hahaha I'm half Aus and Chinese, So I guess I'm both...? Ahh well What do you know~ you learn something new everyday...

[wcgfreetheslaves]

@macro312 It's interesting how many Chinese people don't know this, yet they critize foreigners for their lack of knowledge of the Chinese language. Oh China...

[ZhangMingXuanIsABabe]

@wcgfreetheslaves

no need to be so hyped up

im just giving my personal opinion of how english sounds based on the languages ive learnt and able to speak which are shared among most chinese ppl overseas and in china who know more languages. care to tell me ur race btw?

and i have to say the cantonese overseas who tend to be:

1. ugly in appearance associated with a seasian look

2. ugly language

3. bad manners in public and rudeness

are the ones who give chinese a bad name. 

[ZhangMingXuanIsABabe]

@wcgfreetheslaves

im beginning to feel ur asian

the roots of mandarin is in fact middle chinese not 'manchurian' or tungistic. cantonese is no where near ancient chinese dear.

[Crapidiot]

@ZhangMingXuanIsABabe

jenny, yeah i think he's canto cos hes comments about mandarin sounds similar in this 'white girl speak mandarin' video. i thought he/she was caucasian with that 'chinese sounds shit compared to english' comment too. lol what a disgrace.

[Crapidiot]

@ZhangMingXuanIsABabe

Damn and you're defending mandarin and china when ur shanghaiense lol

[LUCAS57642]

@wcgfreetheslaves WTF? are you really that stupid? i mean clearly i speak Mandarin and what the hell is the problem with our speaking? i dont understand Cantonese but at least i respect it, unlike you you mother fucker asshole

[cantehk2]

God... where the hell did a Frenchman learn such native-level English?

[doglin82]

god, how did he do it? i mean he is fluent in Chinese and English..how?

[ciosetome]

It's amazing that after 30 years of the country being open, honkeys are still reduced to tongue twister parlor tricks to get attention over there. What is wrong with us, start teaching this crap in schools in the West so we're not reduced to the status of talking monkeys.

[xiaogeju2009]

After 大山 and 大牛 he is probably the next star on chinese CCTV heaven! Congratulations! We are watching you!

[mcoolleng]

Who has anything against Da Shan?? 很多外国人不知道他是谁。

[Esoparagon]

His English is also amazingly native-level

[hiphop242]

I am a bit puzzled, 为什么很多外国人不喜欢大山?

[incognitoaaa]

@hiphop242 就是因为觉得不好笑 不了解中国文化的人觉得相声好傻 大概是这样吧

[cruel2003]

@hiphop242 你喜欢ABC 和CBC么？ in general

[ski2rocks]

amazing...