Experts Rank Chinese Speaking Celebrities - Best to WORST! 

As a 1.5 generation Chinese-American, I was very impressed by the Australian prime minister. It's not just about his accent, grammar, and fluency of expression, but about his listening comprehension. Viewers who don't speak Chinese may not be able to tell, but that interviewer was using extremely complex pedantic vocabulary and sentence constructions. The fact that he was able to respond on topic at all was crazy! My husband, who is a 1.5 generation immigrant like myself and who speaks Chinese fluently with a Beijinger accent, would not have understood a single thing that lady said. On a side note, the comment about what constitutes "fluency" is an interesting one. I have graduate degrees in French and teach French at the university level, and I consider myself to speak five languages at varying levels, so this is a question that is very dear to my heart. Personally, I think the things that define me as native and fluent in English and Chinese are that 1) I don't overthink to make sure I'm correct, 2) I don't get nervous before talking, 3) I have zero fears that the person I'm talking to will switch languages because they don't find me "worthy" 4) I have zero fears that me stumbling over one word or hesitating over one sentence will make them think I'm less competent, 5) I can understand everything even if they're super quick and casual and I can't make out every syllable, and 6) native speakers never think I'm not native. My French is not nearly at that level and yes, I agree that qualifying oneself as "fluent" when you don't feel it can be hard. This said, I've learned to still call myself fluent in front of non-speakers because what they mean by "fluent" is whether I'm able to hold a conversation without context, without planning, without a dictionary, and without making the native interlocutor feel like they're pulling teeth to communicate, and that I can do. I have better grammar and better sentence structures than a lot of native speakers, and I have decent pronunciation. I also know for a fact that there are hordes and hordes of people who call themselves fluent who are MUCH less fluent than I am, and so I would be doing myself a disservice if I did not call myself fluent. For the same reason, I put "near-native" on my CV because my colleagues and classmates whose level is not too different from my own all do so, and again, I would be doing myself a disservice if I did not put it as such. If anyone calls me out on it, I have no problem with just telling them the truth.

Kevin Rudd has a major degree in Chinese language. Not only does he speak Chinese, he speaks Chinese at an academic level.

Cantonese is a legitimate version of the Chinese language (leaving aside the argument about whether there is any such thing as “Chinese” as a single language, rather than as a designation of a family of languages). A Cantonese speaker is speaking “Chinese”.

Xiaomanyc is 33 I think and he has a Chinese wife he lived in Beijing for a year and he's been learning Chinese for more than 10 years I think

I had a brief conversation with Kevin Rudd in Melbourne last year. His Mandarin language level and knowledge of China are above that of most Westerners. I told him that I was from Shaanxi Province.He explained to the people next to him that although the pronunciation was the same, it was Shaanxi instead of Shanxi. He was the first foreigner I met who knew the difference between the two provinces.

John Huntsman is definitely better than John Cena. Huntsman is a former ambassador to China, and I've heard him speak Chinese in other settings. He could respond in an interview. John Cena''s speeches were rehearsed and probably in multiple takes.

Should have included 大山 from Canada. Hands down God tier.

If u’re Asian, speaking 3 langguages quite common so rarely people impressed. It’s when You speak 4-5 languages fluently then people start to notice

So glad yall revamped this channel. I really enjoy the content that has reignited my interest in language learning and other cultures.

Well done in recognizing and appreciating the enthusiasm and optimism displayed by these celebrities as they make an effort to communicate in the language.

Tbh Cena's Mandarin skills isn't that bad. He in fact promoted the “老干妈” mala chili sauce quite well and made it semi-international.

Lots of respect for Kevin Rudd considering he probably studied in Taiwan over 20-30 years ago and don’t have to use it in his everyday life in Australia.

I live in 广西 guangxi china right now, studying mandarin. And it's absolutely true that the Chinese don't care so much about accents and tones. Where I live, mandarin is almost a second language haha most people here grow up speaking a dialect (zhuang hua). So they no one cares that my accent and tones are off haha it's refreshing

And I'm a Chinese descendant who was born in Indonesia and still live here... but I can NOT speak or write Chinese. "Thanks" to the extremely China-phobic government at that time (Soeharto's New Order regime) which outlawed anything Chinese-related including Chinese words, Chinese new year celebration and so on. Now Indonesia is more open but discrimination still exists here and there. Also "thanks" to Soeharto for introducing hatred towards Chinese people.

While I was taking a 3-week Chinese language course at Taiwan’s NTNU, our course teacher happened to be the same lady who also taught Kevin Rudd. Unfortunately, I do not recall our professor’s name anymore but she was considered to be one of the most eminent faculty members and highly respected. She must have retired already because that was at least 8 years ago.

John Huntsman was ambassador to both China and Singapore. He probably picked up a little Chinese...and he played keyboards with Chinese rock bands on TV.

Hi i’m a native chinese speaker (grew up speaking both mandarin and english at home). Kevin Rudd’s tonal pronunciation isn’t very accurate and the speech wasn’t written particularly well - but the interview was very impressive, he has good vocab and to be able to converse at that level is pretty good. He also has a slight Beijing accent when speaking haha so technically his accent is more “standard” than mine 😂 he and Xiaoma are the two best here imo.

I love your channel! I have been lucky enough to do my degree in international politics at Fudan University, it was a wonderful experience, your channel reminds me a lot of that moment in my life and I confirm what you say in the video! Your channel is great, keep it up!

C'mon guys, there's no way that Zucks could be better than Huntsman. C'mon.

Very funy video thanks!

I love how you named the categories.

Very entertaining in your analysis and humor. There are quite a number of American speaking Chinese in movies and TV. Hope to see more in your show.

It's refereshing to see yourself being humble. There are many RU-vidrs who speak conversational Mandarin, using wrong tones and grammar, but often claiming to be Fluent, Native Level or even speaking "Perfect Chinese".

Worst insult from a British I've got so far : spectacularly~~~ spectacularly average 😁

How can you put Xioa Ma below the Milky Bar kid ( Rudd )

I’m a native speaker. Xiao Ma is actually a beyond-God tier speaker. The clip didn’t show much, but he has hours of videos of him talking to Chinese people. There is a 1-hour video of him interviewing a Chinese guy( the Chinese “Elon musk”) who, in my opinion, has no sense of logic, like many poorly educated. But Xiao Ma was able to make sense of the nonsense and have a conversation with him. Xiao Ma was kind of irritated in the video because it’s hard to have a conversation with the guy he was talking to.

Awesome!!!👍👏🏻👏🏻😍😍😍

Very interesting content 😁 this and the kung fu videos are great!

After living in Beijing for 2 years I had pretty good 'bar Chinese' and a cracking 'pirate' Beijing accent that cracked up my mainland friends.

i have watched that guy several times and found it interesting. I want to learn mandarin and am trying but not doing so well, but I keep trying. he spent a year in china so he says.

Would have loved to see a compilation from the tv show Firefly. They basically used Chinese as their version of swearing… They were obviously just saying memorized lines but I would be curious to see how close they did get…

John Cena's mao tai will forever be a classic.

I will see you in London for the Shen Yun in February '24!

The fish ball guy is at native speaker level 100% at least his talent on learning Chinese

I like the different experiments with content

Peter Hessler said it well in his "River Town". Chinese would compliment a person's Chinese when the person is a tourist or beginner. Once you pass that stage of being a tourist or beginner, they would give you brutally honest opinions of your pronunciation and mandarin speaking skills.

Xiaoma is god tier, he speak mandarin, cantonese, and fuzhounese from the street 🤯🤣

Totally agree with the analysis/result. I like the final adjustment made for Zukerberg after listening to all. Keep up the good work. 😊

这一期节目非常不错，我看完了。学中文的朋友们，为你们加油！

Where is Mira Sorvino?

idk why but John Cena really love saying 跟 instead of 和, its such a weird way of saying ‘and’

I think Mark's Chinese is ok. I can understand him perfectly. Jared makes a great point that there are many Chinese native speakers with heavy accents!! I love Kevin Rudd for the simple fact that he is the only Western politician who speaks fluent Mandarin in the world!! Huntsman's Mandarin is ok but not as good as Rudd.

I know Ben Hedges from his show The Credit Shifu, but my mind is blown that he speaks Mandarin too!

it's funny to see how the host's accent goes with the guest's here and there😄

All these people speak better than I even though everyone who doesn't know me expects me to be fluent.

13:02 you skipped the punchline. Someone startles him right after that and he says 吓死我了！perfectly

Actually, Mark Zuckerburg didn't say "大家好！hello, everyone!" he said "打架好！fighting is good." LOL

That was fun! I'm firmly in the the bottom two tiers

ok, but where is Creed from The Office?

Meet either of Jim Roger's daughters and they will blow your mind out with their Chinese proficiency.

I don't think I could have understood John Cena without the chinese subtitles.

im a mandarin native speaker and i have to say ben's mandarin is better than mine❤absolutely love this

It’s important to also differentiate between fluency and proficiency

That was great!!! As a total novice with just a tiny bit of knowledge, this was a lot of fun and inspiring!

You could ve put john cena saying Chinese in wrestling ring in too. "I am champion and i never give up", then follow up by Dwayne the rock Johnson attempted to speak Chinese but it was just vhxnwvgwbue😂😂

gotta wonder why John Cena went for 礼拜 specifically... what, was the movie premiering in Xinjiang?

Wow so amazing.

The thing about native Chinese also speaking non-standard Mandarin should get more attention. Laowai are often held to a higher standard than many Chinese, getting corrected on tones and pronunciation when nobody would ever do that for a local who’s also wrong.

Spoken chinese is not easy at all, I admire anyone non-Chinese who makes an effort to do so!

Oh wow just looked it up, xiaoma is like turning 34 yrs old as of 2024, he's been around for quite a while

Wait. Isn’t that Ben…the sci-fi host..on channel…”Generation Tech”..?

Dialects are never inferior to standard Mandarin. They are just different languages with no army and navy, unfortunately. Imagine if Cantonese had become the common language in China, the same would be said of non-native speakers of Cantonese.

Chinese get so proud of any little thing related to China. Like there is a hotpot in the US "oh my god, China is so amazing and powerful". So if you say 你好， they think " OMG the world loves China, the world is learning Chinese."

Why no Laoma Chris?

Ni huang . Its safe to say u can sort me in to the category ”beyond saving” ”unsalvagable” or ”Old dog!” ^^

Jared talking to the back row! Great for the stage, hard for the interview.

I think the categories aren’t very representative because although the grammar/pronunciation/tones weren’t the best, it is still impressive that people like John Cena and Mark Zukerburg put a lot of effort into learning Mandarin chinese and have good vocabulary. There also wasn’t that many examples provided for each person so it’s not fair to label these people as ‘train wrecks’ etc. I like the video but it could be improved with more examples from each person, just purely ranking people against each other and not categorising them, and also I’m not sure why xiaoma who is famous for making videos in Chinese would be compared to the other celebrities who are famous for other things but happen to know Chinese.

I don’t know but it’s very cute to see beginning learners use hand gestures to follow the tones 😂

I will rate these two..trainrecks

I’m curious how they would rate me. I have been learning Mandarin for about 15 years and have been living in Taiwan for three and a half years now. I still won’t necessarily consider myself “fluent” though.

Rita and Jessie (Jeci?) also do review non-native Chinese speakers fwiw.

John Huntsman should be in the accomplished tied. My guess this is a joke for him.

Don’t be too harsh on them at least they’re learning and they’ll improve as time goes on

You guys need to review doc disrespect too 🤣🤣

Xiaoma said in many of his videos he lived for a year in China and he is also married to a Chinese woman.

John Cena wins it all lmfao the delivery is impeccable lmfao

Xiaomanyc is now fluent in various Chinese dialects, even rare Chinese dialects. I'm a 100% sure he should be in god tier. 😆You guys should have watched more videos of him! haha

My rating as a native Mandarin speaker, based on the clips only, ordered from low to high. ^Shelson: 1/10. ^Mark Zuckerberg: 2/10. Train wreck. No language talent for sure considering by the time he had learned CHN for a while. ^Trump's granddaughter: 3/10, for the same reason given to Zuckerberg, plus her age ^John Cena: 4/10. Much better than Zuckerberg, thus more engaging. ^Sheldon's roommate: 4/10 (based on the one sentence). ^Jon Huntsman: 6/10. ^Vanessa Branch: 8/10. Accomplished, more in terms of pronunciation than vocabulary (hard to tell from the film clips). ^Kevin Rudd: Definitely 10/10. ^Xiao Ma: 10/10.

Then they hit you with the falun gong ad. Gd cult

The point of people who have learnt chinese are better than actual chinese people is sooo true. my family’s always talking about how a foreigners chinese is “too perfect” to the point where it sounds unnatural and almost uncanny. but i also speak with a thick malaysian chinese accent so…

Its cute yall think Xiaoma is anywhere higher than slightly above faking it (at best).

I think the actress lady said she had made two movies in China, which would indicate she didn’t butcher the first one. Of course, when there are coaches and retakes, she could still be faking the difference, I guess?

I know ~5 languages and English is my 5th one

are y'all Falun Gong?

Fast and furious guy spoke Chinese like it was Japanese?

Maybe you should also include some content creators, my suggestion would be FuLingFang, i found him ages ago and i always loved his content

“徐克”is a very famous director

Hey, checking you out for the first time, judging from your thumbnail i thought you'd be one of those annoying westerners speaking broken Chinese, but your vibe is completely different... Your Chinese in that short clip was also immaculate ❤

fair enough

I know ten words in Chinese, but it was fun to watch anyway.

Can you better explain what it means to speak your dialect versus Chinese? My brother has lived in China for over 10 years, and he said to consider the dialect as an accent but is also a different language... I'm not following lol

Why does Gérard have to shout

Vanessa Branch nailed it

how could u not include 曹操（Jonathan Kos-Read） in this comparation as the absolute god.🤔

11:50 I think he's trying to say "我的名字是..."

when John Cena speaking Madarin, he sounds like...eh...an angry Japanese🤔

Xiaomanyc has a BUNCH of clips on the internet, and you chose the most basic of him ordering food at a restaurant? How is that fair? You're judging his Chinese based on your terrible pick of the context of him speaking it. He has videos of him having deep fluent conversations with Chinese locals, not just of him ordering food. Just look at the one of him in the nail salon. He legit has a full-on conversation about Chinese culture, living in America, etc. Anybody watching that video would say his Chinese is God Tier.

为什么你们的普通话这么好，而我学了十八年的英语但是发音还是这么不标准😂（Why is your Mandarin Chinese so good while I have been learning English for 18 years and my pronunciation is still so substandard）

I am a beginner learner btw

he might see this, the thought in his head of being banned from facebook was like oh fuck yes hes god tier but we have to be modest, yes of course he needs work.