How this Deaf Mandarin Learner Perfected Chinese Tones
Episode description
My Free Mandarin Learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook
My Chinese learning Blog: imlearningmandarin.com
James's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jameswonglife
James's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JamesWongLife/videos
--
On today’s podcast, I speak to James Wong, a commercial model and influencer from the UK who has an incredible story of overcoming adversity to become fluent in Chinese.
James’ dad is from Hong Kong but moved to the UK as a child. James was raised monolingual in English but as an adult decided to explore his heritage by taking on Chinese languages. He moved to Taiwan to study Mandarin a few years ago and has lived there ever since.
His Chinese learning journey would eventually see him reach a high level in spoken Mandarin, master the tones, and even take part in several televised interviews in Taiwan.
These achievements were made all the more remarkable by the fact that James has severe hearing loss.
I began by asking James about his mixed heritage background and early exposure to Chinese language and culture growing up.