China’s web users react to Mark Zuckerberg speaking Chinese in his Spring Festival video

In case you missed it while you were filling your belly with dumplings and your sky with fireworks over the holiday period, China’s tech companies weren’t the only ones getting into the Spring Festival spirit. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who got some attention for speaking Mandarin at a public forum last year, put his language skills on the line again to wish Mandarin speakers of the world a happy Chinese new year. Here’s the video:

On previous occasions, Zuckerberg’s Chinese has come in for some criticism. Foreign Policy‘s Isaac Stone Fish called it “terrible”. But what do China’s tech watchers think of his Chinese, and of his continued attempts at engaging with the Chinese market (despite the fact that Facebook is blocked in China)? Here’s a selection of some of the most popular comments about Zuckerberg’s video from Sina Tech:

分开的小数点:

Keep it up! Didn’t sound too bad…

蘑菇大丽花:

His pronunciation of “Hello everybody, happy new year,” is quite standard, but after that it kind of goes off the rails. However his pronunciation of [“50 performers” as] “lion dance” was actually quite cute. Little Zuck’s Chinese is not bad.

墨尘寒:

Pretty good! He goes to such an effort to open up the Chinese market, he truly has a good mind for business.

Ray程34 [responding to above comment]: