Patrick Zein: Chinese is a fascinating language.

He was born in Stockholm in December 1966, grew up in the town of Växjö in southern Sweden. From 2000 to 2004, he lived in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavík. He returned to Iceland to work as a computer consultant for Hugur/Ax in 2007. He teaches Italian and Mandarin Chinese sometimes.

蔡忠臣1966年12月出生在瑞典的斯德哥尔摩，在瑞典南部的小镇韦克舍长大。2000年到2004年，他一直生活中冰岛首都雷克雅维克。2007年他重新回到冰岛，在Hugur/Ax公司担任电脑顾问。有时候他也会在冰岛教授意大利语和汉语。

In his spare time he likes to study foreign languages (English, Italian, German, Chinese and Icelandic). He also likes listening to music, hiking in forrests and mountains, fitnes training, knitting sweaters, practicing tai ji quan, playing games such as chess (especially KaleidoChess), Mah-jong and Chudadi（锄大地）, and many other things.

空闲的时候，他喜欢学习外语（包括英语、意大利语、德语、汉语和冰岛语）。他也喜欢听音乐，远足，健身，织毛衣，练太极，玩桌游（比如Kaleido棋），打麻将和锄地和其他活动等等。

Patrick built a Chinese learning website by himself to share the information about Chinese (http://www.zein.se/). We are interested in his Chinese learning and teaching experience. So we did an interview to share it. Here is the interview:

蔡忠臣自己还建立了一个汉语学习网站（http://www.zein.se/），分享一些中文学习的资料。沪江网对他的汉语学习和教授经历很感兴趣，因此安排了一个小小的采访和大家一起共享。下面是采访内容：

HJ：Why would you want to learn Chinese?
Patrick：It is the largest language in the World, and it has an ancient culture. In addition, I find it to be a most fascinating language.

沪江：为什么您要学习汉语？
蔡忠臣：汉语是世界人口数量使用语言最多的语言，同时也具有古老的文化。除此之外，我觉得汉语是最有魅力的语言。

HJ：Is Chinese learning popular in Iceland? How and with what purpose do they learn Chinese?
Patrick：There is a growing interest for Chinese in the Nordic countries. Some learn Chinese because it is different or interesting, but some also bring up the benefits for business.

沪江：在冰岛，汉语学习流行吗？他们怎么样学习汉语？他们为什么学习汉语？
蔡忠臣：如今，北欧国家学习汉语的兴趣越来越浓。有的人学习汉语是因为汉语和自己的母语完全不同或者觉得汉语很意思，但是有的人觉得学习汉语能为自己的生意带来更多的利益。

HJ：How do you learn Chinese?
Patrick：By reading, writing, listening to music, watching movies, and so on. I believe that it is important to have as many different types of contact with the languages that you are learning. In the case of learning Chinese, I also find it important to study characters and radicals parallel with the study of pronunciation, since I find these two aspects aid each other.

沪江：您是怎么学习汉语的？
蔡忠臣：我通过阅读、写作、听音乐、看电影等方式学习。我相信学习一门语言，通过不同方式去学习它很重要。说到汉语学习，我发现将汉字笔画和发音放在一起学习是很重要的，因为这两者是相辅相成的。

HJ：Why would you make such a decision to build a website? Does all the contents on the website is organized by yourself?
Patrick：I love the Chinese language and to teach things to other people. I have written all the material on my site.

沪江：为什么您决定做一个汉语学习网站？网站里面的内容都是您自己亲自做的吗？
蔡忠臣：因为我喜欢汉语，而且我也喜欢教别人东西。所以我就在我的网站上记下这些内容。

HJ：What is your students’ biggest interest in studying Chinese?
Patrick：I teach because I like sharing my knowledge, and the students like my way of teaching. They also like game-like exercises.

沪江：您的学生学习中文最大的兴趣点在哪里？
蔡忠臣：我教书因为我喜欢分享我的知识，而且学生喜欢我这种教学方法。他们也喜欢其中游戏式的练习。

HJ：You have learned many languages, in which I believe Chinese has the largest difference with others. What kind of suggestion would you give to foreigners who want to learn Chinese?
Patrick：The Chinese grammar is simple, but has few similarities with European languages. You can rarely translate a sentence word-by-word, but need to translate the message of the sentence into something rather different. Of all the languages I know, only Swedish and Chinese have different tones that make an important aspect of the pronunciation. Swedish people can easily hear and imitate the Chinese tones, but it is clearly more difficult for people of other nationalities. I always advice my students to try finding as many different types of contact with the language as they can. It is always helpful to try finding Chinese friends or maybe Chinese stores/restaurants in your home town, and talk to them in Chinese.

沪江：您已经学了很多种语言，但是我觉得汉语完全不同于其他语言。您能给那些想学汉语的外国人一些学习意见吗？
蔡忠臣：汉语语法很简单，但是和欧洲语言完全不同。你不用一个词一个词地去翻译，但是你需要把句子内容翻译成另一个句子。我知道在所有的语言中，只有瑞典语和汉语，不同的语调对发音都会起着非常重要的作用。所以瑞典人很容易辨别和模仿汉语语调，但是其他国家的人却很困难。我总是建议我的学生尽可能地用更多不同的形式去学习一门新语言，比如：交中国朋友，或者去当地的中国商店和饭馆，用中文和他们聊天等等都会非常有用。

HJ：What do you think of the way people learn things on Internet?
Patrick：It can be a good complement to other types of studies. However, you also need to practice with pen and paper, because this will help you in many ways.

沪江：关于人们用互联网学习知识，您有什么想法？
蔡忠臣：这是对其他学习方式的一种补充。然而，学生也有必要多用笔和纸学习，因为这样也能从更多方面帮助我们学习。