Even a man busy running a multi-billion dollar company, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, knows the importance of learning a language to connect to other people and cultures.

In an interview at Tsinghua University, Zuckerberg decided to break out his Mandarin skills. Despite claiming “我的中文很糟糕 (My Chinese is terrible)” his persistence and humility won over the crowd of Chinese students.

He explained his reasons for wanting to learn Chinese:

 “我的太太是中国人；他的家说中文，有的人（他的奶奶）只说中文。我想要跟他们说话。”

(My wife is Chinese; her family speaks Mandarin, and some family members (her grandmother) cannot speak any other language. I want to communicate with them.)

What better reason to learn Chinese than to communicate? Thanks Mark, for showing us the power of learning a language for meaningful cultural exchange. Pengyou on!