Recruiting in China

Entrepreneur helps Business People Work with Chinese
16 July 07

Doing business in China can be a tricky experience for those with little or no understanding of the language and culture. Languagebite.com, a new Kiwi website, has created a Chinese language course for busy executives that is fun, engaging and takes only three minutes a day.

In what could be a world first, Joanna Lee, the entrepreneur behind the venture, is combining the convenience of online video with a powerful language learning technique. The result is a simple yet highly effective way of learning key phrases and useful information in easily digestible ¡®bites¡¯. Because each lesson is only a few minutes long, retention of the information is very high ¨C even for people who are incredibly busy. Links to the video lessons arrive daily in your inbox and are expertly designed to teach one full phrase each day.

Helping westerners to build rapport with their Chinese business partners is one of the goals of the program. ¡°We teach useful, simple phrases which will show your Chinese clients and suppliers that you have made an effort to learn some language and a little about the culture¡±. The course covers common phrases for everyday interactions including greetings, introductions, eating out, traveling and talking about family. You will even learn how to ask your taxi driver to slow down, which those who have already been to China will know can be an extremely useful phrase!

The lessons are presented by Ming Jin, a lecturer from a Beijing university. Jin happened to be in New Zealand as a research fellow with Auckland University at the time Language Bite was recruiting for the right person to front the program. ¡°Ming is a gifted presenter ¨C she makes a difficult language easy to follow¡±.

Lee, a linguistics specialist, says that Language Bite¡¯s edge over established international competitors is that it is ¡°devastatingly simple¡± - a link to a new online video lesson is emailed directly to your inbox each day. ¡°Language Bite is designed for busy people. You can learn a new language in your own time, at your own place and it only takes a few minutes each day.¡± The video clips are supported by downloadable sound bites (to store on a computer or MP3 player for practicing anytime and anywhere) and written PDF lesson summaries can be downloaded and stored for future reference.

Language Bite have launched with Mandarin Chinese however Lee has plans to introduce other languages in the near future. ¡°Feedback about the concept has been overwhelmingly positive ¨C people love the simplicity and accessibility of the method¡±. The inspiration for Language Bite came from marrying Lee¡¯s passion for languages and teaching with husband Steve¡¯s interest in e-commerce. ¡°We have developed an extremely powerful way to learn a new language. And we look forward to teaching languages in a fun, user-friendly way to New Zealanders ¨C and the world!¡±