In this episode, I interview Elias Ek.

Elias is from Sweden, but has lived in Taiwan for the past 25 years, where he runs his own company, Enspyre.

Listen to find out about:

• Elias’ first encounter in Chinese in Taiwan
• His first job in Taiwan
• Experience of working as a foreigner in a Taiwanese company
• His breakthrough in learning Chinese
• His experience on learning speaking without characters
• His use of Chinese while running his own company in Taiwan
• How he prepares for giving speeches in Chinese
• His approach interviewing new employees
• Why classroom language learning is broken
• Difference in western versus Chinese business culture
• How he elicits ideas from his staff
• What he would change about his strategy learning Chinese
• How Chinese compares in difficulty to other languages

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:35 — 9.9MB) | Embed

In this first episode of the new Learn Chinese Insights Podcast, I interview Joe Westerhof.

Joe came to Taiwan 17+ years ago from Michigan, US. He initially began teaching English but now works in a trading company in Taichung, doing import / exports.

In this episode, you will find out:

• What brought Joe to Taiwan in the first place.
• His background learning Chinese – what worked and what didn’t.
• His initial impressions of Taiwan.
• The benefits of living in a small town.
• How he transitioned from teaching to working in trade.
• Issues that westerners have, when working in Taiwanese companies
• Why Taiwanese companies don’t hire western employees
• What to focus on, when trying to get a job with a Taiwanese company
• What it’s like to be married with kids to a Taiwanese
• On dealing with the Taiwanese language versus Mandarin
• Joe’s theories on westerners who are fluent in Chinese
• Joe’s advice on learning Chinese (or any language)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:21 — 12.5MB) | Embed