What lessons can MNCs learn from Zuckerberg’s Chinese skill?

Mark Zuckerberg's remarkable display of language facility during his Q&A in Mandarin at Tsinghua University in Beijing impressed many people around the planet. But Zuckerberg’s linguistic feat clearly has much more significance than just dazzling us and his in-laws.

马克·扎克伯格在北京清华大学用中文出色地回答问题给世界上的许多人留下了深刻印象。但是扎克伯格的语言壮举远不止令我们大吃一惊，显然意义更为深远。

First, there’s the obvious. Facebook enjoys 1.23 billion active monthly users as of February, but Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009, one of several prominent social-media sites blacklisted by the Chinese government. Could Zuckerberg still be fantasizing about the day when Chinese authorities bring down their “Great Wall,” allowing Facebook access to its more than 1.3 billion citizens? You don’t need Alibaba to illustrate the economic potential.

首先，这是非常显而易见的。Facebook二月份的活跃用户数量达到12.3亿，但是Facebook却自2009年起在中国境内被封锁，它是被中国政府列入黑名单的几个著名社交网站之一。扎克伯格是否在幻想着某一天中国政府能够拆除他们的“高墙”允许Facebook接触中国超过13亿的公民?这里并不需要阿里巴巴就能说明中国市场的经济潜力。

Zuckerberg hinted at this himself, as the NYTimes wrote: “Asked at the Tsinghua talk about Facebook’s plans in the country, Mr. Zuckerberg took two big gulps from his water bottle to laughter, and then said, ‘We’re already in China,’ to more laughs. ‘We help Chinese companies increase foreign customers.’”

扎克伯格给出了一个暗示，正如《纽约时报》所报道的：“当在清华被问到Facebook对于中国市场的计划时，扎克伯格先生喝了两大口水之后开始大笑，然后说道，“我们已经涉足中国市场了，”然后笑得更欢，“我们帮助中国企业拥有了更多海外客户。”

The CEO reminded the international community of one very basic lesson: in today’s global market, effective communication functions as the starting point for successful business growth. As any good salesperson knows, speak their language and you’re halfway there — getting your message across in a local language is an essential way to foster market entry.

这位首席执行官给国际社会带来了一堂非常基础的课程：在当今的全球市场中，有效的信息交流是成功企业增长的起点。任何一位出色的销售人员都知道，如果能够讲当地的语言那么你已经成功了一半，用当地语言对你的信息进行传递是促进融入当地市场一种非常重要的方式。

Amid China’s growing position as an economic superpower-it will, by some accounts, overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy in the very near future-there’s no surprise that more and more businesses around the world are voicing their desire to break into the Chinese economic ecosystem, with Facebook no exception.

中国身为超级经济大国的地位在日益增长的期间，根据若干统计，在不久的将来，她将会超越美国成为全球最大的经济体，越来越多的世界各国企业都表示愿意进入中国经济的生态系统，这点毋庸质疑，Facebook也并不例外。

The lessons here are profound for businesses large and small trying to tap into the mind-boggling potential of the Chinese market, and which get the importance, like Zuckerberg seems to, of language localization to their business strategy. This means everything from translating company websites (and making them culturally appropriate) to localizing mobile apps, marketing material and yes, having your sales team and top execs learn a new language. These lessons are true for China as much as they are for Russia, Brazil, India and beyond.

这堂课程对于想要进入拥有无线潜力的中国市场的大中型企业而言是非常重要的，就像是扎克伯格所计划要做的那样，将语言本地化作为他们的企业战略。这意味着从简单的公司网站翻译(使其具有文化契合性)到本土化移动设备APP、市场营销材料等等着手，是的，还要让销售团队以及高层管理人员学习一门新语言。这堂课程对于中国市场是真知灼见，同样也适用于俄罗斯、巴西、印度以及其它市场。

Businesses are seeming to get it more and more though: resistance to localization is simply bad business.  

企业似乎是对此越来越有心得：抵抗本土化只会拖垮企业。

For more interesting information, click this video to watch how Zuckerberg speaks Chinese at Tsinghua Univeristy.

点击视频看看我们的扎克伯格的中文秀吧。