Cameron Gets his Language Right on Weibo
When British Prime Minister David Cameron returns home from his trip to China,he will be surprised by endless questions from thousands of his new Chinese friends on social media. Foreign politicians have tried to engage with Chinese fans through social media. Their teams waste no time uploading their schedules and speeches in English and other languages. However, these messages usually fail to reach the Chinese public, mainly because they are not written in Chinese.
But Cameron‟s team has made a difference. It set up a micro blog for the prime minster on Sina Weibo. By Wednesday, Cameron had uploaded seven posts, even though he only started to use the tool last Friday. He has used the Chinese language in all of his posts, and two are bilingual. In terms of content, the posts are all simple and original, and accompanied by photos. They are not mere recaps of official documents， schedules and speeches.
Though the prime minister has not responded to the mounting comments on his weibo account, he should be delighted by the responses from his followers, who can understand his messages in Chinese. His latest post has been forwarded and commented upon more than 20,000 times.
卡梅伦在微博上用对了语言
当英国首相大卫•卡梅伦结束中国之行回到家里的时候， 他会惊奇地发现他在中国结识的成千上万新朋友已经通过社交媒体向他提出了无数个问题。 其他外国政治家也曾试图通过社交媒体与中国粉丝交流， 他们的团队争分夺秒地用英文或者其它文字把领导人的日程安排和讲话稿传到网上。 不过， 中国公众一般都看不到那些信息， 主要是因为所有信息都不是用中文写的。
这次卡梅伦的团队却换了一种做法。 他们在新浪微博上为首相开了个户。 到星期三， 卡梅伦已经上传了7个帖子， 尽管他从上周五才开始用这个账户。 而且， 他所有帖子都 用了中文写的， 其中有两个还是双语的。 在内容方面， 这些帖子既简单又富有原创性， 还配发了照片， 绝不仅仅重复官方文件、 日程表和讲话稿。
尽管首相还没回应微博上不断增长的评论， 他应该会为来自关注者们的回应而高兴， 因为他们能读懂他用中文发布的消息。 他最近的一个帖子已经被转发、 评论了2万多次。