Mark Zuckerberg can suddenly speak Mandarin

Mark Zuckerberg has somehow managed to learn Mandarin Chinese to a conversational level while also running Facebook.

One Chinese commenter online equated his linguistic skills during a 30-minute Q&A at Beijing's Tsinghua University to "an articulate 7-year-old with a mouth full of marbles".

The Facebook boss was said to have an impressive vocabulary but poor pronunciation - at one time a single tonal slip meant he said Facebook had 11 mobile users instead of one billion.

He told the audience he learned Mandarin because he liked challenges, and wanted to speak to his in-laws (Zuckerberg is married to Chinese-Vietnamese-American Priscilla Chan).

Of course this has nothing to do with the fact that Facebook has been banned in China since July 2009, when pictures of the Urumqi riots, in Xinjiang province, were posted on the site.

More: [The real reason why people post about their relationship on Facebook]1

More: [Facebook does not want you to see these boobs]2

More: [Another reason not to believe everything you read on Facebook]3