People often ask us how we get such great voice acting, as if there were a secret we could simply put into words. Whereas the truth is that acting is a form of Zen, and it takes years to develop a sensitivity to the art. For us a key part was spending our formative years at the Central Academy of Drama. And as much as it pains us to admit now that we are trained thespians, we'd never even heard of the Bard before attending that venerable institute. In those days, as our teachers would often tell us, truly we were green as lettuce.

Learning Chinese? This lesson is mostly just fun listening practice, but if you're looking for a challenging way to build from it, spend a few minutes on our associated vocabulary list and quiz, which will test you on how well you can recognize famous quotes from Shakespeare... translated into Chinese. This ends up being harder than you think, although it may help to note that we've only used one selection per play.