A prodigy who taught himself fluent Mandarin and Cantonese has been asked to help run a Chinese start-up company in Sydney.
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Wagga High School student Noah Little hadn't even finished his HSC exams when he got the job offer from the founder of NextU, who was so impressed at his language skills that she recruited him on the spot.
The precocious teenager will help manage the new start-up while also starring in videos and livestreams for their website, where he will review tech and other products in Mandarin.
The 17-year-old will be moving to Sydney in January, but before leaving he will commercially release his Chinese language translation app, which he made during high school after teaching himself several programming languages.
In other news:
He will be waving goodbye to his high school mates as well as his current employers at Kung Fu Dumpling and Wojia asian grocery, both of which hired him right away after hearing his language skills.
"There's a hidden secret of learning languages," Mr Little said.
"You can instantly get jobs and free food."
Wojia shopkeeper Aiden Jie said he had never met a white person who could speak Chinese, let alone with as much fluency as Noah.
Mr Jie said Noah could communicate with Australian and Chinese customers with no problem - a feat that astounded him.
"I was very shocked to hear a white person speaking Chinese so well. It's very rare to find Australian natives who can speak Chinese," Mr Jie said.
"Noah can communicate with us very well. It's amazing."
Mr Little blitzed through his Chinese HSC exam, saying he probably did better in Mandarin than he did in his English exam.
Another no-brainer was his IT multimedia exam, which he finished in 30 minutes leaving another hour on the clock to sit around.
He hopes to use his IT and programming skills in his new job as well as later in the future, if and when he starts his own company one day.
His love of learning has opened many career paths to him, but Mr Little said that was never his main goal when he started teaching himself Mandarin at the age of 12.
He said he'd only wanted to make some new friends, and to him this was the true measure of success.
"I had a few Chinese friends back when I was just starting high school, and I wanted to learn their languages so I could communicate better and I just stuck with it and kept learning," Mr Little said.
"I did it for my friends. It's pretty cliché, but it's true."