A decade of "learning English, understanding the world" has brought Charles Zhang's English Course to a significant milestone. On August 6, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Sohu will take his signature online format of "reading news while learning English" into an offline setting for the first time. This special 10th-anniversary live class, themed "What Happens When You Persist in One Thing for Ten Years?", will be streamed live on Sohu Video's "Follow" channel via Charles Zhang's account.

Charles Zhang launched his first live English lesson on August 6, 2016, with the initial goal of "experiencing the company's product." Over the past decade, the course initially aired live at 8:00 AM daily, later shifting to 12:30 PM from Monday to Thursday. It has accumulated more than 2,000 broadcasts and covered over 10,000 news articles. From a fledgling experiment to a highly recognizable content IP, the course has gradually carved out a unique niche by combining "international news reading with authentic English learning," becoming a representative example in the domestic knowledge live-streaming sector.

Unlike traditional English teaching, which focuses on grammar, Charles Zhang's English Course uses current international news as learning material. It guides viewers through diverse fields such as astronomy, geography, medicine, health, and humanities, offering both depth and breadth. From cutting-edge topics like SpaceX's Starship test flights and AI ethics debates to social curiosities like the Louvre theft and a surfboard's transoceanic drift, global events are transformed into vivid English teaching cases. During the live sessions, Zhang writes English by hand in real-time, carefully reading news articles word by word and sentence by sentence. He breaks down authentic English sentence structures and key expressions, enabling viewers to grasp major world events while broadening their global perspective, truly aligning language learning with global dynamics.

To create a complete learning system, after each live broadcast, Sohu Video's "Follow" channel simultaneously releases highlights, core vocabulary summaries, and "Zhishi Video" Chinese-edited content. This forms a full learning loop of "real-time learning during the live stream plus review and consolidation afterward," making fragmented live learning systematic and efficient.

During the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, the course continued its characteristic teaching model by turning the entire tournament into an English learning scenario. On the opening day, June 11, Zhang analyzed tournament rules and team lineups, teaching basic vocabulary like "jointly host" and "debut." After Spain's victory on July 21, he used the final match and the team's homecoming celebrations as material to explain expressions like "vindicate" and "cap off," allowing fans and English learners to easily accumulate practical, scenario-based English knowledge while watching the games.

Charles Zhang's English Course focuses not only on improving English skills but also on using world events as a vehicle to help the public understand the complexities of life and broaden their international outlook. When discussing news about volcanic eruptions, he simultaneously popularizes outdoor safety tips; when interpreting social events, he guides viewers to develop rational thinking perspectives. In a live broadcast during October 2025, Zhang shared insights from psychological research on using horror movies to alleviate anxiety, explaining professional vocabulary while educating viewers on emotional regulation, giving the English learning both practical value and intellectual depth.

After a decade of dedicated cultivation, Charles Zhang's English Course has grown into a core IP of Sohu Video's knowledge live-streaming ecosystem, with live room popularity repeatedly breaking ten million. Zhang has stated that traffic is not innate; good content requires persistence and management. Ten years of consistent output is the most powerful proof of this philosophy. On August 6, tune in to Sohu Video's "Follow" channel to join this 10th-anniversary intellectual engagement and see a broader world through English learning.