How do footballers live in countries where they don't know the language for years?

[11101]

I've been away from the UK for over a decade and barely know anything other than English. It's easy to get by especially when you have translators for everything, in fact they make it harder to learn because you don't need to.

@Fortitude has it right, some people have an aptitude for languages and can pick them up without trying, usually those raised multilingual, but otherwise you either need to or really want to learn. I'd argue some languages require at least two of the three. I really wanted to learn Chinese when I was there but I didn't need to and I'm shit at languages, so I never cracked it.

 

[Oranges038]

I think it's fairly easy for anyone to live in another country if they speak English and their job is conducted in English (or another language they're fluent at).

But footballers playing in countries for years where all the coaching and communication is done in a language they don't have much command of is baffling to me though. I get that people can generally understand a lot more of a language vs how much they can speak, but it must get really hard. And I would have thought a pretty insurmountable barrier to achieving your potential. But plenty of players seem to do fine.

Who needs to speak when you have sign language? Worked for Tony.

 

[Handré1990]

You lot would be suprised at how many English and American working overseas not even bothering to learn basic language skill.

Some Embassy worker has been attached to Embassy for years and still fails basic Indonesian.

Wouldnt be so arrogant if i were OP. Most of us here are at least billingual

Agree with this. It’s just a by-product of believing you are the center of the world (when it comes to language), the Americans I think are the worst when it comes to this issue.

 

[phelans shorts]

Most probably speak it better than you realise. It’s easy to convince the world you don’t if you simply avoid interviews.

 

[WeePat]

Most probably speak it better than you realise. It’s easy to convince the world you don’t if you simply avoid interviews.

I think Aguero is a good example of that. For years he had the 'can't speak English after all these years' charge levelled at him. Turns out he could speak decent enough English but just wasn't confident enough to speak it interviews until the latter parts of his time at City.

 

[lefty_jakobz]

Anyone remember when Pochettino was at Southampton? He only gave interviews in hos native tongue and everyone assumed he couldn’t speak English…turns out he was fluent in English but the Southampton owner wanted him not to speak it or some thing.

 

[Terranova]

I’ve lived in a country for 4 years and don’t know the language beyond the basics. It’s rarely an issue.

you really don't need anything more than the basics if you know you're going to leave that country eventually. Footballers don't really know where they are going to end up. If someone has the intention to stay in a foreign country it's more likely that they'll learn the language, or at least should learn the language.

 

[Redfrog]

It's pretty much true, and if they can't they're thickos.

That’s not true. How many time I have been in an European country and a lot of people could not speak english, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Germany. And I am from France so I can say a lot of people don’t speak English.

 

[Redfrog]

I've been away from the UK for over a decade and barely know anything other than English. It's easy to get by especially when you have translators for everything, in fact they make it harder to learn because you don't need to.

@Fortitude has it right, some people have an aptitude for languages and can pick them up without trying, usually those raised multilingual, but otherwise you either need to or really want to learn. I'd argue some languages require at least two of the three. I really wanted to learn Chinese when I was there but I didn't need to and I'm shit at languages, so I never cracked it.

Learning Chinese is a nightmare for an European even if you are a master at learning langages to be honest.

 

[elmo]

I've been away from the UK for over a decade and barely know anything other than English. It's easy to get by especially when you have translators for everything, in fact they make it harder to learn because you don't need to.

@Fortitude has it right, some people have an aptitude for languages and can pick them up without trying, usually those raised multilingual, but otherwise you either need to or really want to learn. I'd argue some languages require at least two of the three. I really wanted to learn Chinese when I was there but I didn't need to and I'm shit at languages, so I never cracked it.

It’s ok, Mandarin is my second language and I still struggle with it sometimes.

 

[We need an rvn]

I think Aguero is a good example of that. For years he had the 'can't speak English after all these years' charge levelled at him. Turns out he could speak decent enough English but just wasn't confident enough to speak it interviews until the latter parts of his time at City.

To be honest I think a lot of players / people are or would be nervous and anxious about giving interviews that are going to be broadcast live to millions of people. Doing it in your native tongue would be stressful enough, imagine having to do it in a language you're not confident in and being worried you'd say the wrong thing

 

[phelans shorts]

I think Aguero is a good example of that. For years he had the 'can't speak English after all these years' charge levelled at him. Turns out he could speak decent enough English but just wasn't confident enough to speak it interviews until the latter parts of his time at City.

I remember stopping at the same services as the United reserves a few years back, think we won the Carling Cup that day. I ended up having a conversation with Macheda who scored that goal about 6 weeks later, within a year he still didn’t speak English officially (there was a police incident where he didn’t give evidence because of not speaking a word if memory serves)

 

[scottser]

Everyone speaks english.

'luv a duck, you're 'avin a turkish my old china'
arguably, even the english don't speak english.

 

[Joel Miller]

I think it helps that footballers really don’t have to do anything for themselves now days. Their respective clubs can take care of absolutely everything. Sure, not knowing the language might prevent them being able to go out and socialise as people do but then footballers often can’t do that anyway.

I’m sure for most of them a few years in a country without knowing the language is fine as long as they have their families with them.

 

[FrankFoot]

Learning Chinese is a nightmare for an European even if you are a master at learning langages to be honest.

It's the same in reverse as well, korean, japanese and chinese struggle learning a language (other than english) that use the latin alphabet.

Japanese themselves struggle with english, it's even harder when they try to learn another language that use a latin alphabet like spanish or italian, 10 times worse at least.

The only european language that it's relatively easy to learn for everybody is english, because it's simpler and has way less grammatic rules than swedish,hungarian,spanish,polish,french,german,etc
Many pick up english, over any other language, not only because is more useful, but also because it's way easier from a non-european perspective.

 

[Gazza]

To be honest I think a lot of players / people are or would be nervous and anxious about giving interviews that are going to be broadcast live to millions of people. Doing it in your native tongue would be stressful enough, imagine having to do it in a language you're not confident in and being worried you'd say the wrong thing

it doesn’t help that even experienced interviewers areoften unable to grade their language appropriately

Geoff shreeves I’m looking at you. “Well Sergio it looked like we were heading for stalemate but now the points are in the bag you must be over the moon?”

 

[tenpoless]

Learning Chinese is a nightmare for an European even if you are a master at learning langages to be honest.

My grandad is 100% Chinese and even I would rather speak and learn English than Chinese.

 

[Moby]

'luv a duck, you're 'avin a turkish my old china'

 

[Fortitude]

It's the same in reverse as well, korean, japanese and chinese struggle learning a language (other than english) that use the latin alphabet.

Japanese themselves struggle with english, it's even harder when they try to learn another language that use a latin alphabet like spanish or italian, 10 times worse at least.

The only european language that it's relatively easy to learn for everybody is english, because it's simpler and has way less grammatic rules than swedish,hungarian,spanish,polish,french,german,etc
Many pick up english, over any other language, not only because is more useful, but also because it's way easier from a non-european perspective.

Exposure. Not easier. English is "the language of the world" and people are exposed to elements more than any other from year dot.

It's the language everyone is 'supposed' to be able to learn because exposure has permeated the lines of thought.

Are you from a region of the world that uses an Asian alphabet?

 

[Handré1990]

it doesn’t help that even experienced interviewers areoften unable to grade their language appropriately

Geoff shreeves I’m looking at you. “Well Sergio it looked like we were heading for stalemate but now the points are in the bag you must be over the moon?”

That’s a really good point actually!

 

[Galactic]

Ask Tevez

 

[calodo2003]

Many baseball teams use translators quite liberally on their staffs to be able to interact concisely with the copious numbers of Latin American players on their teams.

 

[Rnd898]

Did a one year student exchange in Southeast Asia and only really knew 'hello' and 'thank you' in the local language. Also spent some time working in Germany and only knew some basics in German. Managed just fine with English in both countries and even that isn't my first language.

Can't imagine it ever being a big problem for a millionaire footballer in their every day life, though I could imagine settling in a new club can be a bit difficult if there isn't a common language with the team mates and/or club staff but would guess most clubs have people who can translate.

 

[André Dominguez]

1. They win enough money to afford themselves to hire someone who do the shopping and other stuff who requires speaking local language.
2. A lot of times they pick their friends and those are usually people from the same country, they don't care about integrating in the society there.
3. In training they don't have to understand that much, just the basic words (directions, etc): they usually have high football intelligence that allows them to understand the explanations by looking at small examples.

 

[horsechoker]

3. In training they don't have to understand that much, just the basic words (directions, etc): they usually have high football intelligence that allows them to understand the explanations by looking at small examples.

 

[André Dominguez]

That's a bit over the top, but the message was probably understood

 

[FrankFoot]

Everyone speaks english.

Not necessarily, most speak a very scuffed english that it's close to the very basic stuff, with tons of grammatical mistakes.

I wouldn't call that "speaking english" if we are honest

It's like saying i can speak japanese just because i can say "domo arigato" "sugoi" "konichiwa" , etc

I would say most speak english Carlos Tevez style, especially outside of some european countries like Germany, Netherlands, or the nordic ones...that was my experience at least.

 

[WeePat]

Not necessarily, most speak a very scuffed english that it's close to the very basic stuff, with tons of grammatical mistakes.

I wouldn't call that "speaking english" if we are honest

It's like saying i can speak japanese just because i can say "domo arigato" "sugoi" "konichiwa" , etc

I would say most speak english Carlos Tevez style, especially outside of some european countries like Germany, Netherlands, or the nordic ones...that was my experience at least.

A language is just vehicle for us to understand each other. If someone speaks very broken English but is able to convey his message to the person he/she is speaking to then that is that person speaking English in a useful way. It's not fluent but English is being spoken in a way that is understood by the recipient, which is the only criteria that really matters.

 

[FrankFoot]

Exposure. Not easier. English is "the language of the world" and people are exposed to elements more than any other from year dot.

It's the language everyone is 'supposed' to be able to learn because exposure has permeated the lines of thought.

Are you from a region of the world that uses an Asian alphabet?

Exposure not necessarily make thinks easier though, or at least not as much as you suggest.

Languages like polish,hungarian,spanish,swedish, czech, etc are more difficult than english, cause they have more grammatical rules to remember, at least if you want to speak them properly, not in a scuffed way.

I lived in Prague and struggled to learn more than the very basic czech, so i just kept the english, as it was enough to at least survive.

I'm not, but met a few asian students in Prague, almost all of them gave up on czech, and kept the english, their own words " it's way easier".

 

[arthurka]

I’ve lived in a country for 4 years and don’t know the language beyond the basics. It’s rarely an issue.

I can assure you speaking the language helps you a lot specially when you get to know people and meet in groups.
You will never be fully integrated until you speak the language.

 

[André Dominguez]

Everyone speaks english.

If you had gone to Austria, France or Hungary you'll quickly learn that in a lot of places English will be as useful as a cat door on an elephant zoo cage.

 

[Tom Cato]

Everyone speaks english.

In the younger generation, maybe more than before. At least a lot more than....anyone aged 40+ - But to put it into perspective: English language in term of native speakers, whereas a rough estimate of 15% of the global population speak English as a first or secondary language.

You will however find that in most of the world, people just dont speak English, and at best very poorly. English is not really used in Spain or France, at all. Most people simply dont speak the language.

 

[Bepi]

Yeah, in reverse, my semester in Manchester ten years ago as a fresher was hard.

I had to pass a Toefl test before enrolling, which was hard enough in the “listening” department, yet real-life spoken Mancunian was a nightmare. My worst moment was the night I disembarked in Piccadilly with bags and papers, got into a bus and the driver started shouting “Where to? Where to? Where to?”

Staying in a hall of residence with fellow students helped me settle a bit, yet I never understood any word from lectures at Uni until the very last days. The exams were all written exams, so I just scraped through and goodbye.

 

[Fortitude]

Exposure not necessarily make thinks easier though, or at least not as much as you suggest.

Languages like polish,hungarian,spanish,swedish, czech, etc are more difficult than english, cause they have more grammatical rules to remember, at least if you want to speak them properly, not in a scuffed way.

I lived in Prague and struggled to learn more than the very basic czech, so i just kept the english, as it was enough to at least survive.

I'm not, but met a few asian students in Prague, almost all of them gave up on czech, and kept the english, their own words " it's way easier".

I don’t think you realise how much exposure there is to English vis-a-vis any other language. It’s ingested subconsciously through TV, film, music, ‘entertainment’ as an umbrella term, sport as a whole and so, so much more - if you travel often, you will see the native language with only English signposted alongside it with regards to foreigners and tourism, so much so that natives of nations who also are considered ’major’ on a global scale have to use whatever English they themselves know to get by. Exposure to English is a given relative to any other language.

Unless the scale of exposure was the same for anything else, it cannot be determined how much harder/easier it would be to learn.

The languages you speak of, I am almost certain it is the first exposure to them they’ve ever had in their life - they are starting at zero there, which won’t be so for English in most cases. Natural aptitude can override most problematic areas and some can take to languages and progress at absurdly fast rates whilst others can practice for months, or even years and be pretty much stuck in a loop of very basic threads of the target language.

 

[DWelbz19]

OP says 4+ years, which is about the average length of a contract (4 to 5 years), but generally speaking, a whole load of those players are on the move to a different league or back to their home league within half that timeframe. That can probably dampen a player's desire to begin learning (or learning past very basic phrases).

Why should I begin to learn French if I'll move from Ligue 1 to the PL in 2 seasons? Why should I learn English if I'm going back to the Bundesliga in 3? etc...

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Exposure. Not easier. English is "the language of the world" and people are exposed to elements more than any other from year dot.

Yeah, this.

English isn't objectively easy to learn compared to any number of languages: for one thing English is a notoriously non-phonemic language (it's often impossible to know how a word is pronounced just from reading it/how to write it based on how it sounds).

But exposure (through popular culture, not least) from an early age obviously makes this less of a problem.

 

[Nobby style]

His missus and daughter do though, which will help them settle.

The likes of Valencia who spent about 10 years in England but never did an interview in english is mind boggling to me.

You know what´s even more mind boggling to me. It would be the number of British (and American) teachers in bilingual schools I've know over the years here in Colombia who have been here or in other Latin American countries for six or seven years, even a few over ten years, and they can't speak feck all Spanish. And these are teachers, with all the advantages of a first world European or American education and cultural background, university degrees, and after all these years, dealing with Colombians on a daily basis, longer than Valencia and Tevez had been in the UK, and they still can't speak the fecking Spanish language, or at best sound like babbling idiots. Absolutely stunning, and something one should think about when taking the piss out of the Valencias and Tevezes of the footballing world, who's entire life has been narrowly focused on football, who come from fourth or fifth world isolated jungle villages or notorious South American shithole neighborhoods where you would shit your pants walking many streets, and have almost zero formal education.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

i think some South American players in the PL can speak very basic English but don't do TV interviews in English as they might be worried of not expressing their thoughts properly, like Aguero or Valencia, some become proficient like Zabaleta who appeared as a pundit in BT/Sky, it really depends but from what I read about some of those SA players who live/lived in the UK for the majority of their playing careers do manage to pick up basic English at the very least.

Tevez though was unique, I could be wrong but I read somewhere he never spoke a word of English during his time in the PL.

 

[Scarecrow]

I can assure you speaking the language helps you a lot specially when you get to know people and meet in groups.
You will never be fully integrated until you speak the language.

I thought the same until I moved here. I live in Prague, which is a very multicultural city. My company has mostly foreigners working there and the operating language is english. My friend groups have some local people but it’s mostly foreigners, as well, so everyone speaks in English. I have got a very active social life already, so I wouldn’t even have time to integrate into some local friend circles. I also just prefer to hang out with people from different countries, backgrounds, perspectives etc. There isn’t anything that I am missing, to be honest. I go to social, cultural events, organized sports, museums, arts and craft courses, cooking classes - everything is available in english.

I wouldn’t say I am lazy or bad at languages. I know (at least) 3 already and I am going to classes to learn Czech but it’s actually difficult to practice it, as English is basically the go-to language for everyone I interact with. Plus, there is just not the same motivation to put in the work when I have so little need for the language.

Also, every time I go back to my home country and start listening to news, talkshows, random people around you complaining about stuff all the time etc. - I often wish I didn’t understand. It’s nice living in a bubble sometimes.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

I've been away from the UK for over a decade and barely know anything other than English. It's easy to get by especially when you have translators for everything, in fact they make it harder to learn because you don't need to.

@Fortitude has it right, some people have an aptitude for languages and can pick them up without trying, usually those raised multilingual, but otherwise you either need to or really want to learn. I'd argue some languages require at least two of the three. I really wanted to learn Chinese when I was there but I didn't need to and I'm shit at languages, so I never cracked it.

I'm even much worse than you, I live in Malaysia since 2002, and can only speak less than basic Malaysian (Malay), lots of people here (I live in KL) speak English and I get by just fine, of course there are parts of Malaysia where you won't survive unless you learn a basic level of the local language but KL is quite urban with a lot of foreigners living in it and a big number of multinational companies where people work at, or international and local colleges/Unis where English is the medium language for education so English is spoken quite prominently.

I also didn't bother to learn the local language tbh so it's mostly my fault but I'm lucky I can manage without it, also I speak 3 languages already so my brain probably doesn't have enough capacity to process a 4th language