Footballing Polyglots

[Lord SInister]

While we are all made well aware of polyglots like Zidane, Lukaku, Seedrof, Jose, Pep, Wenger, Hendo, Mkhitaryan and whole host of Balkans like Zlatan, Lovren, Rakitic, Kovacic, Pjanic and so on.

Let us talk about lesser renowned polyglots of football who surprised you.

I find it interesting when a person speaks the Romanians and Germanic languages in intelligible manner, especially Balkans like Lovren, Kovacic and so on. When they get German/Dutch alongside French/Spanish/Italian.

And yes, I know the best polyglots in football are from Liverpool region and Harry Kane/Gareth Bale, so spare the jokes.

 

[SerenityValley]

 

[DWelbz19]

I remember Evra being able to speak a lot. French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. I reckon he picked up a decent bit of Korean from Park too.

 

[Haddock]

 

[Bobade]

I've never seen this before, what on earth is he doing?

 

[Pagh Wraith]

I find it interesting when a person speaks the Romanians and Germanic languages in intelligible manner, especially Balkans like Lovren, Kovacic and so on. When they get German/Dutch alongside French/Spanish/Italian.

And yes, I know the best polyglots in football are from Liverpool region and Harry Kane/Gareth Bale, so spare the jokes.

To be fair, German is Kovačić's native language so you'd expect him to be quite good at it.

 

[arthurka]

McClaren and Moyes are renown linguist

 

[Robbie Boy]

Never gets old

 

[Adam-Utd]

Pogba and Lukaku both speak a lot of different languages fluently, very impressive.

 

[do.ob]

As far as I know Kovacic grew up in Austria, Rakitic in Switzerland, Pjanic in Luxembourg and Wenger on the German border, while they may indeed be gifted with languages it isn't exactly a surprise they picked up one they grew up with.

 

[dablem_10]

I remember Mkhitaryan was speaking like 6 languages and now probably speaks italian already.

But what makes polygot? Is bigger polygot somebody who speaks languages of one family (spanish, italian, romanian, portuguese, french) or somebody speaking not so many but all different language families (ex. english, spanish, hungarian, russian)?

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Oddly enough I saw a little piece on BBC back then about his life in Marseilles. He went into a cafe and was speaking French quite passably.

I know Cascarino can, his wife in French

 

[Irrational.]

 

[Inigo Montoya]

I remember Mkhitaryan was speaking like 6 languages and now probably speaks italian already.

But what makes polygot? Is bigger polygot somebody who speaks languages of one family (spanish, italian, romanian, portuguese, french) or somebody speaking not so many but all different language families (ex. english, spanish, hungarian, russian)?

By defintion; 3 or more and I don't think it matters if the language belongs to a family or not. In Kenya I spoke Swahili, Gujurati, English and Malayalam.

Don't know if that makes me a polyglot or just tri lingual. Don't think it makes someone a 'bigger' polyglot, that's being subjective. What would be impressive is if a person can not only converse in those languages but thinks in and understands the nuances of each when they are speaking them

 

[Tottenhamguy]

Rafael van der Vaart could speak Dutch/English/German/Spanish

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Rafael van der Vaart could speak Dutch/English/German/Spanish

Nothing unusual in The Netherlands and he has Spanish ancestry I believe

 

[OleBoiii]

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Time to post this. Haven't had a laugh for a good while.

 

[horsechoker]

Gazza speaking Italian (bear in mind he probably hadn't spoken Italian for years when this interview was done)


Lukaku is really impressive as far as languages are concerned. According to the comments his Portuguese is excellent.

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

Time to post this. Haven't had a laugh for a good while.

My favourite bit is “We are, what you call...underdogs...” as if he’s searching for the English word, that being his second language.

 

[TsuWave]

Lukaku is really impressive as far as languages are concerned. According to the comments his Portuguese is excellent.

His Portuguese is ace. he even has a Brazilian accent/inflections. Guy is amazing

 

[RashyForPM]

Time to post this. Haven't had a laugh for a good while.

Oh my word. The deliberate broken English and thickening of words to get a Dutch accent, which doesn’t even sound like it. Appalling

 

[horsechoker]

His Portuguese is ace. he even has a Brazilian accent/inflections. Guy is amazing

It makes you wonder how and why he's learnt it so well. He could settle into virtually any country in Western Europe, I wouldn't be surprised if he was also learning German or Swedish.

 

[Vidyoyo]

Am I right in thinking this is largely an English phenomenon - to be impressed by people who can speak several languages?

Not judging as I'm in the same boat. The opportunity you get as an Englishperson to speak another language is very minimal.

 

[Invictus]

Players who were born to immigrant parents in multilingual countries should have an edge in this as they can easily learn a handful of languages with the addition of English (as it's pretty much ubiquitous in this day and age). Not a surprise that the likes of Lukaku and Januzaj know plenty: French and Dutch are commonly spoken in Belgium, picked up Swahili/Albanian through their family, learned and improved their English at Premier League clubs, and also know Italian/Spanish because they have played for Internazionale/Sociedad.

The surprising one was Hodgson, mostly because I had erroneously pegged him as a rather dull-witted fellow despite being well traveled in his managerial career. Apparently he can speak French, Italian, Finnish, German and Swedish in addition to English. The disappointing one, as far as I can tell, is Poulsen because he seems to only give English/Danish interviews despite representing Juventus, Sevilla and Evian — though maybe he's just not 100% confident as a public speaker?

But what makes polygot? Is bigger polygot somebody who speaks languages of one family (spanish, italian, romanian, portuguese, french) or somebody speaking not so many but all different language families (ex. english, spanish, hungarian, russian)?

Yaya Touré can speak Catalan, French and Spanish (Romance), English (Germanic), Russian (Slavic) and Greek (Graeco). Also played for Qingdao so he must have picked up a bit of Mandarin (Sinitic). An incredibly diverse palate, that.

 

[Lord SInister]

Am I right in thinking this is largely an English phenomenon - to be impressed by people who can speak several languages?

Not judging as I'm in the same boat. The opportunity you get as an Englishperson to speak another language is very minimal.

Not a Englishman but I find it interesting when people learn languages belonging to different family quite easily.
I can speak in Nepali, Hindi, English and Bengali, while also able to speak in somewhat broken Bhojpuri and Assamese.
But they are all basically same family language (except english). But I find it interesting when someone picks up another family language.
There was one lady I knew who spoke in 7 languages and three of them were belonging to non-IndoAryan(Sanskarit branch) language, namely Khasi, Garo and Meitie(all belonging to three different families) mental.
So when I someone speaking in Balkan, germanic and romance languages, I find it amusing.

 

[UmbroDays]

I remember Evra being able to speak a lot. French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. I reckon he picked up a decent bit of Korean from Park too.

Norwegian from his Mrs too

Languages are amazing, kudos to those who can learn. My Mrs learnt Japanese from scratch in a few years and lived/worked out there.

I tried French from secondary school, bit of Spanish, a fair amount of Japanese (brutal, but still remember bits) - but I've just come to understand if there's no drive, there is no will. For me my thing is computers, so that's where I learn my languages

 

[KirkDuyt]

There can be only one:

 

[WeePat]

People laugh at him, it's genuinely funny to watch, but isn't it a natural tendency to do this when you're around people who constantly have problems understanding you if you speak English in the way you normally would.

 

[Vidyoyo]

People laugh at him, it's genuinely funny to watch, but isn't it a natural tendency to do this when you're around people who constantly have problems understanding you if you speak English in the way you normally would.

Yes, I used to live with a French girl and spoke much slower. A heavy scouse accent would have been hell for her.

I find the Steve McClaren one weirder because a) he doesn't have an accent, and b) Dutch people understand English better than the French.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Am I right in thinking this is largely an English phenomenon - to be impressed by people who can speak several languages?

Not judging as I'm in the same boat. The opportunity you get as an Englishperson to speak another language is very minimal.

Perhaps - I personally always find it impressive when people can pick up and learn new languages easily.

Maybe it would be less so if I could actually speak more then one language... parents should have taught me Gujarati when I was a kid, but then clearly they're shit parents.

 

[KirkDuyt]

I speak to people from all over the world for my job and honestly I do this too sometimes, it's not on purpose. Hell, I nearly start doing the head wobbling thing when I speak to people from India.

 

[DWelbz19]

It’s definitely a real thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_accommodation_theory

 

[Maagge]

Rafael van der Vaart could speak Dutch/English/German/Spanish

I'd guess he speaks Danish as well now having lived here for a bit and it probably being easier to learn as a Dutch person who also speaks German and English.

 

[Oranges038]

People laugh at him, it's genuinely funny to watch, but isn't it a natural tendency to do this when you're around people who constantly have problems understanding you if you speak English in the way you normally would.

Probably true, but depends on the person really. Doesn't it? Maybe it's different for European languages. But it happens with English aswel.

I know people who've gone to London for a wet week and come back to Ireland almost talking like a cockney geezer. I've an uncle that's lived there nearly 40 years, hasn't changed his accent.

 

[WeePat]

Probably true, but depends on the person really. Doesn't it? Maybe it's different for European languages. But it happens with English aswel.

I know people who've gone to London for a wet week and come back to Ireland almost talking like a cockney geezer. I've an uncle that's lived there nearly 40 years, hasn't changed his accent.

Well yes of course it depends on the person, I was just saying, as funny as that Joey Barton video is, the thing he's doing isn't actually that weird.

 

[BrilliantOrange]

I wouldnt necessarily call him a polygolist obviously, but the Italians are quite impressed with De Ligt's Italian after 1 year, having given the interview below..

 

[tomaldinho1]

Time to post this. Haven't had a laugh for a good while.

This is my all time favourite. Someone remixed it as well into a dance track