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Political Leaders and Languages

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots Post Reply
142 messages over 18 pages: 1 2 3 4 57 ... 6 ... 17 18 Next >>
wombat
Tetraglot
Groupie
Australia
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49 posts - 50 votes
Speaks: English*, German, French, Thai
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 41 of 142
09 April 2006 at 10:27pm | IP Logged 
daghka wrote:
wombat wrote:
The criticism of Condoleezza Rice and her Russian reminds me of a story concerning an Australian politician, Kevin Rudd, who is fluent in Mandarin.

When the Chinese leader visited the Australian Parliament to give a speech a few years ago, Rudd was faced with a dilemna.

If he listened to the speech in English via headphones he would be attacked: "ah! he doesn't understand Chinese after all! Bloody liar"

If he listened without the headphones, then he would also be attacked "What a smartarse! Bloody showoff!"



So what happened...haha..


He listened to the speech without headphones.

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wombat
Tetraglot
Groupie
Australia
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Speaks: English*, German, French, Thai
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 42 of 142
09 April 2006 at 10:30pm | IP Logged 
andee wrote:
Skandinav wrote:
Btw. does anyone in here know about the language skills of great leaders (e.g. Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Churchill etc.)?


Well, I would assume Stalin spoke Georgian.


Doesn't Jimmy Carter also speak Georgian?

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fanatic
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Senior Member
Australia
speedmathematics.com
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1152 posts - 1818 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch
Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto

 
 Message 43 of 142
09 April 2006 at 11:46pm | IP Logged 
He is a native of Georgia so he must.
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Mnorman80
Diglot
Newbie
Sweden
mnorman80.blog.lem&#
Joined 6908 days ago

7 posts - 8 votes
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: French

 
 Message 44 of 142
10 April 2006 at 12:01pm | IP Logged 
Skandinav wrote:
Btw. if your're Norwegian, do you happen to know
whether Bondevik actually said "Welcome to the mess." to Blair?

In what situation did Bondevik say this phrase? Where the both Prime
ministers on the way to a service at a church (like "mässa" in Swedish), or?

I saw by coincidence on the French Wikipedia that the director of the
World Trade Organization (WTO), French politician Pascal Lemy, had
recieved a prize called "la carpette anglaise" by the association
L'Académie de la Carpette anglaise. This because Lemy, during the time
when he was a commissioner at the European Commission (1999-2005),
consistently had used English as a working language, despite the fact that
French also is official working language within the EU-institutions. That
surprised me because French still holds a strong position as EU-
language. For example, in European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, all
the negociations between the community judges are still only being
conducted in French.

Link to Wikipedia

Edited by Mnorman80 on 10 April 2006 at 12:02pm

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nox
Diglot
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Croatia
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Studies: German

 
 Message 45 of 142
15 April 2006 at 8:33am | IP Logged 
Ivo Sanader, Croatian Prime Minister is known as a polyglot. I heard of that when he visited the previous Pope in Vatican and spoke to him in Italian. The pope was surprised and that was like a top-news for a few days. Later on, the news showed he speaks --- languages (I really don't know). After that, the cartoon show "laku noć, Hrvatska" (Good night, Croatia) made fun of him. 'Laku noć, Hrvatska' makes fun of everyone who is a public person in Croatia or in the world (Bush, Carla del Ponte, etc)

Anyway, his right hand is also fluent in x languages.
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andee
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Japan
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 Message 46 of 142
15 April 2006 at 9:03pm | IP Logged 
nox wrote:
Ivo Sanader, Croatian Prime Minister is known as a polyglot. I heard of that when he visited the previous Pope in Vatican and spoke to him in Italian. The pope was surprised and that was like a top-news for a few days. Later on, the news showed he speaks --- languages (I really don't know). After that, the cartoon show "laku noæ, Hrvatska" (Good night, Croatia) made fun of him. 'Laku noæ, Hrvatska' makes fun of everyone who is a public person in Croatia or in the world (Bush, Carla del Ponte, etc)

Anyway, his right hand is also fluent in x languages.


Although not really a political leader, Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipoviæ also speaks at least English and Croatian. He is primarily a Pride fighter (and former kickboxer) although he now holds a seat in parliarment.
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KingM
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michaelwallaceauthor
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 47 of 142
16 April 2006 at 7:26am | IP Logged 
fanatic wrote:
Doesn't Jimmy Carter also speak Georgian? He is a native of Georgia so he must.


Haha. He's a native of the U.S. state of Georgia, not the former Soviet Republic.
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Lugubert
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Sweden
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Speaks: Swedish*, Danish, Norwegian, EnglishC2, German, Dutch, French
Studies: Mandarin, Hindi

 
 Message 48 of 142
04 June 2006 at 12:42pm | IP Logged 
wombat wrote:
andee wrote:
Skandinav wrote:
Btw. does anyone in here know about the language skills of great leaders (e.g. Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Churchill etc.)?


Well, I would assume Stalin spoke Georgian.


Doesn't Jimmy Carter also speak Georgian?

He´s a Caucasian, so of course yes he does.

Edited by Lugubert on 04 June 2006 at 12:42pm



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