Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 1 of 20 29 November 2013 at 1:09pm | IP Logged |
I cannot do hyperlinks from the machine I am at, but please have a look at this link where Putin speaks English. According to the Norwegian comments, he is heavily criticised for his accent. Given some of the horrendous accents some of the Norwegian politicians who use English all the time have, I think the criticism is a bit unfair. Plus I would like to hear the Russian accent of any American politician who would make a similiar attempt in Russian. I suspect that that would not be pretty.
http://www.dbtv.no/?op=Play&vid=2876206552001
Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 29 November 2013 at 1:38pm
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 2 of 20 29 November 2013 at 1:34pm | IP Logged |
Putin is not too difficult to understand in this clip. Certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I would wonder if he did multiple "takes" or not. In the US, a corporate leader making such a video would be coached and directed and would generally take as many "takes" as necessary to make it as good as possible. Part of that is just American Culture as well as possibly the egoism of some of its leaders. So my wondering is, would Putin be less inclined to coaching and multiple takes? Note also, that there are just as many who would do it in one enthusiastic take, or have handlers who would exclaim how brilliant what they have just witnessed is, and therefore in blissful ignorance do only one take.
Note also, there is nothing wrong with taking a lot of "takes". I'm a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, and they have lots and lots of takes for many, many spots of the film. They go so far as to do voice overs. They have a special name for it. The actor is doing the voice, but they do it many times (often without makeup), in a more studio like setting to get the sound and lip synching as best they can.
I know a few Russians who have lived many years in the U.S. who have better accents, but that is to be expected.
Finally, I don't know how the news media is in Norway, but in the U.S., it is often quite critical (or wildly uncritical) of political leaders.
One more, I prefer a politician who isn't quite so polished. The overly polished are sometimes lacking in real depth of character and experience. This is true in both corporations as well as government.
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Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4236 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek
| Message 3 of 20 29 November 2013 at 1:46pm | IP Logged |
His English is much better than that of Vitaly Mutko, I dare say :)
People do tend to become better in language speaking because the experience grows up. Malkin (hockey player in NHL) was speaking with funny mistakes for a long time, but I don't think you'll find much of them in his most recent interviews.
Edited by Via Diva on 29 November 2013 at 1:50pm
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Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 4 of 20 29 November 2013 at 2:01pm | IP Logged |
Via Diva wrote:
His English is much better than that of Vitaly Mutko, I dare say :)
People do tend to become better in language speaking because the experience grows up. Malkin (hockey player in NHL) was speaking with funny mistakes for a long time, but I don't think you'll find much of them in his most recent interviews. |
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I think he must be the brother of the Russian who gave a speech at the International Railway Union a couple of years ago. :-)
But even so, Mutko did it. Not many people from the West could have read a speech in Russian at all. (Ok. Tarvos - I know you could :-)
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James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5377 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 5 of 20 29 November 2013 at 2:12pm | IP Logged |
Wow, that's interesting. I have never heard Putin speak English and I did not know he could. He sounds fine to me. He obviously has an accent, but it does not interfere with understanding him at all. I listen to a lot of webcasts from international companies and he sounds just as good as many of the CEOs of international companies. I certainly would not criticize him. Now, does anyone have a clip of Obama speaking Russian?
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Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5322 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English
| Message 6 of 20 29 November 2013 at 3:26pm | IP Logged |
IMHO, his German, though not perfect, is much better.
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Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4846 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 7 of 20 29 November 2013 at 4:37pm | IP Logged |
Doitsujin wrote:
IMHO, his German, though not perfect, is much better. |
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That's no wonder. He has lived in Dresden for several years because he used to work as a KGB officer in the GDR.
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 8 of 20 29 November 2013 at 6:14pm | IP Logged |
I've heard a lot thicker accents from Russians (and many other nationalies), and of course it would be interesting to hear how Barack Obama (or any other of the world leaders) speak Russian.
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