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Political Leaders and Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Steve Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 6897 days ago 56 posts - 58 votes  Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Norwegian | Message 9 of 142 18 January 2006 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's all a bit ridiculous, what with the US boasting about her multilingual skills, to have her embarrassing herself like that...
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| loïc Tetraglot Newbie Joined 7160 days ago 10 posts - 12 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, German Studies: Portuguese | Message 10 of 142 18 January 2006 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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José Manuel Barroso (president of the European Comission), speaks fluently Portuguese (mother language), English, French and Spanish. His French is flawless, very impressive (no accent, difficult to tell he is not French!), and I think his English is perfect too.
French leaders are completely linguistic uneducated, except maybe Dominique de Villepin (First Minister): he is a diplomat and speaks fluently English (sure) and Spanish (I think). Chirac (President) babbles a bit of English and had a few russian courses in his youth... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Skandinav Hexaglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 6890 days ago 139 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Danish*, English, German, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian | Message 11 of 142 18 January 2006 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, your right. But I think it is a typical tactical move from this administration. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld are all accused to be ignorant nutcases without any kind of respect for anything "foreign", so to have a "Russian expert" is a nice asset. She is, however, a very clever lady with excellent academic skills.
Btw. if your're Norwegian, do you happen to know whether Bondevik actually said "Welcome to the mess." to Blair? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Steve Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 6897 days ago 56 posts - 58 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Norwegian | Message 12 of 142 18 January 2006 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Indeed, she's a brilliant woman...
I'm not Norwegian, just here on a visit, but I have just been assured that that's what Bondevik said. I think his English was always quite a source of embarrassment to the locals. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7194 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 13 of 142 18 January 2006 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some Mexicans that I know talk about Vincente Fox's speaking ability, both for his strong accent in English and his easily-mocked speaking style in Spanish. Americans, on the other hand, seem impressed by Bush's ability to say, "Bueno días" in a semi-coherent fashion.
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| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7379 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 142 19 January 2006 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||
I read both the Ekho Moskvi transcript and the Pravda article but could not find verification in the claim that she was caught red-handed in not being a fluent Russian speaker. Perhaps I missed something, but there is a long interview all in Russian on the radio Ekho Moskvi, and she gives rather detailed answers to the questions she get asked, not just 'Da' or 'Net'. Then at the end she gives one rather funny answer but without having heard it's really hard to tell the context. Now Ekho Moskvi is well respected in Russian and abroad but the current version of Pravda, if my memory serves me right, is a 4-page-affair with inflamed attacks on anything not communist. The whole paper is written like an editorial with no pretense at all at being objective, and when you read the article about Dr Rice it's pretty clear all they wanted was to attack their archenemy, the United States. Now Dr Rice may not speak perfect Russian but there is a simple and objective way for us to find out - just get a copy of the audio file of her interview on Ekho Moskvi. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Linas Octoglot Senior Member Lithuania Joined 6915 days ago 253 posts - 279 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Lithuanian*, Russian, Latvian, French, English, German, Spanish, Polish Studies: Slovenian, Greek, Hungarian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese | Message 15 of 142 19 January 2006 at 1:45am | IP Logged | ||
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A little bit about linguistical skills of the leaders of Baltic states.
Both Mr. Valdas Adamkus, the president of Lithuania, and Ms. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the President of Latvia have spent a lot of time outside of their countries(1944-1991), due to the Soviet occupation. Although Mr. Adamkus came to the USA already as an adult, after long stay there he has acquired so strong American accent, that at first when he came to Lithuania after 1991, he hardly sounded as a Lithuanian when speaking Lithuanian, however with years his accent has leveled out. However this does not mean that the Lithuanian of Mr. Adamkus was defficient on other points. Lithuanian(and other Baltic) war refugees of 1944 who established themselves in USA or Sweden, made very strong efforts to preserve their identity and their language, so that often not even they have preserved good command of their native tongues, but their foreign-born children and sometimes even grandchildren speak good Lithuanian(Latvian, Estonian). Mr.Adamkus had occasion to learn some Russian during the first Soviet occupation, and this was for him an asset when doing his military service in US army and later, in his career in US administrative bodies(he was an ecologist). He was often sent with US delegation to Moscow for talks. I think that he had plenty opportunities to practice his Russian skills and he had good command of that language. Besides Russian, Mr. Adamkus knows some Polish. As for Ms. Vike-Freiberga, she used to live in Canada, Quebec, so she has command of her mother tongue, Latvian, and of English and French. Having became the president of Latvia, she started to learn Russian, but I do not know howe much she has actually learnt. Mr. Arnold Ruutel, the president of Estonia, on the contrary, is a former ex-apparatchik of the Communist Party, so his linguistical skills are limited to his native Estonian and Russian. Former Estonian president Lennart Meri was a dissident author who translated prose from English to Estonian, so he certainly spoke English(I think Finnish as well). In general Baltic political leaders, if they were in emmigration during Soviet years, speak one or several Western languages, but rarely Russian(Mr. Adamkus is an exception). On the contrary, those Baltic politicians who lived in the Soviet Union usually have the command mostly only of Russian(as all Baltics of middle and older generation), which does not mean that there is none among non-emmigrant Baltic politicians who has good command of Western languages(English or German). Edited by Linas on 19 January 2006 at 1:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sapedro Triglot Senior Member Portugal descredito.blogspot. Joined 7121 days ago 216 posts - 219 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, French Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Greek | Message 16 of 142 19 January 2006 at 6:00am | IP Logged | ||
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José Manuel Durão Barroso's English is not perfect, at least in accent.
It's very easy to tell that there is a Portuguese speaking English...most of us Portuguese have a particular Portuguese accent speaking English... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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