Who speaks TL better - Kerry or Gingrich? (Polyglots) Language Learning Forum

Who speaks TL better - Kerry or Gingrich?
Tags: Political Leaders \| Voice Recordings \| United States
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Language Learning Forum : Polyglots

39 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

lingoleng
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5297 days ago
605 posts - 1290 votes

Message 33 of 39

03 March 2013 at 2:23am | IP Logged

hrhenry wrote:

Juаn wrote:

... leading one to believe he indeed possesses at least some objective
knowledge of the language.

I can only respond as a native English speaker that speaks Spanish, but I have to
disagree here.

His cadence, prosody, and physical demeanor - right down to arm movement and eyebrow
raising, come off as very rehearsed, and looking at his eye movement, a teleprompter
was used.

It may not be common knowledge, but teleprompters are set up to deliver all sorts of
communication hints to the speaker, including pronunciation and physical movement in
addition to just words.

R.
==

But this should really not be worth arguing about:
You cause a public scandal, feel forced to make a public apology, well, of course you write a message, give it to a member of your staff, have it translated and practise it with a competent speaker. Anything else would be totally stupid. And you use a teleprompter, yes, we can.
Would they have done this if the language in question were Finnish, Russian or Chinese? Probably not, I think, but as he has some basic knowledge of Spanish they decided to go for it. That's the only really realistic scenario imo, in addition to the more linguistic arguments Juan has mentioned.

Edited by lingoleng on 03 March 2013 at 2:38am
1 person has voted this message useful

hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 5129 days ago
1871 posts - 3642 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish^C2, Italian^C2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

Message 34 of 39

03 March 2013 at 2:38am | IP Logged

lingoleng wrote:

... but as he has some basic knowledge of Spanish they decided to go
for it. That's the only really realistic scenario imo

If you listen to what he's actually saying, basic knowledge of Spanish is NOT why he's
speaking Spanish. The only reason he's speaking Spanish (which, by the way, is
grammatically correct - it's just his accent that sucks, so there's really no point in
saying "I know my Spanish is imperfect", unless it was written by someone else) is to
make a plea to a Spanish speaking population to learn the de facto language of the
land, which happens to be English.

Knowledge of Spanish has nothing to do with it. If there were a Mandarin or Russian
speaking immigrant population as large as our Spanish speaking population, he would
have spoken in one of those languages.

R.
==

Edited by hrhenry on 03 March 2013 at 2:57am
1 person has voted this message useful

lingoleng
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5297 days ago
605 posts - 1290 votes

Message 35 of 39

03 March 2013 at 2:55am | IP Logged

hrhenry wrote:

The only reason he's speaking Spanish is to make a plea to a Spanish
speaking population to learn the de facto language of the land, which happens to
be English.
R.
==

Have you skipped the 18 seconds at the beginning? They are the reason why ...

1 person has voted this message useful

hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 5129 days ago
1871 posts - 3642 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish^C2, Italian^C2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

Message 36 of 39

03 March 2013 at 2:58am | IP Logged

lingoleng wrote:

Have you skipped the 18 seconds at the beginning? They are the reason why ...

The video is a lot longer than 18 seconds. I suggest you listen to the whole thing.

Also, apologies to @newyorkeric. It's difficult not talking about politics when the
video link is precisely about national politics.

R.
==

Edited by hrhenry on 03 March 2013 at 3:06am
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lingoleng
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5297 days ago
605 posts - 1290 votes

Message 37 of 39

03 March 2013 at 3:07am | IP Logged

hrhenry wrote:

lingoleng wrote:

Have you skipped the 18 seconds at the beginning? They are the reason why ...

The video is a lot longer than 18 seconds. I suggest you listen to the whole thing.

R.
==

well, thanks for the kind suggestion, but when we come down to this level I am out of the discussion. And just for the record: I don't need your well meant translations nor your hints what is grammatically correct in Spanish.
2 persons have voted this message useful

leroc
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4310 days ago
114 posts - 167 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: German

Message 38 of 39

03 March 2013 at 5:18am | IP Logged

I can't comment on Kerry's French, but possessing a basic intermediate knowledge of Spanish (3 years during high school) I can say that Gingrich's Spanish pronunciation is about the level of a 2nd year high school student, and not a very motivated one.

Edited by leroc on 03 March 2013 at 7:08am
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BrianDeAlabama
Groupie
United States
Joined 4518 days ago
89 posts - 113 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 39 of 39

03 March 2013 at 3:18pm | IP Logged

leroc wrote:

not a very motivated one.

LOL! Yeah, he was the guy who took his Spanish class right before lunch and couldn't focus on this class because
he was always so ready for lunch. He could have really went places had he only taken Spanish in 5th period. ;)

3 persons have voted this message useful

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