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Soccer/football players | ||
Tags: Football/Soccer | Polyglottery | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Coovertown Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6732 days ago 57 posts - 58 votes  Speaks: Korean, English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 7 08 July 2006 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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They truly are some of the best groups of polyglots. They certainly break the stereotype to some extent on jocks being stupid and thickheaded.
Does anyone know what their approaches are to learning languages, and a bunch of them at that, all at the same time? I know European schools teach foreign languages early in school; I just wonder if certain players who didn't know, say Spanish and French, learned them so quickly, and simultaneously if applicable. If David Beckham or Zidane strays away from soccer, they should open up their own language schools. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6893 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 2 of 7 08 July 2006 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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From my limited experience of listening to them talk on TV, they seem to do OK but I doubt they could do more than deal with interviews and commands on the field. Some are indeed very gifted with languages and speak with little or no foreign accent but I suspect the vast majority of them must be taking language classes or learning by being thrown in the proverbial deep end....no different from your average person really.
As for David Beckham opening a language school...well, he's a nice enough guy and fairly good football player but his language skills, at least with English, are a little lacking. I certainly wouldn't place much faith on a language class taught by him! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Coovertown Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6732 days ago 57 posts - 58 votes Speaks: Korean, English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 7 09 July 2006 at 5:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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True on the "speaking the language for necessary purposes", however, how many people can even say "I speak Spanish with my employees for necessary purposes?" Sure in heck beats some monolingual person that just speaks real slow English to a non-English speaking employee. Immersion sure would help for the players, so I guess Beckham playing in Spain now would amount to him speaking Spanish in the media. From what I judge though, he has pretty good control of Spanish, a lot better than what most Americans know/speak.
Ehh, I wouldn't mind learning from him and his chains of language schools. I just hope he makes it free. He's already rich as it is. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| souley Senior Member Joined 7244 days ago 178 posts - 177 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 4 of 7 10 July 2006 at 9:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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I guess its pretty obvious now that Zidane understands Italian. Maybe a bit too much. lol.
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| japanesefan Bilingual Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 6748 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Welsh*, GermanC2 Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 7 10 July 2006 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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[QUOTE=Coovertown] They truly are some of the best groups of polyglots. They certainly break the stereotype to some extent on jocks being stupid and thickheaded.
Without wanting to diminish the achievements of polyglot footballers, it has to be said that these people have resources at their fingertips that 99.9 percent of us don't have i.e extortionate amounts of money to be taught by the best teachers whenever they want. While the daily grind of work and family life leaves less time for language learning, footballers have personnel such as chauffeurs and chefs, giving them more time for these kinds of things. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Coovertown Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6732 days ago 57 posts - 58 votes Speaks: Korean, English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 7 10 July 2006 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hahaha. I still do wonder what Zidane heard. It had to have been something horribly racist. He's not a white Frenchman to begin with, so maybe the Italian pointed that out to him. And yeah, true that athletes do have tons of time to themselves compared to us normal folk. However, take away time spent at bars after work sipping on beer mostly alone, road trips to far away places courtesy of your company, and all those wasted opportunities to learn a new language when you were in school, then yes, us "normal" people sure do have an excuse to not know another language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7080 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 7 of 7 11 July 2006 at 7:04am | IP Logged | |||||
It's supposedly something to do with his sister. I read in the paper that some Brazilian guy has employed a lip reading professional to find out. Why a Brazilian - I don't know. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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