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Footballers are great language learners | ||
Tags: Polyglot | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7210 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 1 of 4 25 May 2005 at 12:04pm | IP Logged |
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I've always been amazed by how fast footballers seem to pick the language of their new clubs, whether in Spain, Italy or England. I was particularly delighted to hear Dutchman Clarence Seedorf speak in beautiful Spanish when he played for Real Madrid some years ago. More recently I've been impressed by Frank Rijkaard (manager of Barcelona) take questions in Catalan and answer them in Spanish. I wonder what learning methods big clubs use to teach languages so efficiently to their players and managers.
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| Raistlin Majere Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Spain uciprotour-cycling.c Joined 7155 days ago 455 posts - 424 votes 7 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, FrenchA1, Italian, German Studies: Swedish | Message 2 of 4 25 May 2005 at 12:15pm | IP Logged |
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You've mentioned two Dutch player/manager. Is this a coincidence or do you mean that it happens especially with Dutch players because of their multilingual origin? I think it's got more to do with the Dutch facility for languages. English people (not just footballers) tend to have more of a difficulty with languages, and...
Steve McManaman, after five years in Real Madrid, wasn't able to say anything beyond "Hola" in Spanish, and I'm not exaggerating. Beckham, who arrived in Spain two years ago, had to have most of the questions posed to him translated to English in the Pepsi advertisement presentation. So I think it's the same with footballers as with all other people, their nationality has a great deal of influence on their ability to learn languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7210 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 3 of 4 25 May 2005 at 12:21pm | IP Logged |
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You're right. I think nationality plays a key role in footballer's language ability. But what about Welshman John Toshack who coached Real Madrid and other big clubs in Spain? I think he was very fluent in Spanish and could even swear and say jokes so naturally.
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| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7184 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 4 of 4 26 May 2005 at 5:30am | IP Logged |
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Beckham is famous throughout England for his good looks and lack of brains. Steve McManaman also never seemed the brightest spark in interviews.
However, Kevin Keegan in Germany I hear was speaking German in 3 months I think and I hear Owen of Real Madrid clutches a Spanish dictionary as if it was his bible. Has anyone heard Owen speak Spanish? The culture of the English as well is that they place little value on language learning and think it is an impossible task. No doubt many can get by even in Spain with just English. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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