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wombat Tetraglot Groupie Australia Joined 7117 days ago 49 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Thai Studies: Mandarin
| Message 41 of 142 09 April 2006 at 10:27pm | IP Logged |
daghka wrote:
wombat wrote:
The criticism of Condoleezza Rice and her Russian reminds me of a story concerning an Australian politician, Kevin Rudd, who is fluent in Mandarin.
When the Chinese leader visited the Australian Parliament to give a speech a few years ago, Rudd was faced with a dilemna.
If he listened to the speech in English via headphones he would be attacked: "ah! he doesn't understand Chinese after all! Bloody liar"
If he listened without the headphones, then he would also be attacked "What a smartarse! Bloody showoff!"
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So what happened...haha.. |
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He listened to the speech without headphones.
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| wombat Tetraglot Groupie Australia Joined 7117 days ago 49 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Thai Studies: Mandarin
| Message 42 of 142 09 April 2006 at 10:30pm | IP Logged |
andee wrote:
Skandinav wrote:
Btw. does anyone in here know about the language skills of great leaders (e.g. Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Churchill etc.)? |
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Well, I would assume Stalin spoke Georgian. |
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Doesn't Jimmy Carter also speak Georgian?
1 person has voted this message useful
| fanatic Octoglot Senior Member Australia speedmathematics.com Joined 7146 days ago 1152 posts - 1818 votes Speaks: English*, German, French, Afrikaans, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch Studies: Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Modern Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Esperanto
| Message 43 of 142 09 April 2006 at 11:46pm | IP Logged |
He is a native of Georgia so he must.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Mnorman80 Diglot Newbie Sweden mnorman80.blog.lem Joined 6909 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: French
| Message 44 of 142 10 April 2006 at 12:01pm | IP Logged |
Skandinav wrote:
Btw. if your're Norwegian, do you happen to know
whether Bondevik actually said "Welcome to the mess." to Blair? |
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In what situation did Bondevik say this phrase? Where the both Prime
ministers on the way to a service at a church (like "mässa" in Swedish), or?
I saw by coincidence on the French Wikipedia that the director of the
World Trade Organization (WTO), French politician Pascal Lemy, had
recieved a prize called "la carpette anglaise" by the association
L'Académie de la Carpette anglaise. This because Lemy, during the time
when he was a commissioner at the European Commission (1999-2005),
consistently had used English as a working language, despite the fact that
French also is official working language within the EU-institutions. That
surprised me because French still holds a strong position as EU-
language. For example, in European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, all
the negociations between the community judges are still only being
conducted in French.
Link to Wikipedia
Edited by Mnorman80 on 10 April 2006 at 12:02pm
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| nox Diglot Groupie Croatia Joined 6861 days ago 62 posts - 62 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English Studies: German
| Message 45 of 142 15 April 2006 at 8:33am | IP Logged |
Ivo Sanader, Croatian Prime Minister is known as a polyglot. I heard of that when he visited the previous Pope in Vatican and spoke to him in Italian. The pope was surprised and that was like a top-news for a few days. Later on, the news showed he speaks --- languages (I really don't know). After that, the cartoon show "laku noć, Hrvatska" (Good night, Croatia) made fun of him. 'Laku noć, Hrvatska' makes fun of everyone who is a public person in Croatia or in the world (Bush, Carla del Ponte, etc)
Anyway, his right hand is also fluent in x languages.
1 person has voted this message useful
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7077 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French
| Message 46 of 142 15 April 2006 at 9:03pm | IP Logged |
nox wrote:
Ivo Sanader, Croatian Prime Minister is known as a polyglot. I heard of that when he visited the previous Pope in Vatican and spoke to him in Italian. The pope was surprised and that was like a top-news for a few days. Later on, the news showed he speaks --- languages (I really don't know). After that, the cartoon show "laku noæ, Hrvatska" (Good night, Croatia) made fun of him. 'Laku noæ, Hrvatska' makes fun of everyone who is a public person in Croatia or in the world (Bush, Carla del Ponte, etc)
Anyway, his right hand is also fluent in x languages. |
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Although not really a political leader, Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipoviæ also speaks at least English and Croatian. He is primarily a Pride fighter (and former kickboxer) although he now holds a seat in parliarment.
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| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 7191 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian
| Message 47 of 142 16 April 2006 at 7:26am | IP Logged |
fanatic wrote:
Doesn't Jimmy Carter also speak Georgian? He is a native of Georgia so he must. |
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Haha. He's a native of the U.S. state of Georgia, not the former Soviet Republic.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Lugubert Heptaglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6867 days ago 186 posts - 235 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Danish, Norwegian, EnglishC2, German, Dutch, French Studies: Mandarin, Hindi
| Message 48 of 142 04 June 2006 at 12:42pm | IP Logged |
wombat wrote:
andee wrote:
Skandinav wrote:
Btw. does anyone in here know about the language skills of great leaders (e.g. Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Churchill etc.)? |
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Well, I would assume Stalin spoke Georgian. |
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Doesn't Jimmy Carter also speak Georgian?
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He´s a Caucasian, so of course yes he does.
Edited by Lugubert on 04 June 2006 at 12:42pm
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