Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Political Leaders and Languages

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots Post Reply
142 messages over 18 pages: 1 2 3 4 57 ... 6 ... 17 18 Next >>
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!"



So what happened...haha..


He listened to the speech without headphones.

1 person has voted this message useful



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.)?


Well, I would assume Stalin spoke Georgian.


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?

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

1 person has voted this message useful



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.


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.
1 person has voted this message useful



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.


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.)?


Well, I would assume Stalin spoke Georgian.


Doesn't Jimmy Carter also speak Georgian?

He´s a Caucasian, so of course yes he does.

Edited by Lugubert on 04 June 2006 at 12:42pm



1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 142 messages over 18 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 57 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 2.2813 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.