translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6921 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 1 of 9 02 June 2011 at 6:19pm | IP Logged |
Here is a perfect example of someone speaking and understanding a language fluently without necessarily using a huge vocabulary:
Bradley Cooper Speaks French on French News Channel
Edited by translator2 on 02 June 2011 at 8:21pm
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Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5383 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 2 of 9 02 June 2011 at 6:26pm | IP Logged |
Having a large vocabulary is obviously not necessary for fluency, although we have no idea how large his vocabulary actually is.
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translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6921 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 3 of 9 02 June 2011 at 8:22pm | IP Logged |
Changed to using. Of course we do not know the extent of his vocabulary - that was not the point.
Arekkusu wrote:
Having a large vocabulary is obviously not necessary for fluency, although we have no idea how large his vocabulary actually is. |
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July Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 5275 days ago 113 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishB2 Studies: French
| Message 4 of 9 02 June 2011 at 11:03pm | IP Logged |
What a pretty video.
I could understand him, so I assume that his French is at least comprehensible! It's
great to see people brave enough to try out their second languages on TV. I love it when
I see Spanish actors or presenters trying out a bit of English in interviews - and Will
Smith went up in my estimation when I saw him trying to use some Spanish in an interview
here. It takes courage but it pays off for the fans.
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pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5730 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian
| Message 5 of 9 03 June 2011 at 9:21am | IP Logged |
My French isn't that good to judge his French but I've seen a bunch of other interviews
with him in French, so he must feel pretty confident. It's great!
I was surprised to find out that a boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko is no stranger to
learning foreign languages. He's Ukrainian (so Ukrainian and Russian were probably with
him from an early age). I've seen interviews with him in English
BBC Interview and in German
Intel Extrema Masters.
Wikipedia says that he knows Polish as well, but I couldn't find any proof of that. Plus,
he has a PhD in philosophy. Definitely not your stereotypical boxer.
Edited by pesahson on 03 June 2011 at 9:21am
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patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7017 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map
| Message 6 of 9 03 June 2011 at 5:19pm | IP Logged |
At the start of the interview, the presenter asks him how come he understands and speaks "our language" [French]. He says that he learned it in university and also as an exchange student (didn't quite get where, Aix au Provence I think) and, since he lived with a host family who only spoke French, he had to speak it. Immersion appears to work.
pesahson wrote:
I was surprised to find out that a boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko is no stranger to learning foreign languages. He's Ukrainian (so Ukrainian and Russian were probably with him from an early age). I've seen interviews with him in English
BBC Interview and in German
Intel Extrema Masters.
Wikipedia says that he knows Polish as well, but I couldn't find any proof of that. Plus, he has a PhD in philosophy. Definitely not your stereotypical boxer. |
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So much for blows to the head giving you brain damage...unless he did learned this before he began to fight.
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KSAKSA Groupie Australia Joined 5147 days ago 65 posts - 99 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Gulf)
| Message 7 of 9 04 June 2011 at 7:44am | IP Logged |
Ok, I'll be the childish one and just say....qwwwwwwwar, Bradley's a spunk!
It can be really hard to overcome embarrassment when speaking a foreign language but it's great to see he feels so comfortable even though he's under studio lights with cameras trained on him.
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translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6921 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 8 of 9 04 June 2011 at 5:32pm | IP Logged |
Here is another much longer video of Bradley Cooper speaking with some fans in French about the movie Hangover:
Bradley Cooper
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