Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5845 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 1 of 9 12 November 2010 at 1:26pm | IP Logged |
I would like to introduce Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the leading politician of the Green Party in the European Parliament. He is grown up in France and in Germany and he is a member of the Green Party in both countries. He speaks perfect French and German without foreign accent and as well good English.
I will present some videos to demonstrate his language fluency:
1. Daniel Cohn-Bendit speaks English and French:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NJgswYtx3M
2. Daniel Cohn-Bendit speaks German:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAC9uPaO94Y&feature=related
Fasulye
Edited by Fasulye on 12 November 2010 at 3:13pm
1 person has voted this message useful
|
William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6270 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 2 of 9 24 November 2010 at 10:13pm | IP Logged |
I don't think it is so remarkable. He is from a German Jewish background and his parents escaped to France to get away from the Nazis. (Lots of Alsatians are also bilingual D/FR). The majority of educated West Europeans are fairly competent in English.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5845 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 4 of 9 25 November 2010 at 9:17am | IP Logged |
Kuikentje wrote:
William Camden wrote:
I don't think it is so remarkable. He is from a German Jewish background and his parents escaped to France to get away from the Nazis. (Lots of Alsatians are also bilingual D/FR). The majority of educated West Europeans are fairly competent in English. |
|
|
I agree, it's normal. Other politicians can speak fluently much more languages, often 5 or 6. Also, he's not polyglot, or to speak only 3 languages is a polyglot? It seems not sufficient in my opinion. |
|
|
I didn't call him a polyglot.
Fasulye
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5519 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish*
| Message 6 of 9 25 November 2010 at 10:35am | IP Logged |
Obviously he is a polyglot. 3 is "many", isn't it? In any case, whereas many mere mortals speak more than three languages, the ruling classes seldom take the time to learn languages, or anything at all. Many of our former social democrat ministers lacked university educations altogether.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Leurre Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5423 days ago 219 posts - 372 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Korean, Haitian Creole, SpanishC2 Studies: Japanese
| Message 7 of 9 25 November 2010 at 11:06am | IP Logged |
poly starts with three
Also stop nitpicking
It's true though that lots of European politicians walk the multilingual path. Any
politician from Luxembourg, for example, is guaranteed to speak at the very least 3
languages
edit: my Korean studies are getting the better of my English expressions
Edited by Leurre on 25 November 2010 at 11:06am
1 person has voted this message useful
|