Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

The World Cup of Languages

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
Desacrator48
Groupie
United States
Joined 5068 days ago

93 posts - 127 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, French

 
 Message 1 of 4
02 December 2010 at 8:55pm | IP Logged 
One of my big motivations for pursuing languages and selecting them is in fact because of the World Cup.

When I found out this summer that the NEXT world cup would be in Brazil, I realized I could combine two of my favorite things right now: soccer and languages. I hope to make it my first World Cup trip and combine these two pleasures, in conjuntion with starting to learn Portuguese 2 years from now.

Now if you don't know, today was a big day for me because I was going to find out where I will be spending my money 8 and 12 years from now...and also what languages I will have to learn to prepare for then.

I did think wishfully (and arrogantly as an Anglophone) a while back that England and then the US would get these bids, thereby forgoing the language barrier and an opportunity to learn two more 4 years apart...but if you haven't heard yet, we all now have the incentive to learn Russian and Arabic!

If you guys really want to see the power of international languages and the lingua franca, you have nowhere else to go than watch the presentations of the bids in Switzerland.

FIFA 2022 Qatar Presentation

That one is Qatar's. You could imagine my surprise and admiration when instead of speaking English like every other bid (USA, Australia, Japan, S. Korea), the royal princes of Qatar spoke also in perfect French, Castillian Spanish, and American English.

Does anybody else tie the World Cup or global soccer into learning or a love of languages?
1 person has voted this message useful



SamD
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6419 days ago

823 posts - 987 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian

 
 Message 2 of 4
03 December 2010 at 1:13am | IP Logged 
I've tried learning a few words of the host countries' languages.

This post got me all excited. I thought it was going to be about an international competition for polyglots, and I wanted to be on the team.
4 persons have voted this message useful



sm66
Diglot
Newbie
Australia
Joined 5118 days ago

26 posts - 32 votes
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Italian, Greek, German

 
 Message 3 of 4
03 December 2010 at 7:06am | IP Logged 
I too would love to go to Brazil 2014 so I can use that motivation as the perfect excuse to dabble in Portuguese. Russia in 2018 will be a very interesting linguistic experience for you as well! But, needless to say, I'm not happy with Qatar getting the World Cup in 2022, and I can't really see the opportunities to actually speak Gulf Arabic while you're over there.
1 person has voted this message useful



leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6310 days ago

2365 posts - 3804 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 4 of 4
04 December 2010 at 2:00am | IP Logged 
It's very cool that you posted this. I plan to use the 2016 olympics as an excuse to learn Portuguese. World Cup is
also an excellent Idea too. But I'm old, and will probably be dead before 2022. I may need to find a different
motivation to learn Arabic.


1 person has voted this message useful



If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register


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 0.1875 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.