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Famous Bilinguals | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4626 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 16 21 December 2011 at 3:55am | IP Logged | ||
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This is a topic that interests me. A lot of world leaders, celebrities, etc. know multiple languages (in some cases quite a few). For example, President Obama knows English and Indonesian (I assume some other languages as well), and Kim Jong Il's son knows English, German, and maybe French on top of Korean.
Do you know of any world leaders or celebrities that speak multiple languages (besides English and their native tongue)? Which ones? Edited by rivere123 on 21 December 2011 at 5:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5211 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 2 of 16 21 December 2011 at 4:33am | IP Logged | ||
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I suppose it's worth distinguishing between genuine bilingualism and the ability to speak a little bit of a language at a limited level. Not to make any political statements, but Obama certainly isn't functionally proficient at Indonesian (let alone any other languages), and I doubt Kim Jung-un is fluent in German, since it probably wasn't hard to get by with just English at an English-language international school in Switzerland.
I don't know if he'd be considered famous, but British Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is certainly a good example of a genuine polyglot. Edited by nway on 21 December 2011 at 5:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4755 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 3 of 16 21 December 2011 at 4:48am | IP Logged | ||
I've been trying to think of one that I read about a few weeks ago - she was a female in a recent film and is apparently proficient in quite a few language, however I cannot remember for the life of me who it was! However its quite common to see world leaders/celebrities speaking foreign languages in interviews and such, but it is usually just to promote their films. However I think Sandra Bullock is fluent in German and Mila Kunis speaks Russian, but according to Wikipedia, they were born into multilingual families. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4626 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 16 21 December 2011 at 4:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry, what I meant was besides English. Forgot to put it, fixed.
Anyway, I wasn't sure of the fluency of either two in their respective languages. Never knew Sandra Bullock and Mila Kunis spoke those languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4830 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 5 of 16 21 December 2011 at 5:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I listened to Sandra do an acceptance speech for an acting award in German, and her accent is gorgeous.
As far as actors, Sarah Chalke and Leonardo DiCaprio are also supposed to be truly bilingual with English and German. Others: Michael Fassbinder (Or is it "Fassbender"?) Udo Kier, Max von Sydow There are many Latin American superstars who are bilingual with English and Spanish. Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Lopez, Edward James Olmos, Antonio Banderas (Spaniard, but still...) Many fashion models are also bilingual. I am thinking just now of Gisele who speaks Portuguese and English. For English/French we have some lovely Quebecois entertainers Celine Dion and Karine Vanasse (I hope I spelled that right...) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TRENDY Diglot Newbie Spain Joined 4958 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 16 21 December 2011 at 9:49am | IP Logged | ||
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" I've been trying to think of one that I read about a few weeks ago - she was a female
in a recent film and is apparently proficient in quite a few language, however I cannot remember for the life of me who it was! " Could it be Jodie Foster in a french film ?, she`s bilingual in that language. Another actress i`d like to mention is Maria de Medeiros, she speaks six languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alexander86 Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom alanguagediary.blogs Joined 4777 days ago 224 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 7 of 16 21 December 2011 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've got another name to add:
Daniel Brühl, who speaks German, Spanish, Catalan, English and French =) (all fluently, and there are videos to prove it). Plus, kudos to the person who mentioned Nick Clegg, his language prowess can tell us a lot about Britain. First, it's unusual for British politicians to speak other languages (Tony Blair spoke French but with his education it would have been stranger if he didn't), and second, the mistrust that people place in his 'foreigness' which shows how stupid/xenophobic my fellow Brits can be (Inseldenken!) :/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6175 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 16 21 December 2011 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is a whole thread on polyglot actors here that might interest you.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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