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Who speaks TL better - Kerry or Gingrich? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5156 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 1 of 39 27 February 2013 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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For those of you who speak both French and Spanish. Who speaks their target language better? John Kerry speaking French or Newt Gingrich speaking Spanish.
The Gingrich Spanish starts at about 18 seconds into the video. I speak Spanish reasonably well and I personally think Gingrich sounds absolutely awful. It makes me cringe. When I saw him in this video when he first gave it I did not know Spanish and I was extremely impressed. How is Kerry's French? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alanjazz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4596 days ago 65 posts - 129 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese | Message 2 of 39 27 February 2013 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Kerry is definitely better than Gingrich, whose Spanish is so painful I would fully expect that he was reading it off a
teleprompter. Kerry still certainly has a bit of an accent but it doesn't sound too "American" to me, I don't know what other French speakers think. There are certainly some anglicisms tucked into Kerry's French but all in all it is miles better than Gingrich's embarassing apology. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6690 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 39 27 February 2013 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've heard worse accents than Kerry's (it actually sounds like French), whereas Gingrich's Spanish is neither impressive nor surprising. As a matter of fact, his accent reminded me of one of the speakers in the Esperanto courses on the Lernu site (probably an American).
I didn't pay attention to their choice of words, grammar, syntax etc. (assuming both had rehearsed the script and were just reading lines). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4072 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 4 of 39 27 February 2013 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I speak French (and a little Spanish) and I think John Kerry's French is good. He sounds American but his French is pleasant to the ear, and he has a nice sense of humor.
That Gingrich guy is a linguistic disaster. His foreign accent is so strong that he is barely understandable at times (and the content of the video is offensive). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chrisphillips71 Groupie United States Joined 5017 days ago 64 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 39 27 February 2013 at 11:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Newt is obviously reading from cue cards. I question whether he even knows what he is
saying (well, I am sure that someone told him what he was saying, but he would not know otherwise). This is particularly funny because Bilingual America touts him as one of its students http://bilingualamerica.com/ricardo#.US6NrqLkvho. Edited by chrisphillips71 on 27 February 2013 at 11:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| wber Groupie United States Joined 4082 days ago 45 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Vietnamese, French | Message 6 of 39 28 February 2013 at 12:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Putting my political biases aside, I would say that Kerry sounds better. He sounds like someone who has actually studied French and is familiar with the language. He has an accent of course, but his words flow smoothly.
Newt just sounds horrible. He sounds like the typical American tourist. Even the most basic Spanish words sound too Americanized. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4417 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 7 of 39 28 February 2013 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Kerry was good. He pronounced one or two words in a fashion I couldn't understand, but I'm not a native speaker.
I turned off the second video 3 seconds after he started speaking in Spanish because it was painful too listen to! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5079 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 8 of 39 28 February 2013 at 1:25am | IP Logged | ||
I disagree. His pronunciation is not good, but I think one can hear that he understands very well what he says. It is very clear that he does indeed learn Spanish, imo there is no doubt about that. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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