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Nicholas Sárközy?

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots Post Reply
18 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
seldnar
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6891 days ago

189 posts - 287 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek

 
 Message 17 of 18
26 December 2010 at 10:00am | IP Logged 
In the 2004 US presidential election, the Democratic candidate was John Kerry. Kerry
speaks fluent French, according to various French journalists; in fact, he reportedly
went to a Swiss boarding school for some time. (Wikipedia is not clear on this: in the
introduction to the article it says that he attended private schools in the US and
Europe; however, in the section dealing with education it does not mention any non-US
schools). His first cousin once ran for the office of president of France in 1981.

I mention all of this, because, during the campaign he refused to speak French. He
would not speak even with the French reporters who used to interview him in French. He
was concerned that speaking French would reflect badly on his campaign. For some
reason, uncomprehended by this American, many of my fellow countrymen claim they do not
like the French. There was a time when American presidents were respected for their
education, but things have changed and a well-educated president can quickly be tarred
an elitist by his opposition. Frustrating.
1 person has voted this message useful



Sennin
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5793 days ago

1457 posts - 1759 votes 
5 sounds

 
 Message 18 of 18
26 December 2010 at 12:24pm | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
ziedariana wrote:

Since a President represents an entire nation, he should always, in my opinion, speak in his native tongue, regardless of his competency level in the interviewer's language.


I disagree. In my opinion, they should be able to speak at least English.


Yeah, it's sad. The Bulgarian prime minister also doesn't speak English, Russian, or anything except Bulgarian. He's making some attempts at English but I wouldn't call it speaking. Having in mind the things he says in Bulgarian perhaps it's better this way...

This reminds me of one funny event. Vladimir Putine visited Bulgaria some time ago, and the Bulgarian prime minister gave him a puppy as a present. And then he said in a funny regional dialect: "нéма да остане гладно" i.e. "it won't be left hungry".

Edited by Sennin on 27 December 2010 at 3:43pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



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