GabeT
G.O.A.T.
Is he your favorite player by a lot?
Do most pro tennis players speak multiple languages?
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Gary Duane
G.O.A.T.
I talked about this the other day. Young people pick up speech patterns from each other, although they also pick up weird habit from their parents. My family was from England and from the northeast. My grandmother had a NYC accent, and my grandfather had a mid-western accent. My mother did not sound like them. My father's parents were Welsh and they had strong Welsh accents, but my father spoke like a typical Brit. I did not sound like my parents. My brother and I have a typical southern accent for South Florida.
There are also generational changes in English. We said "ahmond", not "almond", and no one said eyether or neyether from this area. We said either and neither like "eether", and that was universal here. The other way was regional. Now every kid I work with says it the other way, which used to be primarily the British way. There are other changes that are forced by education. For instance, you see people now avoid "less" for countables as if it is a sign of substandard English when in fact it was perfectly find for many centuries. I'd wager that eventually "somewhat unique" will be find, but that used to be a sign of bad usage.
Another thing that levels accents is the widespread influence of TV and films. A century or more ago that influence did not exist. People did not hear how people from other places in the world spoke unless they visited those places.
mehdimike
Hall of Fame
Sir, I have heard that native speakers never use some bookish past participle such as swum(swim swam swum) and lain(lie lay lain). Would you say an average person there would not even understand these words?! Wouldn't you use these words back in your childhood or maybe your grandparents?!
socallefty
G.O.A.T.
I think that TV and movies have a lot to do with why young people across the US have more of a neutral accent too. It seem like regional accents like Southern accents are not as cool as having a neutral accent amongst suburban kids.
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onehandbh
G.O.A.T.
A
And also internet video/audio content.
onehandbh
G.O.A.T.
I'm am admittedly lazy when it comes to learning languages, but I do make an effort to try to learn some basic phrases before traveling to a country whose language I do not know.
I think Icelandic has been one of the harder languages for me to try and quickly pick up some conversational phrases in a week or two. Thai was also quite difficult when it comes to reading the writing.
I think Icelandic has been one of the harder languages for me to try and quickly pick up some conversational phrases in a week or two. Thai was also quite difficult when it comes to reading the writing.
BlueB
Legend
I wonder how many days per year he actually spends there and how much communication he gets outside of his family, team, training and fellow players also residing there...
The other question is, how fluent are you, in French, to make that call?
These non-English, non-USA pros speaking English plus the language of their home nation, plus the language of one of their parents makes sense (eg Zverev speaking English, German, and Russian). What I can't believe is Djokovic speaking so many languages. It's really hard to get even semi-fluent without complete immersion for a long period of time.
skaj
Legend
Ask a French person if you think I should not judge. And if you speak some French yourself, you know very well that his French is not good, so I don't get the question.
We can count the days, but he is based there, he spends a good part of the year in Monaco. And languages are his hobby. Having that in mind, his basic French is far from impressive; the comparison with Nadal makes little sense(especially knowing how good Nadal is at learning languages
).
Gary Duane
G.O.A.T.
I wonder how if "coolness" is a factor or if it's just an unconscious thing? I don't ever recall pronouncing things in one way or another unless I made a mistake and someone pointed it out.
I think phrases/vocabulary is another thing entirely. We probably all remember using words or phrases that were "in" that were later dropped. Other words appear and they become universal. The first time I heard "my bad" I thought it was just some passing faze. I heard it in the middle 90s and actually asked what it meant. I figured it was just a fad, and I remember saying it would be gone in a year too. That's why I don't bet.
You just don't know when something something will come and go or stay forever. "The bees knees" didn't make it (1922), but "cool" appeared in the 1930s and it's as popular as ever right now.
BlueB
Legend
I never compared him to Nadal.Ask a French person if you think I should not judge. And if you speak some French yourself, you know very well that his French is not good, so I don't get the question.
We can count the days, but he is based there, he spends a good part of the year in Monaco. And languages are his hobby. Having that in mind, his basic French is far from impressive; the comparison with Nadal makes little sense(especially knowing how good Nadal is at learning languages
I said already, he speaks better than me.
The question was quite simple, how good is your French? A Serbian elementary school level, high school level, Vladislav Ribnikar school level, linguistic degree level?
We might be surprised if we started counting how very little time Nole spends in Monaco... Most of the year he travels around the world for tournaments. The rest is reduced by his time in Belgrade, Marbella, Kopaonik and other ski trips, and traveling for pleasure.
skaj
Legend
The other poster compared him to Nadal, and I replied to that, then you commented on that comment of mine. The question is about me and unless you can explain why you are asking, I should not answer. Not sure what you are trying to say with "he speaks better than me". So much better that you can't tell how good/bad his French is?
Not sure what "very little time" means to you. 5 days a year? 9 days a year? It's more much more than that, we both know that just like we both know what I have already said in my last post - if you speak some French, you know that his French is not very good, you don't have to be a French teacher or a native speaker to know that someone speaks basic French(or whatever language).
BlueB
Legend
Well, you don't mind passing a judgment on someone, so what's wrong answering a question that can clarify how qualified are you to do so? It's not like I asked a horribly intimate question...
To judge something, you need to start from a reference point, be it great, like a non-native French linguist, or bad, like me. Being humble, I started from myself, as the low end of the spectrum. Therefore, I can only say Nole is not so bad (I never claimed he's very good either). However, one also needs some command of a skill, to even start thinking of judging others.
Being somwhere for, let's say, 30 days a year, is certainly very little compared to someone who is a real resident. We can't look at those two different expats the same, with regards of how fluent they should be after a decade in the said place. It becomes even trickier when the individual spends most of that time with people that speak a different language than local. And then, apparently only about 58% of locals in Monaco use French...
Anyways, you tend to paint Nole a bit worse, I'm a bit other way, the truth is probably somwhere in between.
skaj
Legend
But I did not "pass a judgement on someone", I just commented on a simple truth that Djoko’s French is not great, especially for someone who's been based in a French speaking town for years. I have reminded you that you don’t need to be a proficient speaker to know that someone speaks with a limited vocabulary, grammar and syntax errors, heavy accent etc. (= to be “qualified”), and that was the answer to your question. I had a similar situation with a poster here who kept asking me how good I am at a language I was talking about, as if I would comment without knowing the language well enough to give my opinion. They were convinced my knowledge was not good enough. It was my mother tongue.
And I’ve never said that his French is “so bad”, I said not good considering his residence and passion for languages.
As for his time in Monaco, even if it is only 30 days, let’s use the very conservative estimate of yours, that is a person passionate for languages who is learning the language for more than a decade and has an opportunity to spend a month every year in a place where that language is the main language. Again his French is not impressive.
I don’t paint anyone anything, I respond to unrealistic posts, and there are many of those about Djoko since he started winning big, probably because people like to identify with winners in order to feel better about their own lives where they feel like losers(I don't mean you here, but in general). Before they were trashing him and acting as if Federer is some kind of flawless god. Then they called me ********, nadal fanboy etc.
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Andy Murray Is Goat
Rookie
You Misunderstood me. Most players outside of US and UK can speak minimum of 2-3 languages where as those in the US and UK don’t bother. Andy Murray lived in Spain for quite a while training there but asking him to speak Spanish loool
Sudacafan
Bionic Poster
You did not understand me.
Druss
Hall of Fame
I'm not a Frenchman, but I do know some french and can confirm what you said re Novak's level. My guess is he's probably at a low-intermediate to intermediate level (B1) in french. He's still got a long ways to go to achieve fluency. I personally wouldn't go around saying I know such and such a language until I have truly mastered it, i.e. speak it at an advanced level...but that's just me.
skaj
Legend
You can just say what you do know, like I do.
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Olli Jokinen
Hall of Fame
Yes, just not the American ones. Except Courier. He learned French.
Olli Jokinen
Hall of Fame
I'm not even sure Kyrgios can speak English.
Rovesciarete
Hall of Fame
Sinner speaks (South) Tyrolean German, which is part of the Bavarian dialect group. His standard German is quite coloured, as the Germans say. He is noticeably more relaxed when the reporter speaks South German dialects, even Swiss ones.
You can hear his German background in standard Italian, which he speaks in a fairly generic northern Italian way.
His English has been improving, maybe more so with Cahill and is quite distinct from the usual Italian pronunciation.
I guess his Spanish is similar to the one spoken by friends trying to communicate with Spanish girls. Speaking more Lumbart helps to understand ladies from Catalunya…
You can hear his German background in standard Italian, which he speaks in a fairly generic northern Italian way.
His English has been improving, maybe more so with Cahill and is quite distinct from the usual Italian pronunciation.
I guess his Spanish is similar to the one spoken by friends trying to communicate with Spanish girls. Speaking more Lumbart helps to understand ladies from Catalunya…
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DSH
Talk Tennis Guru
Fabresque
Legend
Which means he also speaks Bosnian and Croatian. May as well just list one and not list anymore because those 4 are the same exact language.
BlueB
Legend
Speaks them all: Srpski, Hrvatski, Bosanski, Hertzegovacki, Crnski and Gorski (Montin and Negrin), as wonderfully explained by a leading world linguist, Dr Nele Karajlic, more than 30 years ago.
