Rafa's Sao Paolo speech: He can speak Portuguese ?

MAXXply

MAXXply

Hall of Fame
Is it a big and difficult linguistic jump for a Spanish speaker to speak Portuguese? Seeing Rafa give his post-match speech at Sao Paolo, he looked both confident AND nervous at the same time, like, he was easily able to speak some parts, and then was thinking of the Portuguese words for other parts of his speech. Is Rafa regarded as a good Portuguese speaker?

Also, what choice words did Rafa say to Carlos Bernardes at the post-match handshake? It didn't look pleasant. :|
 
Sentinel

Sentinel

Bionic Poster
For Rafa it would be a big jump, esp with his knees.

Speaking new languages is a small step for Freddie, but a giant leap for Ralphie. :D :D


(j/k: how are you "You Can't be Serious" ? )
 
P

pound cat

G.O.A.T.
MAXXply said:
Is it a big and difficult linguistic jump for a Spanish speaker to speak Portuguese? Seeing Rafa give his post-match speech at Sao Paolo, he looked both confident AND nervous at the same time, like, he was easily able to speak some parts, and then was thinking of the Portuguese words for other parts of his speech. Is Rafa regarded as a good Portuguese speaker?

Also, what choice words did Rafa say to Carlos Bernardes at the post-match handshake? It didn't look pleasant. :|
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See the Bernardes thread above.
 
augustobt

augustobt

Legend
MAXXply said:
Is it a big and difficult linguistic jump for a Spanish speaker to speak Portuguese?
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It's a quite, because they are very similar (and many other's latin based languages) but some words have a completely different meaning, like "embarazada", that is similar to portuguese "embaraçada". Embarazada means pregnant, while embaraçada means "in a bad situation" (but we know that if you're a teenager the words means the same :p).
 
6-1 6-3 6-0

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Banned
MAXXply said:
Also, what choice words did Rafa say to Carlos Bernardes at the post-match handshake? It didn't look pleasant. :|
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It was because Carlos Bernardes UNFAIRLY gave Nadal a warning for a time violation, even though Nadal didn't break any rules. Carlos Bernardes has bullied Nadal in this manner before (I believe it's a matter of personal dislike), and it's absolutely disgusting. Carlos Bernardes is the worst umpire I have ever seen in the history of tennis. He should have received some sort of ban from the ATP (he may have already received numerous fines if ATP officials are starting to pick up on this). I'm glad Nadal gave him a good talking to after the match, just like at the World Tour Finals against Berdych in 2010 (in the Round Robin matches). :p

c99e28463f9cbb0c4607e60d49a987b3-462924951-1300374864-4d822550-620x348.jpg
 
augustobt

augustobt

Legend
Bernardes was correct. Nadal was ready to play but delayed the serve, so he was warned. I don't see anything but mimimi.
 
vernonbc

vernonbc

Legend
I don't think there is a huge difference between the two languages, but I don't speak either so we need an expert to help us out here. Crisstti, where are you????? :-D

Because Rafa's English is heavily accented, he doesn't get enough credit for his linguistic abilities. Roger is lauded for speaking four languages but both Novak and Rafa speak even more. Novak I think is more bold about trying to speak various languages in public but Rafa I believe understands more than all of them but hesitates to speak them.

Rafa is often interviewed on French tv, for instance, and they prattle on in French and he understands them but is shy about responding until this past summer when he made a determined effort to converse more in French. Same with Italian. Both languages are similar to Catalan which is, of course, his native language. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Portuguese falls into much the same category.

Rafa speaks Mallorquin, a dialect of Catalan as Swiss German is to German, Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Italian, and now Portuguese. Pretty impressive and it certainly puts us unilingual North Americans to shame.
 
vernonbc

vernonbc

Legend
6-1 6-3 6-0 said:
It was because Carlos Bernardes UNFAIRLY gave Nadal a warning for a time violation, even though Nadal didn't break any rules. Carlos Bernardes has bullied Nadal in this manner before (I believe it's a matter of personal dislike), and it's absolutely disgusting. Carlos Bernardes is the worst umpire I have ever seen in the history of tennis. He should have received some sort of ban from the ATP (he may have already received numerous fines if ATP officials are starting to pick up on this). I'm glad Nadal gave him a good talking to after the match, just like at the World Tour Finals against Berdych in 2010 (in the Round Robin matches). :p
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Oh stop it. You're embarrassing all Rafa fans.
 
ViscaB

ViscaB

Hall of Fame
Spanish and Portuguese vocabulary is for 89% the same. They are the closest romance languages. On top of that Catalan and Portuguese share a 85% vocabulary.

The only difficulty for Spanish speakers is the pronunciation.
 
vernonbc

vernonbc

Legend
ViscaB said:
Spanish and Portuguese vocabulary is for 89% the same. They are the closest romance languages. On top of that Catalan and Portuguese share a 85% vocabulary.

The only difficulty for Spanish speakers is the pronunciation.
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Thanks ViscaB. I've heard/read somewhere that most Spanish speaking people can get by in Portuguese so far as understanding enough of it to figure out what someone is saying if they needed directions to the nearest tourist attraction for instance but that speaking it, getting the verbs and tenses and different words right is a fair bit more difficult. Is that correct?
 
6-1 6-3 6-0

6-1 6-3 6-0

Banned
vernonbc said:
Thanks ViscaB. I've heard/read somewhere that most Spanish speaking people can get by in Portuguese so far as understanding enough of it to figure out what someone is saying if they needed directions to the nearest tourist attraction for instance but that speaking it, getting the verbs and tenses and different words right is a fair bit more difficult. Is that correct?
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That is correct. :p
 
T

Tiebreak100

New User
6-1 6-3 6-0 said:
It was because Carlos Bernardes UNFAIRLY gave Nadal a warning for a time violation, even though Nadal didn't break any rules. Carlos Bernardes has bullied Nadal in this manner before (I believe it's a matter of personal dislike), and it's absolutely disgusting. Carlos Bernardes is the worst umpire I have ever seen in the history of tennis. He should have received some sort of ban from the ATP (he may have already received numerous fines if ATP officials are starting to pick up on this). I'm glad Nadal gave him a good talking to after the match, just like at the World Tour Finals against Berdych in 2010 (in the Round Robin matches). :p

c99e28463f9cbb0c4607e60d49a987b3-462924951-1300374864-4d822550-620x348.jpg
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Drama Queen alert. He did deserve his time violation warning and he better learns from it. Your bullying comment is laughable, and not worthy of further comment.
 
Avles

Avles

Hall of Fame
vernonbc said:
Thanks ViscaB. I've heard/read somewhere that most Spanish speaking people can get by in Portuguese so far as understanding enough of it to figure out what someone is saying if they needed directions to the nearest tourist attraction for instance but that speaking it, getting the verbs and tenses and different words right is a fair bit more difficult. Is that correct?
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This sounds about right--the grammar and vocab are similar enough for mutual comprehension (once the pronunciation hurdle is cleared), but different enough that expressing yourself correctly would require some study of the language. For example Portuguese has a verb tense (the future subjunctive) that Spanish doesn't.
 
ViscaB

ViscaB

Hall of Fame
The main problem though is the pronunciation of the Portuguese. The way Brazilians speak Portuguese is easier to understand.
 
WhiskeyEE

WhiskeyEE

G.O.A.T.
Porteguese and Spaniards can speak to each other in their own languages. With one speaking Porteguese and the other speaking Spanish. That's how similar they are.
 
D

Dimcorner

Professional
I know a Brazilian at work and I am fluent in Spanish. When he talks I can't understand what he is talking about. I pick out words here and there (about 50%+) but that doesn't help in determining what he is talking about. Enough of the words don't sound the same that it's not really possible to communicate easily. I tried to help a Brazilian tourist once at Best Buy and HOLY CRAP I swore I understood the words but they apparently don't mean the same things :). Also I have no problems speaking and understanding Spaniards.

I guess a good example is that old Lambada song. I think I understand quite a few of those words, but I don't know what the song is trying to say. It's like if you make a song with just random words thrown in to make a sentence (at least to me)

That said, i'm sure it's easy to learn if you are fluent in one of them. I picked up French easily since sentence structure is very similar you just need to memorize words.

FYI I learned Cantonese first, then Spanish, then English was my third language. On top of that my wife is Czech so when we have a kid it's going to get interesting.
 
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vernonbc

vernonbc

Legend
Dimcorner said:
FYI I learned Cantonese first, then Spanish, then English was my third language. On top of that my wife is Czech so when we have a kid it's going to get interesting.
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Your kid is going to be very lucky. :) Make sure you speak all those languages to him/her from the getgo and they'll have a huge advantage once they get older and they're multilingual. Speaking other languages opens up so many opportunities.

Thank you augustobt, ViscaB, and Avles for your information and clarifications. Did you hear Rafa's acceptance speech? Did he do pretty well in Portuguese?
 
veroniquem

veroniquem

Bionic Poster
Rafa speaks Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, English and he understands French pretty well. He's a real polyglot!
 
Crisstti

Crisstti

Legend
WhiskeyEE said:
Porteguese and Spaniards can speak to each other in their own languages. With one speaking Porteguese and the other speaking Spanish. That's how similar they are.
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I've seen people do that - like when the Brazil football team come to play a match, Rafa also did it talking to journalists after the final - but I at least can understand at most half of what's being said, and don't manage to make much sense of it. The pronunciation is definitely a problem. I can more or less understand Portuguese when reading it, but listening to it is a different matter.

I've never studied a word of Portuguese btw, I'm sure Rafa must have studied some. or maybe it's common for people from Spain to speak it to some degree?.

I got the impression from his interviews after matches that he speaks it as much as he does French, doubting at moments and using the word in Spanish instead :).
 
Crisstti

Crisstti

Legend
vernonbc said:
Rafa speaks Mallorquin, a dialect of Catalan as Swiss German is to German, Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Italian, and now Portuguese. Pretty impressive and it certainly puts us unilingual North Americans to shame.
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Well, Catalan and Mallorquin are really the same. I wouldn't say Swiss German is a different language than German either. I'm not sure how much French, Italian and Portuguese he speaks. To some intermediate level probably.
 
WhiskeyEE

WhiskeyEE

G.O.A.T.
Crisstti said:
I've seen people do that - like when the Brazil football team come to play a match, Rafa also did it talking to journalists after the final - but I at least can understand at most half of what's being said, and don't manage to make much sense of it. The pronunciation is definitely a problem. I can more or less understand Portuguese when reading it, but listening to it is a different matter.

I've never studied a word of Portuguese btw, I'm sure Rafa must have studied some. or maybe it's common for people from Spain to speak it to some degree?.

I got the impression from his interviews after matches that he speaks it as much as he does French, doubting at moments and using the word in Spanish instead :).
Click to expand...

Not sure. I used to work with people from Venezuela and Brazil and they'd speak to each other in their own languages no problem.
 
vernonbc

vernonbc

Legend
Crisstti said:
Well, Catalan and Mallorquin are really the same. I wouldn't say Swiss German is a different language than German either. I'm not sure how much French, Italian and Portuguese he speaks. To some intermediate level probably.
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Well, it's a far sight more than I can speak in any other language! :-D As to Catalan and Mallorquin, I've read in a few places that people from Barcelona, for instance, who travel to Mallorca can't understand the Mallorquin dialect. It's probably like you described how you can read Portuguese but struggle to understand it when it's spoken.

I've seen some interviews Rafa has done on French tv shows and it has always impressed me how well he understands what they're saying even when there are a number of them often talking over each other on these talk shows. He follows the conversation quite easily but he responds in Spanish and they translate it, but I did read that this past year he made a concerted effort to learn how to speak it more fluently. Still, his acceptance speech at Roland Garros was riotously funny - it was like Esperanto - he was switching mid sentence between French and Catalan and Spanish and English. :)

BTW, how did you learn to speak (and write) such good English?
 
Crisstti

Crisstti

Legend
vernonbc said:
Well, it's a far sight more than I can speak in any other language! :-D As to Catalan and Mallorquin, I've read in a few places that people from Barcelona, for instance, who travel to Mallorca can't understand the Mallorquin dialect. It's probably like you described how you can read Portuguese but struggle to understand it when it's spoken.
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Mmm, I don't know. I know Rafa himself said - I think during that interview he did on TV during the USO in 2011 - that Catalan and Mallorquin were the same, that people in Mallorca just spoke faster. In fact, I'm pretty sure Mallorquin, Catalan and Valenciano are just different denominations for the same language. You can see how Rafa talks in this language with Marc Lopez (who I believe is from Barcelona) and Ferrer (from Valencia) and they understand each other just fine.

I can speak to someone from a different part of Chile (far to the North or South for example) and it can sometimes be just a little hard to understand everything because of the different accent and cadence, but it's still the same language.

Portuguese and Spanish, while very similar, are two different languages.

I've seen some interviews Rafa has done on French tv shows and it has always impressed me how well he understands what they're saying even when there are a number of them often talking over each other on these talk shows. He follows the conversation quite easily but he responds in Spanish and they translate it, but I did read that this past year he made a concerted effort to learn how to speak it more fluently. Still, his acceptance speech at Roland Garros was riotously funny - it was like Esperanto - he was switching mid sentence between French and Catalan and Spanish and English. :)

BTW, how did you learn to speak (and write) such good English?
Click to expand...

Lol, yeah, it's so cute lol. I'm pretty sure he was doing something similar during his post match on court interviews in Brasil :)

I just learnt English basically during one of my Beatles obsessed periods, lol. Translating songs, interviews, anything.
 
T

timnz

Legend
Catalan=Mallorcian=Valencian languages

Crisstti said:
Mmm, I don't know. I know Rafa himself said - I think during that interview he did on TV during the USO in 2011 - that Catalan and Mallorquin were the same, that people in Mallorca just spoke faster. In fact, I'm pretty sure Mallorquin, Catalan and Valenciano are just different denominations for the same language. You can see how Rafa talks in this language with Marc Lopez (who I believe is from Barcelona) and Ferrer (from Valencia) and they understand each other just fine.

I can speak to someone from a different part of Chile (far to the North or South for example) and it can sometimes be just a little hard to understand everything because of the different accent and cadence, but it's still the same language.

Portuguese and Spanish, while very similar, are two different languages.



Lol, yeah, it's so cute lol. I'm pretty sure he was doing something similar during his post match on court interviews in Brasil :)

I just learnt English basically during one of my Beatles obsessed periods, lol. Translating songs, interviews, anything.
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This is exactly right (the bolded part). My sister-in-law is from Barcelona and is Catalan. She says that the language spoken in Mallorca is pretty much identical to Catalan. I got the impression from her that these were as close together as Canadian English is to American English. They (along with the language of Valencia) couldn't really be considered seperate languages.

The same sister-in-law who visited Brazil - said that after a few days she was at least able to make herself understood there.

What is amusing to me is that people talk as if Spanish is Nadal's mother tongue when in reality it is his second language.
 
MasturB

MasturB

Legend
6-1 6-3 6-0 said:
It was because Carlos Bernardes UNFAIRLY gave Nadal a warning for a time violation, even though Nadal didn't break any rules. Carlos Bernardes has bullied Nadal in this manner before (I believe it's a matter of personal dislike), and it's absolutely disgusting. Carlos Bernardes is the worst umpire I have ever seen in the history of tennis. He should have received some sort of ban from the ATP (he may have already received numerous fines if ATP officials are starting to pick up on this). I'm glad Nadal gave him a good talking to after the match, just like at the World Tour Finals against Berdych in 2010 (in the Round Robin matches). :p

c99e28463f9cbb0c4607e60d49a987b3-462924951-1300374864-4d822550-620x348.jpg
Click to expand...

You are aware that the guy in the picture Nadal is talking to isn't Carlos Bernardes right?
 
T

Tennis_Hands

Banned
timnz said:
This is exactly right (the bolded part). My sister-in-law is from Barcelona and is Catalan. She says that the language spoken in Mallorca is pretty much identical to Catalan. I got the impression from her that these were as close together as Canadian English is to American English. They (along with the language of Valencia) couldn't really be considered seperate languages.

The same sister-in-law who visited Brazil - said that after a few days she was at least able to make herself understood there.

What is amusing to me is that people talk as if Spanish is Nadal's mother tongue when in reality it is his second language.
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It is fixed then.

Nadal speaks Malorquin, Spanish and to a far lesser extent English, and can mumble a couple of words in French, Italian and Portugese.

:razz:

EDIT: Thanks for the correction.
 
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M

ManFed

Rookie
Portuguese and Spanish are much the same language with different pronunciation. My mother tongue is spanish and I understand written portuguese like 90%. I can have a conversation with a brazilian speaking our languages and we understand each other in a 75% degree.

With Italian is different we can speak with Italians too and understand more than 50% but written Italian is quite different.

Catalán and Mallorquín are dialects of the same language but they are as different as american english and scots.

Swiss German is a completely different language that Standard German used in Germans TV. They are as different as Polish and Czech for example or Italian and Rumanian. They are related but with different backgrounds. Similar vocabulary but shocking differences in pronunciation.
 
vive le beau jeu !

vive le beau jeu !

Talk Tennis Guru
what happened to this thread ? some posts are missing !
i'd swear i saw the great gorecki around here... ;)

Tennis_Hands said:
It is fixed then.

Nadal speaks Malorquin, Spanish and to a far lesser extent English, and can mumble a couple of words in French, Italian and Portugese.
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this post is an insolent offense to the golden babel bull !
Cherna-inquisitor.gif
Cherna-inquisitor.gif
Cherna-inquisitor.gif
 
ViscaB

ViscaB

Hall of Fame
ManFed said:
Catalán and Mallorquín are dialects of the same language but they are as different as american english and scots.
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They are one and the same language. According to linguistics experts Valencian is the same language as well. It's all Catalan.
 
M

ManFed

Rookie
ViscaB said:
They are one and the same language. According to linguistics experts Valencian is the same language as well. It's all Catalan.
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Scots and american english are the same language too. A dialect is a local or regional expresion of a language. The catalan spoke in Valencia, Mallorca and Barcelona is different but it is equal enough to be considere the same language. They are as different as the spanish of Madrid and Sevilla.

Regards
 
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