What non-native top player speaks the best and the worst English?

[Mainad]

I totally agree!!!
One thing I find difficult is tenses – you guys have 17 different tenses and a ton of rules when to use them:
Simple Present, Present Progressive , Simple Past , Past Progressive , Present Perfect Simple , Present Perfect Progressive , Past Perfect Simple , Past Perfect Progressive , Future I Simple (will), Future I Simple (going to), Future I Progressive , Future II Simple, Future II Progressive , Conditional I Simple , Conditional I Progressive , Conditional II Simple , Conditional II Progressive ...holy crap, give me a break

Come on,you don't expect EVERYTHING to be easy do you...lol??

German grammar is a lot more difficult, however, it also offers more flexibility. Once you know the rules and have acquired a decent lexicon, you're able to say anything. You can just create new words that everyone who knows the language will understand. By rearranging the words you can slightly alter the meaning of the sentence. Also, there are things like the diminutive: You can give a word a certain ending making it sound little and cute. In English, you usually need a new word for that.
There are a lot more words in the English language, so at some point improving your language skills comes down to learning more and more words and knowing how exactly to use them. I can grab a German dictionary and I will know pretty much every word in there (except for some fancy old expressions that nobody uses anyway). From what I've heard, this is not true for English native speakers.

The most difficult thing for me about German grammar is the 3 different genders ie. masculine,feminine and neuter and trying to remember which words are which.When a new word is coined in German,who decides what gender it should be given?

I'd also agree that the English pronunciation is harder, but I can't tell for sure. To me, it seems to be very irregular. Form example in German, there is a rule saying “sch” is pronounced different than what these letters are pronounced if the stand by themselves - but this is almost always true. I English, the same spelling is pronounced different for different words
For example:
Kansas is [ˈkænzəs]
Arkansas is [ˈɑɹkənsɔː]
Could anyone explain me how the 'Ar' totally changes the way 'kansas' is pronounced?:?

Guess that's one for our American friends to explain!

While this might be a good thing at some point, it think it often gets in the way of speaking proper English if you're German. You try to pronounce every single letter accurately and it ends up sounding extremely stupid. I actually think a German accent is by far the worst of all. While French etc. people also struggle with pronunciation their accents adds something distinct to the language that I sometimes find appealing or at least tolerable. A German accent sound like trying to get it right, but failing miserably. That’s why I tried so hard to get rid of mine.
I don't know if you guys feel that way too, though. Do you have any preferences when it comes to accents?

Men with French accents (and Latin ones in general) are considered sexy to listen to by English-speaking women.But I find them often hard to understand.
A German accent is often quite strong but I usually find it easy to understand because Germans usually take time to pronounce words carefully with proper pauses and stresses in the correct place.

It's Donnerstag not Duurstag

Yikes,where did that one come from? I must have made it up because it sounded more like 'Thursday'??

 

[Deleted member 21996]

English grammar is one of the easiest there are: simple verb conjugation, almost no trace of gender, etc. Its expressiveness comes more from a broad vocabulary where almost-synonyms contribute subtle nuances to the overall meaning of the sentence. Acquiring this lexicon is the hard part. That and the fuzzy pronunciation rules: you say tomato and all that...

reminds me of the odd habit\rule that our languages (yours and mine) have to give a "gender" to certain objects...

 

[cucio]

reminds me of the odd habit\rule that our languages (yours and mine) have to give a "gender" to certain objects...

Gender in inanimate objects is murder for native English speakers, they have to learn not only the noun, but its gender too. In German and Dutch there is something similar, it is not exactly gender, but it affects the morphology of articles and adjectives that go with every noun.

 

[LeftySpin]

I think Nole speaks good english

 

[Dilettante]

As to the Romance branch of tongues, Spanish veers from the rest due to the Arabic influence. It shares a lot with Italian but Romanian is actually a closer cousin.

Romanian is similar but Italian and Portuguese are more similar IMO. Both of them, speacially Italian, sound more familar to me. But I'm from eastern Spain, someone from northwest (Galicia) would tell you Portuguese is more familiar to him, because of our respective local language. That's how they sound to me:

Valencian, Catalan, Majorcan: like a mix of Spanish with Italian and some French.
Galician: like a mix of Spanish with Portuguese.

About the Arabic influence in Spanish, it's really small or non existant when it comes to pronunciation and grammar (I can only think in the sufix -í, which is considered kinda exotic anyway) but there is virtually none of Arabic grammar or phonetics in Spanish. It is more visible in vocabulary though, there is a number of words of Arabic origin, it could be between a 5%-8% of total vocabulary, specially to name objects, although many of them are old words not much used today. Also, in some parts of Spain there are many cities or small towns with an Arabic origin name. Here we always point to the interesting example of cities like Algeciras (in Cadiz) or Alzira (in Valencia) which were named by the Arab invaders meaning "the island", just like the Arabic TV network Al Jazeera.

But in the grammatic structure itself of Spanish there's not significant arabic traces really.

Probably for the same reason, English-speaking natives can rarely get to speak Spanish without an accent, by the way.

Didn't think of that myself, but once you've said it, it seems to be true. I can't really think of any English speaking native that I know who can speak Spanish without accent.

Ex pro Marat Safin speaks fluent Spanish....

He lived here in Valencia for some years and his Spanish is perfect.

 

[Pozarevacka]

For you to decide, but there has been an influx of Poles and Romanians especially (and other eastern European nations) coming to western Europe over the years and taking most of the local people's jobs. It's caused problems in the countries with a high employment rate such as Germany, UK and france to a lesser degree, as eastern Europeans think they can improve their standard of living in these countries. This is a serious issue and the EU regulations on immigration is very poor. Poles/Romanians/eastern Europeans are prepared to work for a fraction less of what local's want. Not much anyone can do about it unless the eu comes to an agreement on putting visas in place for countries part of the EU.

Maybe the governments should stop artificially creating high wages for jobs that don't require much skill.

Most people here are asserting that English is a simple language, whereas I deviate from this way of thinking. Most people who 'speak' English have a grasp of 100 or so words and are pretty unsophisticated. Just because you can get by in English doesn't mean you can 'speak' the language. English is a very complex language that is difficult to learn at a scholarly level.

A true test may be if you can read and understand everything here: http://mises.org/books/sol.pdf
then perhaps you speak English. I think 95% of players on tour would fail to understand what the author is depicting.

 

[rovex]

Maybe the governments should stop artificially creating high wages for jobs that don't require much skill.

Most people here are asserting that English is a simple language, whereas I deviate from this way of thinking. Most people who 'speak' English have a grasp of 100 or so words and are pretty unsophisticated. Just because you can get by in English doesn't mean you can 'speak' the language. English is a very complex language that is difficult to learn at a scholarly level.

A true test may be if you can read and understand everything here: http://mises.org/books/sol.pdf
then perhaps you speak English. I think 95% of players on tour would fail to understand what the author is depicting.

The governments don't create all the jobs, small to large scale private organisations who set the wages according to their owners and income are not influenced by the government with the exception of the minimum wage and taxes which will of course have some bearing on businesses infrastructure.

English is one of the very few languages which requires logic when you are learning it from the ground especially. As you go further deep it of course becomes more difficult but that's not the point. don't see why you would generalise by saying most People with English as their first language in fact don't really know the language because they don't use "sophisticated" words as such. In schools, where English is taught in a country where English is not the national language, teachers only teach the core foundations of the English language, or else it would it be confusing for many. But as the years progress, then introduce more depth to truly understand the language from top to bottom. I have the impression however that when a foreigner speaks a language they are not entirely familiar with they attempt to use a higher vocabulary to, perhaps, make themselves feel less insecure about having an accent and being different. I dont know where you are from, but that's the feeling I'm currently getting from you. I myself did this in the past when I wasn't at one with a language, so you're not alone.

Using only 'big words' in conversations to come across as intellectual just really most of the time makes people think you're arrogant so that's why you do not hear the majority of people with english (and the rest) as their first language speak in that manner between one another.

 

[cucio]

I think 95% of players on tour would fail to understand what the author is depicting.

95% of native English speakers would be daunted at the prospect of having to read that paper brick, let alone understand it. The tour is composed mainly of non-native young, uncultivated jocks. So what are you trying to tell here?

Acquiring scholarly level is a heck of a task in any language. Acquiring a basic set of competences in English is easier than in any other language I know about, but those only include a few Germanic and Romance ones. Perhaps it is even easier in some Slavic, Asian or African language.

English is one of the very few languages which requires logic.

Ah, ok, I get it, we are starting to troll here. Yay! Let me fetch my demotivational gifs and a big bowl of popcorn.

 

[Deleted member 21996]

Galician: like a mix of Spanish with Portuguese.
.

i'm not a philologist or a linguist but i gather that Galician is somewhat a more traditional\primitive form, meaning that it is closer to the ways people talked in the upper Portugal (where i live) & Galicia some 200 years ago. on the other hand, it would seem that Catalan writen(not spoken) has more convergence points with Portuguese than Castellano\Español, but i do not have evidence on that so i could be wrong.

 

[Dilettante]

i'm not a philologist or a linguist but i gather that Galician is somewhat a more traditional\primitive form, meaning that it is closer to the ways people talked in the upper Portugal (where i live) & Galicia some 200 years ago. on the other hand, it would seem that Catalan writen(not spoken) has more convergence points with Portuguese than Castellano\Español, but i do not have evidence on that so i could be wrong.

It was just a simple way to put it, to point the similarities. I didn't mean those languages were born as a simple mix of the others, they were not but they look as if they were.

For example, if you take Catalan: almost all of its words can be found in an identical or almost identical form in Spanish, French or Italian. That's what I meant.

Anyway I don't think written Catalan is more similiar to Portuguese than to Spanish, other than the use of letter "ç" which was used in old Spanish anyway. And perhaps the use of grave and acute accents.

But other than that Catalan is more similar to Spanish than to other any language. If anything, it has links to French and Italian too, more than to Portuguese.

Most people here are asserting that English is a simple language, whereas I deviate from this way of thinking.

It's very complex in its phonetics. But in its structure is more simple than other languages which structure I know, as Spanish, French, Italian. Other than phonetics, English certainly is much more simple than Spanish for example, I'd say it's not even close. Just think in verb tenses and declinations.

What is more complex in English is the lexicon. I may be wrong, but I think in English it's more complex because it has many short words that change their meaning when put together, and Spanish has more stablished words which are the same word for different meanings and which meaning depend more on the context. So as I see it, in English it's very common to pick two given words and make a third word out of them (like "get out", "give up"). In Spanish some words are put together too, but not so often, and when it's done it's in an informal or even vulgar way and it rarely gets accepted in dictionary (stuff like "correveydile" or "tocahuevos").

It's like in English a lot of words can be used as auxiliary words. So it gives you the pieces to build a more extensive English lexicon.

 

[Deleted member 60695]

Maybe the governments should stop artificially creating high wages for jobs that don't require much skill.

Most people here are asserting that English is a simple language, whereas I deviate from this way of thinking. Most people who 'speak' English have a grasp of 100 or so words and are pretty unsophisticated. Just because you can get by in English doesn't mean you can 'speak' the language. English is a very complex language that is difficult to learn at a scholarly level.

A true test may be if you can read and understand everything here: http://mises.org/books/sol.pdf
then perhaps you speak English. I think 95% of players on tour would fail to understand what the author is depicting.

Pozarevacka, if understanding von Mises was the criteria for understanding English, then 99% of the Federal Government would fail. Come to think of it.....I like your standard.

 

[origmarm]

i'm not a philologist or a linguist but i gather that Galician is somewhat a more traditional\primitive form, meaning that it is closer to the ways people talked in the upper Portugal (where i live) & Galicia some 200 years ago. on the other hand, it would seem that Catalan writen(not spoken) has more convergence points with Portuguese than Castellano\Español, but i do not have evidence on that so i could be wrong.

Was talking to a friend of my wife's the other day and was introduced to "Portanol" ....now that is an amusing convergence!

 

[Deleted member 21996]

Was talking to a friend of my wife's the other day and was introduced to "Portanol" ....now that is an amusing convergence!

hehe... that is what us portuguese speak when talking to a spaniard due to lack of vocabulary!!!

ex:

Mieliancia, when meaning Sandia (watermelon) wich in Portuguese is Melancia

Inviestimiento when meaning Inversion (Investment)

 

[batz]

This thread is bloody fascinating!

There are some cunning linguists on this board.

 

[Rock Strongo]

This thread is bloody fascinating!

There are some cunning linguists on this board.

*insert Austin Powers joke about cunning linguists and master debaters here*

 

[reversef]

A true test may be if you can read and understand everything here: http://mises.org/books/sol.pdf
then perhaps you speak English. I think 95% of players on tour would fail to understand what the author is depicting.

Sorry, I disagree. It's actually pretty easy to read for a foreign speaker. Many "lighter" things are much more difficult. The street language is much more difficult than the intellectual one.

 

[Cassius Clay]

Sorry, I disagree. It's actually pretty easy to read for a foreign speaker. Many "lighter" things are much more difficult. The street language is much more difficult than the intellectual one.

I agree, especially if you are a speaker of a language with latin roots. Most of the high-level vocabulary in English comes from Latin.

 

[mnm]

I'm pretty ashamed of Söderling, as a swede.. he just doesn't have the pronouncation and the interest i guess.

However, he is good if looking at a broader perspective.
I mean, look at Nadal and Ferrer, they are horrible. Both are worthless.

Roger does, german, french and english.. gotta be the best.

 

[Pozarevacka]

I'm pretty ashamed of Söderling, as a swede.. he just doesn't have the pronouncation and the interest i guess.

However, he is good if looking at a broader perspective.
I mean, look at Nadal and Ferrer, they are horrible. Both are worthless.

Roger does, german, french and english.. gotta be the best.

Roger can barely get by in French. His English is OK, but let's be honest. When asked what his favorite movie is, he says Dirty Dancing. Probably doesn't watch English language movies.

I said Novak, and not many people are talking about how he speaks 3 different sub group languages. He speaks German, English - Serbian - Italian
He has a Latin, Germanic, and Slavic language. Three languages that have different roots.

Italian - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0giXydJI7uo
English - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaA6JgWI4J0
Serbian - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJb4ff3AmpA
German - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmDaAZiZat4&feature=related

 

[billnepill]

Roger can barely get by in French. His English is OK, but let's be honest. When asked what his favorite movie is, he says Dirty Dancing. Probably doesn't watch English language movies.

I said Novak, and not many people are talking about how he speaks 3 different sub group languages. He speaks German, English - Serbian - Italian
He has a Latin, Germanic, and Slavic language. Three languages that have different roots.

Italian - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0giXydJI7uo
English - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaA6JgWI4J0
Serbian - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJb4ff3AmpA
German - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmDaAZiZat4&feature=related

lol at his german, but I have to admit his English is very good. Overall, his ability to speak so many languages at that age while being an elite tennis player is amazing.

 

[CCNM]

Reading this thread reminds me of when I was in college. I took an upper level Spanish class that was taught by a gentleman from Scotland (????). His English was fine, but his Spanish sounded like he was trying to gargle some mouthwash!!! :lol:

 

[Rock Strongo]

I'm pretty ashamed of Söderling, as a swede.. he just doesn't have the pronouncation and the interest i guess.

However, he is good if looking at a broader perspective.
I mean, look at Nadal and Ferrer, they are horrible. Both are worthless.

Roger does, german, french and english.. gotta be the best.

Söderling's pronunciation isn't all that bad. You can easily make out what he's saying and his vocabulary is good too. However, he does have that heavy Swedish accent, a bit Borg-ish. If we go with past English-speaking Swedish pro's he does fail compared to Edberg, Pernfors, Wilander and Björkman. I haven't heard the others, so I can't say anything about them.

By the way, here's Pernfors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ9mm0R8rHk

 

[President]

I'm pretty ashamed of Söderling, as a swede.. he just doesn't have the pronouncation and the interest i guess.

However, he is good if looking at a broader perspective.
I mean, look at Nadal and Ferrer, they are horrible. Both are worthless.

Roger does, german, french and english.. gotta be the best.

Really? Soderling's vocabulary isn't that broad, its true. But his pronunciation is excellent, and his accent is much less "heavy" to American ears than even a guy like Djokovic.

 

[dominikk1985]

Maybe the governments should stop artificially creating high wages for jobs that don't require much skill.

Most people here are asserting that English is a simple language, whereas I deviate from this way of thinking. Most people who 'speak' English have a grasp of 100 or so words and are pretty unsophisticated. Just because you can get by in English doesn't mean you can 'speak' the language. English is a very complex language that is difficult to learn at a scholarly level.

A true test may be if you can read and understand everything here: http://mises.org/books/sol.pdf
then perhaps you speak English. I think 95% of players on tour would fail to understand what the author is depicting.

here is the true test:
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=377125

 

[dominikk1985]

I totally agree!!!
I'm German, and I've learned English as a foreign language. (some Latin and Spanish as well)

For beginners English is pretty easy. You just need a handful of rules to form a sentence, you don't have to worry about declination and such.
One thing I find difficult is tenses – you guys have 17 different tenses and a ton of rules when to use them:
Simple Present, Present Progressive , Simple Past , Past Progressive , Present Perfect Simple , Present Perfect Progressive , Past Perfect Simple , Past Perfect Progressive , Future I Simple (will), Future I Simple (going to), Future I Progressive , Future II Simple, Future II Progressive , Conditional I Simple , Conditional I Progressive , Conditional II Simple , Conditional II Progressive
...holy crap, give me a break:shock:

German grammar is a lot more difficult, however, it also offers more flexibility. Once you know the rules and have acquired a decent lexicon, you're able to say anything. You can just create new words that everyone who knows the language will understand. By rearranging the words you can slightly alter the meaning of the sentence. Also, there are things like the diminutive: You can give a word a certain ending making it sound little and cute. In English, you usually need a new word for that.
There are a lot more words in the English language, so at some point improving your language skills comes down to learning more and more words and knowing how exactly to use them. I can grab a German dictionary and I will know pretty much every word in there (except for some fancy old expressions that nobody uses anyway). From what I've heard, this is not true for English native speakers.

I'd also agree that the English pronunciation is harder, but I can't tell for sure. To me, it seems to be very irregular. Form example in German, there is a rule saying “sch” is pronounced different than what these letters are pronounced if the stand by themselves - but this is almost always true. I English, the same spelling is pronounced different for different words
For example:
Kansas is [ˈkænzəs]
Arkansas is [ˈɑɹkənsɔː]

Could anyone explain me how the 'Ar' totally changes the way 'kansas' is pronounced?:?

However, in German I find it harder to get the spelling right from simply hearing the word. You could write a word in different ways and it would be pronounced pretty much the same – therefore going the other way around is trickier.


I agree, but since this is my native tongue I might be the wrong person to ask.

While this might be a good thing at some point, it think it often gets in the way of speaking proper English if you're German. You try to pronounce every single letter accurately and it ends up sounding extremely stupid. I actually think a German accent is by far the worst of all. While French etc. people also struggle with pronunciation their accents adds something distinct to the language that I sometimes find appealing or at least tolerable. A German accent sound like trying to get it right, but failing miserably. That’s why I tried so hard to get rid of mine.
I don't know if you guys feel that way too, though. Do you have any preferences when it comes to accents?



It's Donnerstag not Duurstag

That is not true. german has 5 times more vocabularies than german. In english words are usually composed of several words.

german is known for its long words while english is composed of more short words.

for example general post office is called Hauptpostamt.

the real annoying thing about german is all the double consonants and all the capital letters.

 

[mnm]

Söderling's pronunciation isn't all that bad. You can easily make out what he's saying and his vocabulary is good too. However, he does have that heavy Swedish accent, a bit Borg-ish. If we go with past English-speaking Swedish pro's he does fail compared to Edberg, Pernfors, Wilander and Björkman. I haven't heard the others, so I can't say anything about them.

By the way, here's Pernfors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ9mm0R8rHk

Well, that's whats eating me really, if you have a pretty descent vocabulary you could easily try to apply some accent. I've worked abroad a lot and when i started speaking with an american accent i found out that i got a lot more credit for my english. It just sounds more ambitious and better.

And if you as me, are swedish, you probably are annoyed with that swede-english accent, which is just not an effort in any way. It's just there.

 

[mnm]

Really? Soderling's vocabulary isn't that broad, its true. But his pronunciation is excellent, and his accent is much less "heavy" to American ears than even a guy like Djokovic.

My problem is as stated above the rhythm and accent. Whenever you try to speak a different language you should try to do it with the rhytm that comes with it.

Maybe its me who has this obsession of wanting to be confused as a native.
Happened once in a bar in NYC, you have a funny accent, are you from Florida?

Made my day.

 

[Rock Strongo]

Well, that's whats eating me really, if you have a pretty descent vocabulary you could easily try to apply some accent. I've worked abroad a lot and when i started speaking with an american accent i found out that i got a lot more credit for my english. It just sounds more ambitious and better.

And if you as me, are swedish, you probably are annoyed with that swede-english accent, which is just not an effort in any way. It's just there.

You can tell that he's at least trying to sound more "international" and besides, many people from abroad find it rather charming with that Swedish accent. As someone who speaks a very fluent American English with a rather Californian accent I'm not annoyed by the Swedish-English accent at all. It makes us a bit more unique and other people can hear that we're trying our very best to communicate with them without overdoing it.

 

[Netzroller]

That is not true. german has 5 times more vocabularies than german. In english words are usually composed of several words.

german is known for its long words while english is composed of more short words.

for example general post office is called Hauptpostamt.

the real annoying thing about german is all the double consonants and all the capital letters.

No wonder you don't like the capital letters in German, you don't even get them right in English...
hehe, just teasing you:twisted:


Given you wanted to disagree with me, you obviously intended to say English instead of German (bold) otherwise that sentence doesn't make sense. (Or maybe you dind't read my text correctly and actually wanted to say the same thing - in which case ignore what comes next)

However, you are plain wrong. What you say is not even consistent.

You say German is known for it's long words (which is true) but then claim English words are composed of several words. Actually this is true for German, not for English – that is the reason why German words are so long. You actually gave an example for that yourself: General post office (3 words) vs. Haupt-post-amt (1 long word composed of three words).

btw. I think I have never heard anyone using that expression – sounds like something from an old school book for people who want to learn German. I assume you don't really speak the language, do you?

Secondly, the question about how many words a language cannot be answered correctly, this has practical and systematic reasons. Vocabulary comparisons are therefore just rough estimates.
However, nobody believes German has more words than English, in fact it is widely accepted that English may have the most words of any language.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/06/10/million.words/index.html#cnnSTCOther1
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/94

The former saying: English ~1Mio vs. German ~185000

 

[0d1n]

With regards to the "OP", I think Federer and Djokovic are good examples of "best" English and Ferrer, Nadal, Davydenko are examples of "worst". Haas speaks very well also...but he has lived in the US a lot so that makes sense.
With regards to the thread...fascinating discussion, I actually enjoyed reading a thread in "General Pro Player Discussion" for a change. This doesn't happen to me very often in this subforum that's full of illiterate fanboys and stupid trolls who don't know tennis but act like they do.
I can give you some more "Latin" perspective on this language subject (in addition to the other Spanish, Portuguese, French or Italian posters).
I find basic, conversational English pretty easy to learn, it's much easier IMO to be able to communicate basic stuff (like properly ordering some food in a restaurant) than in other languages (French and German being obvious examples). I can't really comment on how difficult it is to master English (or any other language other than Romanian) or getting to "scholarly levels", as I'm probably not at that level in any foreign language.
I admit that we all may be "tricked" into thinking that English is easier due to its "presence" all around us (American movies...etc)...which means we are exposed to it more often and hence we are more comfortable with it and it seems "easier to learn".
However...my "gut feeling" is that it's easier than French and German, not to talk about Russian or some Asian languages.
I can't really comment on the difficulty of Italian/Spanish for a foreigner because those are so close to Romanian that I find them pretty easy to at least understand if not speak with very little practice. I actually started learning Italian as a teenager simply by watching TV (Italia Uno, Canale 5, RAI x, etc). After that I've read a few books...etc...and with very little concentrated effort I'm able to read/speak it quite well, and even write it decently although I hardly get any "practice" with it (still...I write it more "phonetically" than it is meant to be written due to the fact that Romanian is written that way). I'm pretty sure I could do the same with Spanish, but just had much less exposure to that language as I was growing up. I still understand many words/sentences spoken in that language though...but I wouldn't be able to speak or write it properly.
Even though French is a "Latin" language as well, just like Romanian...I wouldn't have been able to learn it just from watching French TV Channels and knowing Romanian. There are too many differences to my native language, and I also find French more "complicated" regardless of those dissimilarities. Fortunately French is still widely present in our schools and it was the first language I actually "studied". Forgot a LOT of it since highschool/university though...because I hardly ever use it any more... :|.

 

[Dilettante]

0d1n:

I also used to read some Italian newspapers without any kind of previous learning and I could understand the major part of the text. Being from Valencia and knowing words from the Valencian/Catalan area helped to understand more Italian too. I guess it might be a result of the Spanish eastern coast's historic trade with Italy.

And the spoken Italian, I can understand TV news to some degree, enough to know what are they talking about and follow the news.

But I can't understand anything from Romanian news, although some words sound familiar here and there. Written Romanian is not as easy as Italian for me either, I can only understand words and maybe some sentences, but the major part of a Romanian text is beyond me.

 

[0d1n]

0d1n:

I also used to read some Italian newspapers without any kind of previous learning and I could understand the major part of the text. Being from Valencia and knowing words from the Valencian/Catalan area helped to understand more Italian too. I guess it might be a result of the Spanish eastern coast's historic trade with Italy.

And the spoken Italian, I can understand TV news to some degree, enough to know what are they talking about and follow the news.

But I can't understand anything from Romanian news, although some words sound familiar here and there. Written Romanian is not as easy as Italian for me either, I can only understand words and maybe some sentences, but the major part of a Romanian text is beyond me.

Hmmm...heard some Italians I had contact with saying the same thing. Somehow Romanians seem quicker to pick up Italian than vice-versa.
Still for those Italians that I know...it has been a necessity to "get used to it" somewhat...and after they "get it" it's a bit of an a-ha ! moment and everything seems to get easier after that. Not sure about the detail of "what goes on under the hood" of that process...but that's what I noticed. I think it has a lot to do with the "rhytm/tempo" of the spoken language, but I can't really put my finger on it.
Regardless...while in the north of Italy speaking Romanian on a bus some years ago...natives actually thought we were from "the south" rather than from a different country. They could hear similarities but couldn't properly understand exactly what was being said...and they thought we were speaking some southern Italian dialect. I thought that was pretty funny.

 

[boris becker 1]

federers mother is south african he probably used english as a kid.


some of the worse ones are chela, nalbandian, almagro.

 

[boris becker 1]

haas speaks very well. but of course he was at bolletieri acedemy as a kid.

the other germans mostly speak english very well because tennis was an upper class sport in germany.


boris becker I don't know I think his english is kinda bad, but I don't remember.

generally north and western european countries (germany, holland,scandinavia, switzerland...) speak very well english because it is pushed in the schools from early age.

the south europe countries (spain, portugal, france, italy) usually speak not so well english. I think they often don't even learn it in school.

beckers english is fine. he lives in london. his dutch wife doesnt speak german. his kids who live in miami dont speak german too well either

 

[boris becker 1]

took me ages to learn to speak catalan correctly and at times i still use a castillan word by mistake