why is nadal's english so poor?

AAAA said:
The person should also have said

The english speaking tourists who go to places like Mallorca and Gran Caneria do so mainly to lie on the beach tanning themselves, drink beer and have a good time socialising with other tourists in tourist areas which are usually a distance from the natives. The natives just go about living their lives separate from the tourists in most cases.
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thanks for saving me the time to write this :)
 
rafan said:
With so many different dialects and variations on the english language how can it qualify to be the ultimate language spoken? If english is considered the ultimate language, then it has to be understood by everyone
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huh? nobody is talking about the overall universal language. however nobody is going to argue that that english is the universal language of tennis.
 
rafan said:
Why therefore do the FO umpires give all the scores in French?
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that is the only tournament in the world where the score is not announced in english (along with the score in the local language). in this case, "universal" doesn't necessarily means EVERY spoken word is in english, but the most common language among the players/media is english.
 
This thread is pretty lame. How many American or british players speak a foreign language? Courier is the only one I know. I have yet to find a thread criticizing Pete Sampras spanish, or what about Roddick he's sponsored by French companies, how is his french? Agassi is married to Steffi, how well does he speak german? Murray trained in spain as a young teen, compare his spanish with the safin siblings who did the same.
 
AAAA said:
The person should also have said

The english speaking tourists who go to places like Mallorca and Gran Caneria do so mainly to lie on the beach tanning themselves, drink beer and have a good time socialising with other tourists in tourist areas which are usually a distance from the natives. The natives just go about living their lives separate from the tourists in most cases.
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There are english people who go and live/retire in Spain and cannot be bothered to learn the language. Some of the english they could pass on to the navtives (like Nadal) would not exactly pass any exams. Thanks for your post
 
ESP#1 said:
This thread is pretty lame. How many American or british players speak a foreign language? Courier is the only one I know. I have yet to find a thread criticizing Pete Sampras spanish, or what about Roddick he's sponsored by French companies, how is his french? Agassi is married to Steffi, how well does he speak german? Murray trained in spain as a young teen, compare his spanish with the safin siblings who did the same.
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yet again, french and spanish are not the "universal" languages of tennis. if they were then the same question should be asked about them. a portion of every press conference is in english, most all charities and media/sponsor commitments are conducted in english, etc etc.
 
rafan said:
With so many different dialects and variations on the english language how can it qualify to be the ultimate language spoken? If english is considered the ultimate language, then it has to be understood by everyone
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Where and when did I say that English is the ultimate language? I said that English is the universal language, you may asked why?

1. It is widely used to do business and I think it's the only language being used when companies (from different countries) decide to do business.
2. Travelers (English speaking or non-english speaking nation) speaks english when communicating with the locals.

Some of the things that I can think off on top of my head.

EDIT:

Even these boards used English as way of communication.
 
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rod99 said:
if you look at the top 30+ players in the world, i'd say nadal's english is the worst, except for maybe davydenko. for someone at the top of the game who has been traveling the world for years, i'm wondering why that is the case. all of the other spanish players speak very good english. maybe it's b/c he grew up in mallorca and wasn't exposed to the big city lifestyle of barcelona or madrid. however, i'm very surprised that he doesn't speak better english by now.

and btw, i'm by no means a nadal hater, i've just always been curious about this. i think if he spoke better english, he would gain a lot more fans, as they'd be able to relate to him and better understand his thoughts.
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I'm a huge Nadal suppoter and i've always wondered the same thing.The guy turned pro in 2001 but 8 years later his english is still poor.Maybe because he only uses English for anything but press conferences.
 
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rafan said:
There are english people who go and live/retire in Spain and cannot be bothered to learn the language. Some of the english they could pass on to the navtives (like Nadal) would not exactly pass any exams. Thanks for your post
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Some make the effort and become very fluent, and yeah others don't bother at all.
 
AAAA said:
The person should also have said

The english speaking tourists who go to places like Mallorca and Gran Caneria do so mainly to lie on the beach tanning themselves, drink beer and have a good time socialising with other tourists in tourist areas which are usually a distance from the natives. The natives just go about living their lives separate from the tourists in most cases.
Click to expand...

Come on there. 90% of those natives make their money out of tourism over there, and speak at least a little bit of English to facilitate the cash flow.
 
For someone who travels all over the world it would be beneficiary to improve his english .Sometimes going to school can pay off.In my case it took me 4 years to learn german,english fluently and some french.Btw i`m romanian.
 
The WTA had English proficiency as a requirement during the 90s. Don't know if they changed that since then.

IIRC, the LPGA is now requiring it, too.
 
I think his English is fine. I learnt French for 7 years, spanish for 4, and I'm terrible at both. How long has he been learning English?
Furthermore, we had to learn Welsh from the start of primary school (3/4 years old) until we are 16. I'd say 90% of us can't string a sentence in the language together.

So after saying all this, I think its fair to say that I'm not that good at languages. Maybe Rafas the same?
 
rod99 said:
yet again, french and spanish are not the "universal" languages of tennis. if they were then the same question should be asked about them. a portion of every press conference is in english, most all charities and media/sponsor commitments are conducted in english, etc etc.
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Maybe he isnt concerned with what the universal language is,

my point is this, how can you criticize when you cant speak a foriegn language yourself? Pretty audacious don't you think?

I've lived in this country for 15 years and I am yet to find an american who speaks spanish as well as nadal speaks english.
 
Why does the world revolve around the sun?

Why can't humans fly like birds?

How can we go back in time?

Soo many questions left unanswered...
 
ESP#1 said:
Maybe he isnt concerned with what the universal language is,

my point is this, how can you criticize when you cant speak a foriegn language yourself? Pretty audacious don't you think?

I've lived in this country for 15 years and I am yet to find an american who speaks spanish as well as nadal speaks english.
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again, you're comparing apples to oranges. if i'm the top tennis player in the world and the universal language of tennis is spanish then i'm sure as heck going to try my best to become fluent in it.

in the US, it's nowhere near as necessary to learn a foreign language b/c it's not as necessary due to geography.
 
theduh said:
Agree 100%. What about interviews outside tennis? Like ATP events, charities, etc. would you think that having a good command of the english language will help promote the game even more?
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Firstly, Rafa has millions of fans and the base covers probably every nationality on this planet. Roger was here first so naturally he already had a huge fan base. Speaking better English would what? Get Rafa more fans in America, UK, Australia? I hardly feel that's a priority for any tennis player.

Secondly, speak better English to be "an ambassador" I disagree. In the end, actions speak louder than words, especially in today's world of media mass manipulation. Fed's crying and racquet smash are far more of a subliminal advertising than anything he's ever said. Just as Rafa's vamos and fist pump are.

Charities & Events. Rafa did a charity event in our country with wheelchair players. He's been in hospitals, plays with kids, has his foundation in Spain what other charity event should he do with his lack of time and already overloaded schedule? If he gave up tennis and wanted to participate in these outside of Spain then sure, he would probably take the time to gain better command of English.

ATP Events? Like the Dubai opening party or a council conference call? The latter isn't a promotion. The former is a social chit chat where one doesn't need command of a language. As for general promotion there are also 9 other top ten players.

Sampras and Federer dominated the game for ages, an American and a Swiss (who needs to speak extra languages due to country size) so maybe we're used to having someone "English" promote the game. If we go back to Borg and Lendl, did they speak a lot of English, were they heavily involved in the publicity of it all?

I don't see tennis as an English game at all. If it were only English players then yes. That many tennis millionaires have houses in the States where it's warmer than their home country, it's obvious they would be exposed to the language daily & thus gain better command. Nadal has a warm country he won't do that, although I heard something about the Caribbean on this board.

So what about speaking better English for ATP events to promote the game? Personally, I think Rafa has done so much for the publicity of tennis in the last few years he doesn't need to do more. Look at the lovely condolence speech he gave to Roger when he won the AO. On the spot, no preparation and it was very heartfelt sympathy to his greatest rival.

People who improve their English do so, because they need to. If you can get by just fine for what you need, and there are other important goals to reach, then improving language skills would not be a priority. I would love to add Spanish to my language skills, but I don't, because I don't need it. I can get by being bilingual in 2, and moderate in one other.
 
rod99 said:
again, you're comparing apples to oranges. if i'm the top tennis player in the world and the universal language of tennis is spanish then i'm sure as heck going to try my best to become fluent in it.

in the US, it's nowhere near as necessary to learn a foreign language b/c it's not as necessary due to geography.
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How necessary is it for Nadal to speak better english? Is he going to lose his ranking points?
 
ESP#1 said:
How necessary is it for Nadal to speak better english? Is he going to lose his ranking points?
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it's not all about the tennis. when you're #1, it's a responsibility to promote the game. being able to fluently speak the most common language of the tour certainly helps to do that.
 
rod99 said:
again, you're comparing apples to oranges. if i'm the top tennis player in the world and the universal language of tennis is spanish then i'm sure as heck going to try my best to become fluent in it.

in the US, it's nowhere near as necessary to learn a foreign language b/c it's not as necessary due to geography.
Click to expand...

why don't you wait until you become no. 1 in the world and find yourself having to choose between have a professional tennis life, a personal life and see whether becoming fluent in another language is that important.

Your geography explanation is very much the same as Nadals. He is Spanish, doesn't listen to English music, he listens to Spanish music, he talks to his family, friends and girlfriend in Spanish, his tennis team are tennis and on a tennis court he doesn't need to talk. He needs to play tennis. He's fluent enough for interviews. It's the reporters who need to change. I've heard them throwing idiomatic expressions and metaphors at Rafa, plus vocabulary which only a bilingual person would understand.
Plus the other day when Rafa wanted to say "recooperate" which is very similar in Spanish, the translator just gave him the word "recover" so even the translator didn't know the word recooperate! Hows that?
 
tahiti said:
Plus the other day when Rafa wanted to say "recooperate" which is very similar in Spanish, the translator just gave him the word "recover" so even the translator didn't know the word recooperate! Hows that?
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Kimiko Date used to correct her translator in press conferences all the time. :lol:
 
rod99 said:
it's not all about the tennis. when you're #1, it's a responsibility to promote the game. being able to fluently speak the most common language of the tour certainly helps to do that.
Click to expand...

so in your opinion, where is Nadal not promoting the game, or messing up the promotion with bad English? Tell us, what events would you like him to do and what must je talk about there? Because if he can manage a CNN news interview and BBC hardtalk, I'd say he's doing ok. He is fluent. He's not brilliant, but he doesn't need to be.
 
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tahiti said:
so in your opinion, where is Nadal not promoting the game, or messing up the promotion which bad English? Tell us, what events would you like him to do and what must talk about there? Because if he can manage a CNN news interview and BBC hardtalk, I'd say he's doing ok. He is fluent. He's not brilliant, but he doesn't need to be.
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i'm not saying he's not trying to promote the game but it's much easier when you're more fluent in the language. look at the top 30-50 players in the world. every one of them speak better english (maybe not davydenko) than nadal. yes, he does interviews but has a limited number of responses in his vocabulary. this makes it more difficult for someone to relate to him and understand what he is feeling.
 
I think you missed me saying this...

theduh said:
The way you speak doesn't get you more fans, its the way you play, this is still tennis. But yeah the rest I agree.
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tahiti said:
Firstly, Rafa has millions of fans and the base covers probably every nationality on this planet. Roger was here first so naturally he already had a huge fan base. Speaking better English would what? Get Rafa more fans in America, UK, Australia? I hardly feel that's a priority for any tennis player.

Secondly, speak better English to be "an ambassador" I disagree. In the end, actions speak louder than words, especially in today's world of media mass manipulation. Fed's crying and racquet smash are far more of a subliminal advertising than anything he's ever said. Just as Rafa's vamos and fist pump are.

Charities & Events. Rafa did a charity event in our country with wheelchair players. He's been in hospitals, plays with kids, has his foundation in Spain what other charity event should he do with his lack of time and already overloaded schedule? If he gave up tennis and wanted to participate in these outside of Spain then sure, he would probably take the time to gain better command of English.

ATP Events? Like the Dubai opening party or a council conference call? The latter isn't a promotion. The former is a social chit chat where one doesn't need command of a language. As for general promotion there are also 9 other top ten players.

Sampras and Federer dominated the game for ages, an American and a Swiss (who needs to speak extra languages due to country size) so maybe we're used to having someone "English" promote the game. If we go back to Borg and Lendl, did they speak a lot of English, were they heavily involved in the publicity of it all?

I don't see tennis as an English game at all. If it were only English players then yes. That many tennis millionaires have houses in the States where it's warmer than their home country, it's obvious they would be exposed to the language daily & thus gain better command. Nadal has a warm country he won't do that, although I heard something about the Caribbean on this board.

So what about speaking better English for ATP events to promote the game? Personally, I think Rafa has done so much for the publicity of tennis in the last few years he doesn't need to do more. Look at the lovely condolence speech he gave to Roger when he won the AO. On the spot, no preparation and it was very heartfelt sympathy to his greatest rival.

People who improve their English do so, because they need to. If you can get by just fine for what you need, and there are other important goals to reach, then improving language skills would not be a priority. I would love to add Spanish to my language skills, but I don't, because I don't need it. I can get by being bilingual in 2, and moderate in one other.
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Yes I agree that you can promote tennis inside the court but how can you promote tennis out of the tennis court? Is it through publicity, promotions, live appearances, etc? I know Rafa can hold his own during award ceremony (perfect example stated above) but during press conference and ambush interviews he tends to say the same thing over and over some times even without variations which tends to put me off and interpret the interview as again dull and very automatic.

I still think that Nadal needs to improve his english skills. His interviews using his native tongue is very insightful but his english interviews are a bit boring if you'd ask me.
 
because when he's not talking about forehand and backhands he's in Mallorca golfing or fishing. Though I did read recently somewhere, don't remember where that he now has and English tutor.

But he really doesn't have many English speaking friends, if any. The only times he has to talk in English is during tournaments about tennis so full English is unlikely to progress that way isn't it?
 
rod99 said:
i'm not saying he's not trying to promote the game but it's much easier when you're more fluent in the language. look at the top 30-50 players in the world. every one of them speak better english (maybe not davydenko) than nadal. yes, he does interviews but has a limited number of responses in his vocabulary. this makes it more difficult for someone to relate to him and understand what he is feeling.
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Perhaps that's true. Maybe he's a private person and doesn't want people to know what he's feeling. I can't say the other players speak better than him because I've never noticed it. If you feel so strongly about it you should set up a manual of responses and send it to him via his site. I'm sure he'd appreciate it :) If he responds saying yes, he'd like to improve his English skills, recommend me ok? :)
 
rod99 said:
i think if he spoke better english, he would gain a lot more fans, as they'd be able to relate to him and better understand his thoughts.
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yeah, and if Roddick spoke better spanish, he would have more fans in Mexico & Spain than he has in the US :)
 
tahiti said:
why don't you wait until you become no. 1 in the world and find yourself having to choose between have a professional tennis life, a personal life and see whether becoming fluent in another language is that important.

Your geography explanation is very much the same as Nadals. He is Spanish, doesn't listen to English music, he listens to Spanish music, he talks to his family, friends and girlfriend in Spanish, his tennis team are tennis and on a tennis court he doesn't need to talk. He needs to play tennis. He's fluent enough for interviews. It's the reporters who need to change. I've heard them throwing idiomatic expressions and metaphors at Rafa, plus vocabulary which only a bilingual person would understand.
Plus the other day when Rafa wanted to say "recooperate" which is very similar in Spanish, the translator just gave him the word "recover" so even the translator didn't know the word recooperate! Hows that?
Click to expand...

Its not the reporters responsibility to change. It's Nadal's responsibility to adapt as world #1. He's in the spotlight more than ever so learning to speak the language is important but not as important as tennis.
 
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rod99 said:
it's not all about the tennis. when you're #1, it's a responsibility to promote the game. being able to fluently speak the most common language of the tour certainly helps to do that.
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Maybe all pros should learn mandarin, considering it is the fastest growing market for tennis, and all other sports also
 
tennisdad65 said:
yeah, and if Roddick spoke better spanish, he would have more fans in Mexico & Spain than he has in the US :)
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Roddick speaking Spanish :) haha that'll be the day.
Or the BBC speaking some Russian for the WTA. Haha, they wouldn't be able to say "thank you" in Russian!
 
well lets see umm it is not his native language..why hold him fault? He actually can speak it and learned it.
 
tennisdad65 said:
yeah, and if Roddick spoke better spanish, he would have more fans in Mexico & Spain than he has in the US :)
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i feel like a broken record. for example, say a dutch fan was watching a press conference. the foreign player being interviewed doesn't speak dutch but does speak english. b/c english is the 2nd language in the netherlands, the fan is able to understand the player. the same doesn't work in spanish. many fewer fans (in a non spanish or english speaking country) speak spanish compared to english so it would make sense that english is the language that would be most helpful for a foreign player to learn.
 
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