Unlikely speakers of a language

Ubbquittious · 31-03-2018 12:08AM #1

Ever meet someone who you never expected to speak another language?

Back in the tiger times I was sitting in a pub in South Korea beside this English lad who as far as I could tell was as English as any other English lad I've ever met in England. I had assumed him to be the stereotypical bored expat who was begrudgingly sent over to "this sh1thole" for work. Until he started talking away to the girlie behind the bar in fluent Korean. Told me then his wife was Korean and that it rubs off

Some lad I know told me about a time he was on the bus in the Outer Hebrides and this youngfella covered with tattoos gets on, sits beside some ouldwan and starts chatting away As Gaeilge. I suppose this lad wouldn't be too unusual around those parts but here we're fairly accustomed to lads not being too fond of the Gaeilge especially if they're rebellious enough to get a load of tattoos.

jacksie66 · 31-03-2018 12:10AM

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Livefornow · 31-03-2018 12:45AM

Turkish family moved next door to us in London in the 80s. Spoke english with an accent so english was not his first language. Talking to him one day over the fence, when he realised we were Irish he spoke in fluent Irish to me.
Said he picked it up from lads from the West on the sites in London. Had never set one foot in Ireland and there I was, a product of 13 years of the Irish education system struggling to keep up with him and in many cases asking for the english word

MarkY91 · 31-03-2018 12:47AM

Met 2 Irish brothers in Bangkok who could speak Thai.

Also been told by Filipino friends of white people who could speak Tagalog and also the odd taxi driver being fluent in Tagalog too.

Arghus · 31-03-2018 01:00AM

After a big rake of pints my ability to string a coherent sentence of English together could be considered most unlikely, but I have risen to the challenge here and there and against all odds.

AllForIt · 31-03-2018 01:19AM

I'm currently doing a one year business course that is 50% business and 50% Spanish. It's the first time I ever studied a language formally outside of secondary school. We do 8 hours per week of Spanish so it's very intensive. I'm totally socked at myself at my time in life (almost middle aged) that I can now understand at a basic level a second language. I was told Spanish is easy to learn - well maybe it is in comparison to say Mandarin but its still difficult. Anyway I nominate myself as the most unlikely speaker of a second language. I'm hoping to move to Spain and use my English as an asset in work and become fluent in Spanish while I'm there.

DEFTLEFTHAND · 31-03-2018 05:29AM

Christy Kinahan Snr apparently speaks Arabic, Dutch, French, Italian.

Not bad for a big knacker from the Oliver Bond flats.

Guy should have tried his hand at legit business.

31-03-2018 05:54AM

Emmanuel Eboue is apparently fluent in Korean.

spurious · 31-03-2018 06:22AM

I met a Polish teacher in Warsaw who spoke Irish at easily Honours LC level. She had divorced her husband, wanted something to occupy her time, so learned Irish from a 'Teach yourself Irish' book and listening to R na G online. She had been to the Gaeltacht and all.

This is written by her:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/2.663/gaeilgeoir-polannach-ar-chúrsa-teanga-sa-ghaeltacht-1.913942?mode=amp

31-03-2018 10:22AM

I was sitting in a pub in Daingean Uí Chúis years ago and got talking to this guy who had the most gorgeous Irish. When I put a question to a friend from Ard na Caithne about him she told me he was an American who was a bit of a 'fear ardéirime" who came to Corca Dhuibhne in the 1980s when he was a student in Cornell University and never went home.

Is é seo an fear atá i gceist.

Capt'n Midnight · 31-03-2018 02:45PM

Roger Whittaker , the whistler, grew up in Kenya.

So when he was stopped in London for a traffic offence he started speaking in Bantu because, what are the chances of a policeman understanding it ? :pac:

Turned out Mr police officer could also speak it

StupidLikeAFox · 31-03-2018 02:51PM

Got talking to a dude outside a pub who had full on Boston accent - sounded like a full on wise guy out of Goodfellas. Turns out he was German, never set foot in the US and learned to speak English by watching gangster movies. Strange character.

entropi · 31-03-2018 03:06PM

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Christy Kinahan Snr apparently speaks Arabic, Dutch, French, Italian.

Not bad for a big knacker from the Oliver Bond flats.

Guy should have tried his hand at legit business.

He's from Tallaght.

Ficheall · 31-03-2018 03:45PM

One of my lecturers of maths trí Ghaeilge in uni was from Greece. He'd moved over years before without any English, under the mistaken impression that Irish was the main language here, and then had to learn English while he was here.

OldMrBrennan83 · 31-03-2018 03:51PM

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andekwarhola · 31-03-2018 05:06PM

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Christy Kinahan Snr apparently speaks Arabic, Dutch, French, Italian

To be fair, not all of us get six spare years (in the slammer) to brush up on our language skills.

Canard · 31-03-2018 05:22PM

AllForIt wrote: »

I'm currently doing a one year business course that is 50% business and 50% Spanish. It's the first time I ever studied a language formally outside of secondary school. We do 8 hours per week of Spanish so it's very intensive. I'm totally socked at myself at my time in life (almost middle aged) that I can now understand at a basic level a second language. I was told Spanish is easy to learn - well maybe it is in comparison to say Mandarin but its still difficult. Anyway I nominate myself as the most unlikely speaker of a second language. I'm hoping to move to Spain and use my English as an asset in work and become fluent in Spanish while I'm there.

Congratulations on that

It's very true; Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn, but that doesn't mean that learning a language at all is easy, so credit's due where it's due. Once you get the bases of one down the rest become easier, like climbing stairs!

As for the thread topic, I have two funny ones. My French ex was helping me with my French because I had an oral exam coming up so we went to his, some guy outside spoke French to him and I didn't know who it was but was a bit shy at the time to speak French in front of someone I didn't know so when we went upstairs I was a bit quiet about it, then the guy asked if we minded "if I watch the shnooker lads", I realised I must've mistaken this clearly Irish guy for someone else, and starting chatting away in French. Only for him to turn around and ask me in perfect French (he was Irish/French) whether I studied French! :eek: Seriously nothing weirder than seeing someone with such a standard, elegant French accent and such an insanely thick Irish accent.

Similarly, last year on Paddy's Day in Paris I went to the toilets in the pub we were in when someone told me there was a queue (so many people that I'd assumed they were just chilling there). I joked about Irish people having priority and a red-haired girl told me "I'm Irish too, but we all have to make the queue". I told her she couldn't be Irish because we don't say that in English, then I got chatting to her and basically she was indeed half-Irish and had lived in Ennis for some time, but had the most bizarre French-Irish accent I've ever heard... like using French false friends but with a huge Irish accent. I find it really interesting how all that works in the brain, but I wouldn't wanna sound so strange. :pac:

arctictree · 31-03-2018 05:28PM

Ubbquittious wrote: »

...Until he started talking away to the girlie behind the bar in fluent Korean.

To be fair, unless you are fluent yourself, you would have no idea how fluent the guy was. Could be just rattling off a few phrases.

Reminds me of a relative who used to tell everyone that her son had fluent German. I can speak it myself and when I heard him speak, it was extremely broken.

ignorance is strength · 31-03-2018 05:31PM

David Norris speaks Irish.

Shenshen · 31-03-2018 06:29PM

I was living in Montreal for a while, doing an internship at the Goethe Institute there, and met a great many highly unlikely people speaking perfect German.
My landlady there was from Norway, but spoke German fluent enough not only to teach it, but to consistently beat me at Scrabble. Her French was flawless as well.
But the most interesting would have been a young lady from St Lucia who had migrated to Canada just the year before. She had learned German in order to be able to read E.T.A. Hoffmann's work in the original and was delighted when she found out that I was from the town he spent most of his productive years in... and there was me never having read a single book by him!

maudgonner · 31-03-2018 07:18PM

Yu Ming!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqYtG9BNhfM

OK, he may not be real. I do know an Australian girl who speaks fluent Irish though.

WoollyRedHat · 31-03-2018 07:47PM

Harry Potter speaking parseltongue.

Jimbob1977 · 31-03-2018 08:04PM

If I recall correctly, David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party and a Loyalist paramilitary was a Gaeilgeoir.

31-03-2018 09:11PM

Meet a teenager in Kerry, what most here would describe as a Scobie i.e tats tracksuit etc speaking fluent Irish. It is just not the association we have of Irish speakers.

andekwarhola · 31-03-2018 09:20PM

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

If I recall correctly, David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party and a Loyalist paramilitary was a Gaeilgeoir.

Read before a lot of them tried to learn it to eavesdrop on republicans in prison

ziggy · 31-03-2018 09:20PM

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whisky_galore · 31-03-2018 09:23PM

Irish people speaking Irish.

31-03-2018 10:38PM

Canard wrote: »

Congratulations on that It's very true; Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn, but that doesn't mean that learning a language at all is easy, so credit's due where it's due. Once you get the bases of one down the rest become easier, like climbing stairs!

Strange... I've started and restarted Spanish about a dozen times, and I just can't get my head around it enough to have decent conversations. And yet, Chinese (and the Shaanxi Dialect) I found reasonably comfortable to learn. (Still nowhere close to being fluent but getting there)

Duffy the Vampire Slayer · 31-03-2018 10:41PM

Colin Powell learned Yiddish as a teenager because he worked in a Jewish-owned shop.

Wibbs · 31-03-2018 10:47PM

An ex of mine from many moons ago who spoke latin. I don't mean in the usual stiff strangulated British public school, or Catholic Church religious way, it sounded like the normal language it was(and kinda sexy TBH). Now in fairness she was Italian and from Rome, but still. She could also read ancient Greek. And spoke passible French, good Spanish and extremely good English.

Yer Da sells Avon · 31-03-2018 10:51PM

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

Colin Powell learned Yiddish as a teenager because he worked in a Jewish-owned shop.

Pity he didn't learn how to pronounce his own name.

Unlikely speakers of a language

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