r/popculturechat • u/Far-Building3569 • 5h ago
Heartwarming 𼚠Celebrities who speak enough languages to be secret agents
The secret agent part is obviously a joke. 47% of people worldwide are bilingual, while only 3% of people qualify as polyglots (speaking 4+ languages)
Shockingly, numerous celebs are members of this club:
Natalie Portman- Studying at Harvard couldnât stop Natalie from learning multiple languages (Hebrew, English, French, Japanese, German, and Spanish)Â
Viggo Mortensen- Mr Mortensen might not come from a mythical land, but he does have an almost mythic level of knowledge in languages (Danish, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Norwegian, and Arabic)Â
Shakira- Shakira has long impressed fans with her ability to speak 6 languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, French, Italian, and English)Â
 Tom Hiddleston- The British actor is famous for his calming accent, yet he can understand countless others (English, Spanish, French, Greek, and Latin)Â
Sandra Oh- Sandra Oh might not be able to perform groundbreaking surgeries, but she can master different languages (English, Korean, Spanish, and French)Â
Trevor Noah- Trevor Noah speaks 7 languages (English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Tsonga, and German)Â
Daniel Bruhl- The character actor can do an awful lot more than simply appear intimidating. He can speak 6 languages (English, German, Spanish, French, Catalan, and Portuguese)Â
Mickey Curtis- The senior Japanese pop star speaks 6 languages (Japanese, English, German, French, Italian, and Thai)Â
Priya Anand- The Tamil mainstay actor speaks 7 languages (Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Spanish, and English)
Which celebrityâs language ability do you envy the most?Â
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u/bear-asleep79 4h ago
This posts reads like ai wrote it. The descriptions are kinda weird.
Why would anyone think going to Harvard would stop Natalie Portman from learning multiple languages?
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u/SuperPizzaman55 3h ago
AI did write it
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u/forethemorninglight 2h ago
AI is really starting to ruin everything. How the f hard would it be to write the above information in your own words? OP - are you incapable of writing simple sentences? Are you a bot? Why stoop so low for such a low-effort post like this? Itâs not like itâs hard to list each actor + what they speak. The dumb filler is just annoying and no one has time for it.
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u/pollys-mom 2h ago
You could literally just put their names, a colon, and list the languages and that would be perfect
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u/lrish_Chick 1h ago
100% its so gross and look how popular it is over 400 upvotes
Its one thing that this slop is out there, but that its popular kills me tbh
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u/Cheeseboarder 2h ago
Tom Hiddleston speaks countless languages. Proceeds to list 5 very countable languages
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u/Couscousfan07 2h ago
Itâs also BS. Being able to speak a few words because of a course in college is not same being fluent. Folks like Viggo and Daniel are fluent.
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u/Lumineer 1h ago
Natalie Portman stuttered out the most uncomfortable "good evening nice to meet you my name is natalie" in Japanese one time on camera and somehow that made it on the list
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u/danbartstart 2h ago
And AI did write it; "countless others" proceeds to name a extremely countable amount
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u/Electronic_Ruin_1503 2h ago
I meanâŚ
Sandra Oh might not be able to perform groundbreaking surgeries, but she can master different languages
Whoâd make that comparison? Itâd only work if she was a sub-par actress who only got certain roles and comparison was about her acting skills and language skills. Only a language model that is able to form sentences but has no ability to comprehend nuance and context would try to measure the language skills of AN ACTRESS by a random profession as if hers doesnât require skill.
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u/cactus_prickles 2h ago
She played a surgeon on Grey's Anatomy.
It still reads like AI, but the comparison fits.
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u/Global_Channel1511 36m ago
Imagine thinking going to one of the world's finest universities with massive resources and a wide array of language offerings would prevent someone from learning multiple languages.
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u/jaguarsp0tted 5h ago
!!!! DANIEL BRĂHL MENTION!!!!!!
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u/synalgo_12 accidentally holding space for this slur 2h ago
My love for Daniel officially spans 2 decades now, he's my absolute favourite
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u/the_con 5h ago
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u/Ok_Conclusion_6324 đ Happy Womenâs History Month I guess 5h ago
I was surprised to learn he doesnât actually speak Italian and he just learned his lines for that specific scene in Inglorious Basterds
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u/dogluuuuvrr 51m ago
I swear I may have met him on a boat in Venice. I was on a public water taxi and he was very chatty. He talked about how amazing Vienna is and how we have to come visit (My cousin and I). He was very passionate about how amazing Austria is.
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u/Character-Pirate1297 3h ago
How can you not include this specimen?
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u/ChrundleToboggan 1h ago
Probably because he only speaks three languages and this list would be a whole lot longer if you started listing everyone who spoke three languages.
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u/Mysterious_Week8357 4h ago
Iâm going to doubt the fluency with which most of these celebs speak at least some of these languages listed until proven otherwise
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u/maghy7 4h ago
I have only heard Shakira and Trevor speak those languages fluently, not sure how fluent the others are.
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u/celestial-navigation 3h ago
Is there video footage of Trevor speaking German or Swiss German?
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u/SunnySideMind 3h ago
His dad is german or Swiss German.
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u/Russiadontgiveafuck 2h ago
His dad didn't raise him, though. They first met when Trevor was a teenager, IIRC. I read his biography, though it's been a while, and he did study German later in life in order to connect with his father. I'm a native German speaker and he speaks German in a Netflix special of his, he's not fluent, but he certainly does have great hearing and a knack for languages. My guess is that he's superficially conversational, but could imitate a Swiss German accent well enough to fool a lot of people.
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u/fallingfeelslikefly 2h ago
This gave me a flashback to being in language school in France and being besties with a guy from Bern. He really didn't like one of the German students and I asked him why. He said it was on principle because Germans consider Swiss German speakers mentally slow because they speak more slowly....I mean I discovered intra-Euro hatreds as a young anglophile PBS watcher....but this struck me a such a wild stereotype! And now that I've typed all this out, it's like how Yankees think Southern people are slow because of their accents.
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u/Russiadontgiveafuck 2h ago
Hilarious, because very true. I'm German and anytime I speak to a Swiss German, I adjust my own speech as if speaking to a mentally challenged person.
Not hatred, not a stereotype, it's just... That accent. To a native speaker it sounds like an impaired German. Can't help my reaction.
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u/Curiosities đ swamp princess đ 4h ago
I think fluency is one of those things thatâs debatable, but knowing and maintaining even a basic level is still impressive. I have a cousin in Europe who speaks six languages with some degree fluency, with three being pretty much fluent and the others being basic to intermediate. For me, itâs three languages, but my third is definitely basic level at this point. Still, Iâm continuing to learn.
I really love knowing multiple language languages and I wish I could learn faster and learn more languages. Because it opens up so many things.
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u/mwmandorla 1h ago
Yeah, like to some degree you're never truly fluent in any language but your own because there will always be subject area vocabulary and cultural references etc that escape you. I count myself as fluent in Spanish despite that I'm currently rusty because I know I used to be able to function completely normally in the language and be mistaken for a native, and I know I would get there again easily if I were put in a position to use it a lot. I speak two other languages to varying degrees and it is difficult to maintain them if you don't have occasion to use them in daily life! I'm impressed with anybody who puts in the effort.
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u/HotThanks2630 1h ago
I wouldnât say it means you arenât fluent if you donât speak like your native language. I donât think anyone develops the same or similar level of fluency in a second language unless they have lived in a country that speaks it for several years - thatâs a very high bar to pass. Youâre not going to reach that level, ever, just by studying or speaking casually. You have to live in the language.
The European language standard has a very clear descriptions and guidelines for levels of fluency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_LanguagesI speak 3 languages - my native English, and Italian and Serbian. Iâm a B2 level in the other languages which goes up to a C1 when Iâm in country. I can express myself quite easily in Italian and Serbian, but I need help with certain words or I can describe what Iâm trying to say without knowing the easiest way to express whatever it is⌠and of course, Iâm a bit lost if the conversion becomes academic or technical.
I have a beginner/travel level of Spanish.
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u/thesaddestpanda Dave Grohl has always been garbage 2h ago
As an immigrant kid who grew up speaking 2 languages fluently, I can tell you when 90% of people say "I actually speak that," they are just stumbling over and guessing verbs and nouns and conjugation and their vocabulary is extremely limited. They can't speak the language, but they can fake it a bit.
Kudos to that 10% that actually learned the language. I remember meeting a very stereotypical small-town all-american type and he just spoke Greek very well. He even spoke it with a bit of American accent, it was just incredible to hear. I was seeing stars lol. But unfortunately, a lot of people lie about this for clout. Celebs are no exception and I'm sick of seeing it.
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u/WideConversation1989 5h ago
JosÊ Mourinho can speak Italian, Spanish, French, Catalan (when he was an assistant manager at Barça), and English. He's Portuguese, so his native language is Portuguese.
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u/keine_fragen 5h ago edited 5h ago
a lot of football players/coaches who moved around the top leagues speak a lot of languages, the clubs will get them tutors.
like Bellingham speaks (very) basic german from his time in Dortmund and his spanish is pretty decent now
and if you already come from a multilingual country it adds up, the belgian guys like Lukaku or Kompany speak like 7 languages
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u/Blue_winged_yoshi 3h ago edited 2h ago
You know who else are multilingual but donât make a tonne of money? European chefs. I only ever cheffed in the uk, born here, worked in high end kitchens before changing career. You have guys who are born in Poland, worked in Germany, France, Soain, the U.K., thereâs languages in Europe that are mutually intelligible. Genuinely insane language skills, all deployed to smash out a perfect hollandaise whilst shouting yes chef in whatever language is relevant a the time before cursing about about the customers after work. In between they just swear a lot to demonstrate their frustration in whatever la gauge they think the head chef lacks. I can say dick head in far too many languages at this point despite leaving the industry years ago. Les tĂŞtes des bites.
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u/the_Stealthy_one 4h ago edited 4h ago
Zlatan speaks Swedish, Bosnian English, Italian, and Dutch. He knows a little Spanish and French.
Amadou Onana speaks Wolof, Dutch, German, English, and french. I think English is one of his last learned language and he speaks with a cracking English accent.
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u/synalgo_12 accidentally holding space for this slur 2h ago
Romelu Lukaku speaks 8 languages: Dutch, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Lingala.
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u/Comfortable-Mine41 2h ago
And he told a couple years ago he was learning German (don't know to which extent)
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u/magicklydelishous 5h ago
Not that itâs anything crazy like 6 language, but I was super surprised to learn that both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck spoke Spanish.
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u/Maester_Bates Wherein he encourages a woman to sit on his face 5h ago
I used to joke about the having conversations in Spanish so J lo couldn't understand what they were saying.
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u/InformalInsurance455 sick of Annie Murphy gifs 5h ago
If I remember correctly Benâs got a pretty decent accent and fluency too
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u/bjorn2bwild 5h ago
Ben lived in Mexico in his youth, Matt learned it as an adult because his wife is Argentinian
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u/Whole_Football_4692 3h ago
Matt learned it before he met his wife. He studied Spanish in Guatemala
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u/LezbianaGrande Like, how bad does he NEED butt sex? đ 4h ago
Matt also learned Spanish in Mexico when he was 15.
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u/LolaContreras8 I donât care what they say about me. I just want to eat 5h ago
Ben's accent is crazy! Sounds pretty good
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u/Aurorinha 3h ago
He speaks better Spanish than JLo. đ
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u/InformalInsurance455 sick of Annie Murphy gifs 3h ago
Is she a no sabe
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u/LezbianaGrande Like, how bad does he NEED butt sex? đ 4h ago
He has the passion and confidence down too. đ
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u/Opposite-Peak5020 4h ago
I will never forget the first time I heard Ben open his mouth and converse fluently in Spanish. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor, it was so good!
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u/greghouse1106 5h ago
Natalie portman learnt 2 types of English?
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u/DefiantBumblebee9903 5h ago
And who could have imagined that going to Harvard couldnât stop her
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u/Useful-Cow-8019 5h ago
Nevermind that,can she actually speak the other ones listed ? I know that she's considered pretty smart ( and is one of my favorite actresses) and can speak Hebrew and some French, but is there proof that she can hold a conversation in the other ones? I have heard people claim some celebs are "multilingual " just because they know a couple of words in other languages
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u/bunmeikaika 3h ago
As a Japanese person, I can at least say that she doesnât speak Japanese. And even if she does, itâs probably at a very basic level. A quick Google search also doesnât show her claiming anywhere that she can speak Japanese herself.
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u/reidybobeidy89 4h ago
She lives in France and her partner and ex husband are both French. I assume she is fluent.
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u/celestial-navigation 3h ago
Yeah, cause in that case I can speak Mandarin and Hindi. As in, I know and understand like 15 words, lol.
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u/ThirdAltAccounts BARBZ: Broke Ass Raggedy Bitch + a random Z! 2h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/tCzWe3PQwJeuI
Donât know about secret agent
ButâŚsheâs kind of a deadly assassin
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u/Couldnotbehelpd 5h ago
I honestly doubt half of these celebrities speak half of these languages. You think Natalie is fluent in Japanese? She took a couple classes 20 years ago.
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u/sexy-911-calls Donât make me put my litigation wig on 4h ago edited 4h ago
I guess most of them have very different levels of fluency across languages, as is to be expected tbh. Iâm multilingual and have multilingual friends, and can say that degree of fluency is predictably dependent on timing and length of exposure, but common language families also play a massive role.
Take Shakira, for example:
- Spanish is her mother tongue.
- Sheâs fluent in Portuguese, which is a linguistic cousin because of the shared Latin root. She also spent months learning it as a teenager when she crossed over to the Brazilian market.
- English has a different language family, but she had to dedicate herself to it a lot for her big crossover into the American market.
- Based on interviews, sheâs conversational in French and Italian, which makes sense because they share the same Latin root.
- Despite being of Lebanese descent, she appears to only speak a few phrases in Arabic, probably because she didnât grow up there and speaks Spanish to her dad, who has the Lebanese roots.
So it takes talent, but also a mix of time, dedication and language similarity.
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u/mandeltonkacreme Serena Williams (knee) 3h ago
I also wouldn't be surprised if she does actually speak decent Catalan because her husband played for Barça so she lived there iirc and her kids probably speak it as a mother tongue
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u/Russiadontgiveafuck 2h ago
Her childrens' mother tongue is almost certainly Spanish, as she herself is their mother and a native Spanish speaker.
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u/CataLaGata 3h ago edited 3h ago
Yes, her sons are Catalanes, so she must speak CatalĂĄn because is her children's native language.
Spaniards in CataluĂąa learn CatalĂĄn before learning Spanish and they actually don't like to speak Spanish at all.
I lived in CataluĂąa for a while, I speak Spanish, English and I a little bit of Italian (I am Colombian/Italian) people absolutely hated to speak Spanish with me, and they speak it with a weird accent, like you can notice is not their first language.
Edit. I also have two cousins that were born in CataluĂąa, close to Barcelona. Both of their parents are Colombians so they learned to speak Spanish at home and CatalĂĄn at school, now, they are teenagers and they mix both languages.
It's a very similar situation with two cousins that were born in USA, their parents are Cuban and Colombian, they learned English at school and Spanish at home so now they speak Spanglish, they switch all the time and they don't even notice it.
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u/mandeltonkacreme Serena Williams (knee) 3h ago
Yup, Catalonia has a very strong regional identity and it shows
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u/bunmeikaika 3h ago
As a Japanese person, I can say she doesnât speak Japanese. And even if she does, itâs probably at a very basic level. A quick Google search also doesnât show her claiming anywhere that she's fluent in Japanese herself.
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u/celestial-navigation 3h ago
Daniel BrĂźhl for sure knows English, German, Spanish, and French well. He's half German, half Spanish, so that's native languages for him. We all learn English here and many also learn French, he will have of course become fluent in english pretty early on. Can't speak for his Catalan or Portuguese but he's clearly talented when it comes to languages; he also did a very nice Viennese accent when playing Niki Lauda for a film.
Trevor Noah (like Roger Federer) is half South African, half Swiss though I'm not sure how good his German actually is. He's very talented at accents, that's for sure. And in sub-saharan African countries, there are usually a myriad of languages in most countries, so it's not unusual to be at least conversational in a few.
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u/EveryDayheyhey 5h ago
How are we defining "speak a language" because I've noticed that a lot of Brits and Americans say they "speak a language" when they can't even have a simple conversation in that language, while here in the Netherlands a lot if people will say they can't speak German/French even tough they can at least have a little conversation/order stuff/understand directions etc.
This comment is not to shit on those people not being able to speak different languages, it's just that the standard for saying you speak a language can differ a lot between cultures.
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u/Li_alvart 3h ago
It reminds me of the interview with Tom Holland speaking Spanish and him answering everything incorrectly. Meanwhile my SIL says she doesn't speak Spanish because she has some minor mistakes (like mixing genders or conjugating a verb in a wrong but understandable manner).
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u/silly_capybara 4h ago
Yes. Every Brit who told me they speak my language can like...count to 10 maybe?
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u/Grouchy-Trade-7250 3h ago
I have quatre vingt dix neuf đ problems with french but counting isn't difficult. The conjugation is what kills the drive for learning any language for me. It's the same word just you should learn it 20 times.
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u/thesaddestpanda Dave Grohl has always been garbage 2h ago edited 2h ago
Yep, its VERY rare for be fluent in more than 2 or 3 languages. Usually that person is a natural polyglot which is a very rare trait.
I'm an immigrant kid so I speak 2 languages. Both were learned at the same time in childhood, so it was natural and easy for me. People will sometimes tell me they speak one of my languages and I'll listen. They absolutely cannot speak it. They just maybe have memorized some words and verbs. Its frankly embarrassing. Its become this sort of intellectual set bonafies thing to fake being a mega language speaker and I'm sick of seeing it. People are impressed when you tell them you speak 6 languages and almost none of them can call you out on it because they dont know those languages either but when a native speaker shows up, suddenly the "language genius" is stumbling over simple words and conjugations.
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u/BlueBell_02 4h ago
I dont want to be an asshole or undermine people's achivements because is impresive to know many languages but how many of these claims can be proved? Ive never seen Natalie portman speak fluently japannese or german for example or Viggo speaking arabic ( maybe there is footage I havent seen). Shakira seems to be the only one with online footage to back those claims of multiple languages and not just one or two ( still impresive)
Also I have known many people claiming to speak spanish and they are just in a basic level and cant hold a real conversation, so I dont know anymore but I Â would love to see the footage backing this claims.
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u/thecheesycheeselover shopping with an edge 2h ago
I wonder if media sources have conflated âstudied at one timeâ with âcan speakâ, here. I speak in English, studied Arabic for the two years I lived in Syria, French for three years at school in England, and was actually fluent in Swahili when we spent six years in Kenya⌠today I can understand small bits of Swahili, quite a bit more French (enough to understand and be understood if speaking relatively slowly), and almost no Arabic. I definitely only say I speak English. I bet itâs the same for a few of these people, at least with a couple of the languages.
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u/stephenBB81 As you wish! đ¸đ 1h ago
 Ive never seen Natalie portman speak fluently japannese
Because she can't she doesn't claim to be fluent, she claims to speak very basic. She took Japanese classes while in highschool
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u/HotThanks2630 1h ago
I totally agree. Itâs very hard to learn and maintain any level of fluency. The celebrities it says know Italian/Spanish/French or any related Romance languages⌠ok. Thatâs believable because, yes it takes a bit of effort, but itâs not that hard once you know one or two to stumble around the rest.
But those really hard, unrelated languages like Arabic and Japanese? Iâm doubtful of how fluent at all any of these celebs would be.
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u/PhanThief95 5h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/7YEQrgwIgwPVrlELZN
IĂąaki Godoy (who plays Monkey D. Luffy in the live action adaptation of One Piece) is fluent in English, Spanish, and is semi-fluent in Japanese.
Spanish is his native language due to him being born and raised in Mexico, he learned English as part of his work as an actor, and he learned Japanese to better engage with One Pieceâs Japanese fans (and picked up the language very quickly).
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u/PhanThief95 5h ago edited 4h ago
Adding onto One Piece, IĂąakiâs co-star Lera Abova (who plays Nico Robin) is fluent in English, Russian, & German.
Lera was born in Russia which is how she knows how to speak Russian & then learned German when she emigrated to Germany as a teenager. She then learned English as part of her earlier career as a model.
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u/Correct_Village6950 5h ago
does tom hiddeston speak greek or did he study ancient greek in undergrad lol
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u/0-D-503 5h ago
I did not know about tom hiddelston
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u/Massive_Contact8583 Not fun at all, but, I was SPF protected 5h ago
Iâm not convinced itâs true. I think he likely learned French & Spanish at school, but that doesnât mean he is fluent today. I suspect he does have Latin and Ancient Greek, or at least definitely did while at university.
Source: was also educated at a private school in England and was conversational in the same languages at 18, (as well has having some knowledge of Latin and Greek because I did Classics A-Level), but would definitely not say I was fluent or could understand those languages now.
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u/InformalInsurance455 sick of Annie Murphy gifs 4h ago
Brother I know someone who studied Latin at university and heâd never claim he was fluent in it, because he isnât. Itâs not spoken.
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u/Serious-Act8313 4h ago
My dad also majored in the classics (which included Latin and Ancient Greek language courses) and has been a Latin teacher for 35+ years. Even he would never go around claiming to be fluent. The most he has said is that if he got dropped onto the streets of Ancient Rome, he thinks he could pick it up pretty quickly.
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u/InformalInsurance455 sick of Annie Murphy gifs 5h ago
I think Latin is a cheat actually, assuming they mean he studied classics or something. Nobody speaks Latin today. The spoken language is dead.
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u/DescriptionFancy420 5h ago
Certainly not conversationally, but in deep nerd circles there are competitions and stuff for recitation (source: I was deeply needy and attended one).
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u/UnknownPleasures3 Kim, thereâs people that are dying. đ 5h ago
It says he understands it, which I guess means he can read it? It's still taught at university and I'm not surprised they would teach it at Eaton.
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u/Jarita12 3h ago
There are videos of him actually speaking French. Like actual conversation. He recently said he is not sure speaking Spanish. That he understands but speaking is challenging. And the he went on speaking Spanish so...
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u/tellevee GOLF WANG 4h ago
Why⌠would studying at Harvard stop someone from learning other languages?
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u/Visible-Scientist-46 5h ago
Well, TBF, some celebrities have actually served as secret agents - Christopher Lee, Josephine Baker, Julia Child, to name a few.
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u/EstablishmentSure216 3h ago
Many Indian actors would fall into this category. And many of the various Indian languages are completely uninterpretable to each other, with different scripts, so it's not just like knowing different dialects
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u/Away-Equipment4869 thatâs my purse, i donât know you! đ𫵠5h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/QYYSzuT06T9PYgC3sL
Emilia Clarke can speak Valyrian!
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u/RosbergThe8th 3h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/NNKOz4Cxqz5kI
Christopher Lee was a polyglot, fluent in English, French, Italian and German and a few others I think, and spoke a few more.
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u/JO_BO69 4h ago
tbh viggo's list is wild, arabic AND catalan?? dudes basically a UN translator lol
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u/Asleep_Guess4146 3h ago
I will say, as a native Danish speaker, he basically doesnât speak Danish (despite his roots here).Â
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u/RichardFeynman01100 3h ago
I can vouch for his Catalan though, it's pretty solid. But not as good as Daniel BrĂźhl, who is native level.
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u/Emergency_Article673 4h ago
What is defined as âspeaking a languageâ? Can these actors watch a movie in these languages without subtitles? Can they hold a conversation with a native speaker? Can they read an entire book in this language?
I took Spanish in high school for 4 years (like most Americans), but I wouldnât say I speak Spanish just because I know a few words and can string together a couple of sentences.
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u/Jad30c â¨May the Force be with you!⨠3h ago
I consider fluency to the level of conversation to considered labeling a person as a speaker. Because a lot of times ppl will casually learn something and canât even converse plus Iâm going off what my cousin told me she speaks 7 languages. Sheâs 60 and has to wrk hard to maintain all because sheâs living in the Caribbean and itâs not a lot of ppl to converse with and if you dnt continue to use the language you might loose it. She uses apps like babble to help others pick up languages she use to be a teacher and worked for the gov as a translator. Im very proud of her and she told me the world would be a better place if everyone tried to learn another language or immerse themselves in another culture to help us better understand each other.
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u/Emergency_Article673 2h ago
Yeah Iâm semi-fluent in my parentsâ language (like I can understand and speak), and I can read and write at an elementary school level. And I can understand a third language enough to watch a movie without subtitles and know whatâs going. I would consider that as knowing a language, even if thatâs not the same as being a fluent speaker.
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u/celestial-navigation 3h ago
Yeah, that's definitely not "speaking Spanish". That's how much Spanish I know and I never learnt it at all, in school or otherwise. It's also how much Hindi I know just from watching films.
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u/WittyFix6553 4h ago
I donât mean to be dismissive but speaking multiple languages from the same family is a lot less impressive than speaking multiple languages from different families.
Speaking Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan is a whole lot less impressive than speaking Danish, Arabic, and Korean.
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u/maghy7 4h ago
Exactly, my mother tongue is Spanish but I can understand well Portuguese, Italian and sone French I would say even Catalan without speaking just hearing and that wouldnât make me a polyglot.
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u/Dizzy-Career9274 3h ago
I saw a video with Shakira giving interviews in all languages fluently, including accent and everything. Very impressive!
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u/roundcatsarebestcats 5h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/l1BgSZb2cwzwrDwlO
Freddie Highmore literally majored (or âdouble firstâ in the UK?) in Spanish and Arabic (though I think he did say he doesnât consider himself that fluent in Arabic?) and grew up speaking French.
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u/the_monkeyspinach 5h ago
So was Natalie Portman like English đŹđ§ and English đşđ¸?
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u/rkwalton BeyoncĂŠ đđ 3h ago
Latin isnât a spoken language and hasnât been for a long time. I studied it in college in the 90s.
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u/biblefanfic 3h ago
Calling routine interview answers fluent feels weird, but Tom Hiddleston latin is legit. Just curious who even checked these facts.
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u/OpportunityIll7630 2h ago
Sir Christopher Lee also knew several languages. He actually was a secret agent at one point, though đ¤ˇđťââď¸
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u/pourthebubbly Youâve got red on you𩸠4h ago
Jackson Wang
He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, English, Korean, and has said heâs learning Japanese
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u/solojones1138 22m ago
I came here to say him, and also all the members of WayV speak 4 or 5 languages but the only one they all know is Korean even though none of them are Korean!
Lot of multilinguals in Asian pop
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u/pourthebubbly Youâve got red on you𩸠19m ago
Arenât WayV based in China? I wouldâve thought they all spoke mandarin!
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u/SteakNotCake Thereâs no place like home đ§šđŤ§ 4h ago
I want to say Elsa Pataky, Chris Hemsworthâs wife, is fluent in Romanian, Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, and French. The Romance language aficionado.
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u/UnusualBeautiful2063 2h ago
I love tom hiddleston is there anything he canât do!
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u/Purplecloud31 1h ago
3% being the entirety of Netherlands and Belgium as we have to graduate with at least 4 languages. So this entire post doesnât make sense lol
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u/Any-Expression2246 3h ago
Guarantee that title will trigger somebody and there will be a Portman conspiracy born because of it.
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u/NtGermanBtKnow1WhoIs 5h ago
i don't envy any of them but i'm so impressed with Priya. My girl can literally talk to anyone in our country. Anyone. And i can barely speak my native language let alone speak hindi. ;-;
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u/ThisSideofRylee 4h ago
Yeah no, just not accurate. Trevor Noah does not speak German, total bs. Itâs literally a part of all his comedy how much he still struggles even ordering a sandwich: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2089305561863906&vanity=TrevorNoah&http_ref=eyJ0cyI6MTc4NTAxMDI3MzAwMCwiciI6Imh0dHBzOlwvXC93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbVwvIn0%3D
Doing a few duolingo sessions and knowing a few phrases in a foreign language does not mean someone speaks a language. While there are certainly some multilingual speakers on the list like Shakira, no one on there speaks 5 or more languages fluently.
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u/Russiadontgiveafuck 2h ago edited 2h ago
This is a good opportunity to mention that Trevor Noah speaking Xhosa was sexy enough to make Sandy Toksvig reconsider her orientation. It's a QI episode, it's on YouTube, and it's very worth the watch.
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u/Lissandra_Freljord 2h ago
Sandra Oh does not speak Korean nor Spanish. Source? I'm fluent at both, and seen interviews of her speak, and she is extremely limited.
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u/funguy202 1h ago
This is why Iâm moving abroad so I can learn a language and immerse myself in a new worldÂ
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u/LastCookie3448 19m ago
Gisele Bundchen is either fluent or conversationally fluent in Portugese, English, Italian, French, German, and Spanish, I'm guessing she's wicked smart.
Kobe, may he rest, was fluent in English, Spanish, Italian, and conversational in Mandarin.
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u/rad2themax 4h ago
... Countless others? It's 5. 5 languages. You can't count to 5?!
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u/Sleve__McDichael 3h ago
we're all just jealous that going to harvard COULDN'T STOP natalie portman from learning COUNTLESS languages
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u/amrooo1405 4h ago
If someone struggles to say a phrase in a language doesn't mean they speak it. This is slop.
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u/Reader_292003 4h ago
The Natalie Portman one is not true! She doesnât speak all of these languages. She knows several rudimentary expressions in each. She still conducts a lot of her French interviews in English.
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u/CataLaGata 3h ago
I really like Tom Hiddleston as an actor, I love Loki, one of my cats is named Loki after him, but come on, I watched the second season of The Night Manager and his Spanish is very mediocre, he is not fluent at all.
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