• dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    “Fluency” is a nebulous concept. In Europe, they utilize a letter coded system that indicates what skill level you’re at, with an A1 being the lowest bb and C2 being high level of proficiency if not fluent. That being said, I’d be extremely interested in knowing just how fluent some of the speakers of 4+ languages truly are. You have to have some kind of daily immersion and application of the languages to retain the fluency, and I just don’t see these world leaders having that kind of time. A lot of people believe themselves to be fluent in a 2nd or even 3rd language because they took a couple of courses in high school.

    • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      The pope has done speeches in those languages, so I can believe he has so fluency. Surprised about the Ukrainian though.

  • Thorry84@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    I’m pretty sure Biden doesn’t speak The King’s English, but maybe Trudeau does?

    • Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      Most likely would be Zelenskyy, he supports modernizing government for the Internet Age.

      Honorable mention to Pope Francis, who trained as a chemist and has the least political background out of all of them. I bet he would know how to code if he wasn’t born in 1936

      • Algaroth@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        My dad was born in 33 and was a computer engineer. Started out with assembly and was in high demand due to a lot of old legacy systems. Probably would have learned c# if he wasn’t retired by the time it came out. Point is, we can’t rule out that the pope knows how to code.

        • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Supporting IT doesn’t mean knowing how to code.

          But NOT supporting IT strongly predicates no coding ability at all. So if he supports a better IT, then there’s a chance.

        • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Having C# experience also doesn’t mean knowing how to code. According to all these interviews I’ve been doing.

  • Pringles@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Leaving Belgium and Luxemburg out so that the rest is not embarrassed too much? I mean, those speak like 4 languages by default.

  • idegenszavak@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    This was posted a lot of times, and it’s not defined what “spoken” actually means. E.g. you can hear Orbán speaking English in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO9v8aKSj24

    Those are definitely English words, and by Hungarian standards it’s not that bad (Only 25% of Hungarians can speak English according to 2022 census). But is this the same level as other leaders? On other threads it was mentioned that Erdogan can speak some other language just not really well, so it’s not counted here.

    • merde alors@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      He’s just a poor boy from a poor family Spare him his life from this monstrosity 😂

      erdogan isn’t well educated, he rode on the resentment poor classes, like his, bred towards the “republicans”. The less educated he is, the more he attracted them. Not unlike Trump now.

      ps: When he started rising he wanted to undo the republic, unlike the nationalist he now became. The republic wasn’t (maybe it still isn’t) an agreed base there. He may be familiar with Arabic as a second language.

      edit: according to wikipedia he graduated from imam hatip school. Erdogan definitely is bilingual.

  • 𝔼𝕩𝕦𝕤𝕚𝕒@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    English>French>German seems to be the tier list. Then there’s Erdogan. Does everyone have go through their own translation service to call in, or does he have to provide a translator that everyone talks to? Situational?

    • protist@mander.xyz
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      1 year ago

      When meeting with each other, heads of state who speak different languages always have their own translators present

      While most of these leaders speak more than one language, many of them would not feel comfortable engaging in diplomacy or negotiations outside their native language

      • Chariotwheel@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, e.g. Merkel and Putin. Both can speak German and Russian very well, but they still used translators for offical talks. Too much of a risk to use a phrase or word that means something in one language, but translated it can mean something else or have bad implications.

        On that level you don’t want an accidental misunderstanding.

        Not even talking about insults, world leaders cpuld identify that, but imagine accidentally promising or indicating something you didn’t want to.

  • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Having Sunak block out my country is irrationally aggravating.

    That said our Taoiseach would probably tell you he speaks every language here and that he always had and thinks everyone should.

  • MonkderZweite@feddit.ch
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    1 year ago

    The more imperialist, the less languages? Or is it about conservatives being less diverse educated?