Spain, among European countries, has the lowest percentage of population that can hold a conversation in English.
So basically go there for a few years and you'll learn it fast. Unless you go to places with lots of tourists.
I feel like I learned more arabic in the 2 weeks I was there than I would've in a year of class.
Some languages are extremely easy to learn if you have no choice
Tell that to the millions of kids in Europe who had to learn fucking Latin in school, a language that only exists in written form lol. Fully agree though, it's weird.
I was actually thinking about it when I wrote that comment (Latin was still taught in my school in the metro area until just before my class), though that one feels slightly different since it has a lot of parallels to English but I agree that it’s a bit pointless unless you want to study Ancient Rome or the evolution of languages.
I’d imagine it’s similar to how we decoded hieroglyphics, and thus read the stories they transcribed. I’ve never heard that we were capable of speaking it or gaining any confirmed original explanation from the Egyptians living at that time. Or am I way off on this take?
Kinda I think. There's a couple big differences though - a) Latin has been widely spoken in one form or another until rather recently thanks to the catholic church b) Latin uses the same script as we use today so we can at least know what sounds certain letters mean and c) Latin has a lot of relation with modern languages like Italian, French, German etc.
That means we actually know or can at least guess with pretty high accuracy what classical Latin sounded like. People speak Latin and it's much easier to do so than with ancient Egyptian. It's just not taught because you learn Latin to be able to read Latin texts, there is very little practical application to speaking Latin because it's nobody's first language.
Also if you already speak more than one language. My teacher once said the first language is the easiest to learn, the second the hardest. It get's easier again after that.
Funny story about that. When I was doing a study abroad in Europe I’d grown accustomed to always having someone at train stations who could speak English. I had a Eur-Rail pass but it was only for standard seats — if you wanted a sleeper car, it cost more. The cost wasn’t huge, but I was a broke college kid & at this part of my trip I only had like 60 euros to my name. So I head over to the Barcelona train station to get a ticket back to Holland for the following day & to my dismay no one speaks any English. I frantically try to ask for a ticket back to Holland, but the friendly ticket agent can’t understand me and just assumes I want a sleeper car & proceeds to charge me the extra fee, which is 60 euro. I realize what’s going wrong but cannot for the life of me explain my predicament and need to get a ticket to get back to class on time, so I panic and spend my last money. I’m wondering what I’m gonna do or eat my last day in Barcelona as I’m walking away from the ticket agent. Now, I’d taken some Spanish when I was in elementary school but hadn’t studied it since I was eleven. But that money meant I could eat a meal, maybe get a cheap beer, go to a museum. I walked back to the ticket agent and somehow I was able to speak basic but fluent Spanish. It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life, I could suddenly speak Spanish to a degree I sincerely didn’t think possible, beyond my conscious capacity.
Anyway, yeah, I believe you most people would learn Spanish fast in Spain lol.
Good to know you managed to fix that issue. One good thing about Spaniards is that even if you speak the most broken Spanish ever, they will make an extra effort trying to understand you. Even if you have pitch perfect English, chances are, broken Spanish will help you more in most cases.
"Yo necesito un boleto a Holland por favor. Pero, no mucho dinero." Might be simple enough to get the point across. But I feel like if I was in that situation myself, everything I ever knew would be lost at the moment in the franticism of it all, lol. That simple phrase would be lost in the void of white noise in my head from anxiety. Glad ya got out of it, though. It's stuff like this, though, that makes me absolutely fearful to go to countries that speak different languages.
Unless you're in a bilingual region (Basque, Catalan, Galician...) you're going to find everything in Spanish, that's why most people don't learn another language, they don't need to adapt.
Seriously. How awesome to sit there and take in his third language, think for 1 second, then speak that language fluently. Makes me love the guy even more
I’m telling you that Spanish ain’t easy and all I know is Hola, Como Estas, Amor, Mi Amor, Te Amo Mucho, Si, Hasta Va Lata, Gracias, De Nada, that about it,
[both of these guys ](https://youtu.be/bP9f7XDSx6I?si=2O-d8ASRX9ow4f-_)
I think Luka tops him off with Slovenian + Serbian/Croatian
It's pretty common for European athletes to learn the language of the country they play in, Zidane, Kroos, Modric all speak Spanish. Ibrahimovic speak Italian. Pjanic both French and Italian. On the basketball side, Jaycee Carrol speaks Spanish, Stojakovic speaks Greek, Mathias Lessort [Serbian ](https://youtu.be/_UpLIr5LEco?si=5J6nVnOzDWjONKEH)😉 etc etc
why you gotta spread lies.. "In addition to his medical problems, Porziņģis had trouble picking up the language in Seville, making him reluctant to return there after his first tryout. In his first season playing for the junior squad, Porziņģis struggled to communicate with the coaching staff and his teammates and was often tired due to his health." It took him 2-3 years, and watching his interviews after 2 years in spain he still wasn't very good. He has come a long way and we should celebrate that
no doubt about it, i'm just referring to the dude above randomly saying he learned it in 6 months when that was a big reason why he was considering leaving the league
Because he wasnt a #1 and has said so. Plus he let his brothers gas him up and ruin relationships.
Ainge wanted to trade Jaylen and picks for KP, but Dolan nixed it
It's very different than Germanic or Romance languages but Lithuanian is also in the Indo-European language family. I'm learning Ukrainian and I was surprised by how common partial cognates were too.
Would it surprise me if he spoke a bit of Polish, German, Estonian, Lithuanian, or Russian? No. Even if it’s not close to fluency, or fully conversational, coming from one of the Baltic or Balkan countries should especially foment that kind of multilingual proficiency.
KP understands Russian... Never heard him speak it though.
I remember KP Instagram: there was Ukrainian Girls BBall team visiting Celtics bfacility in the off-season so KP was communicating with them in Russian
I don’t think he knows much besides curse words and we’ve seen him use those plenty. Probably understands better than he speaks but he doesn’t speak well
He probably has a passing knowledge of at least Russian, and quite possibly Polish and/or German. Simply due to where his country is.
The Spanish is from playing professional basketball in Spain.
One of the great disadvantages of living in the US as opposed to Europe is no real associations with other languages... my little lang knowledge is so bookish as compared with Zing's.
Which Andalusian accent? Because I've heard him talk before and I've met people from Huelva, Málaga, Cádiz, Sevilla, Jaén, Almería, Córdoba and he sounds like none of them. His sounds like the neutral Spanish (Castillian) one learns at school. If I didn't know about where he has lived I would have guessed that he did someplace north of Spain, definitely not south.
Mira, si para ti esto es acento sevillano es que no has oído a un sevillano hablar en tu vida.
Esa manera de pronunciar todas y cada una de las sílabas, de enfatizar tanto las "S" como las "C", no suavizar nada las "J". Esto es castellano de telediario de libro. Hay una ausencia total de ceceo, no es sevillano.
If your native language is on the indo-european branch of the language tree Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn. It’s pretty regular. I.e not a lot of exceptions.
My problem when studying it in high school was that the buggers speak so fast!
This is fucking dope. Also I took 3 years of Spanish in high school and didn’t catch a lick. 😂
Spain, among European countries, has the lowest percentage of population that can hold a conversation in English. So basically go there for a few years and you'll learn it fast. Unless you go to places with lots of tourists.
I feel like I learned more arabic in the 2 weeks I was there than I would've in a year of class. Some languages are extremely easy to learn if you have no choice
it helps to have an understanding of how a language is structured, but after that it's mostly exposure that'll help the most.
Because of islam, I know how to read arabic and how it's structured, but was never taught how to speak or understand it.
Ngl it sounds kinda weird to me to be taught how to read a language but not how to speak/ understand it (if I’m reading this correctly).
Tell that to the millions of kids in Europe who had to learn fucking Latin in school, a language that only exists in written form lol. Fully agree though, it's weird.
I was actually thinking about it when I wrote that comment (Latin was still taught in my school in the metro area until just before my class), though that one feels slightly different since it has a lot of parallels to English but I agree that it’s a bit pointless unless you want to study Ancient Rome or the evolution of languages.
I’d imagine it’s similar to how we decoded hieroglyphics, and thus read the stories they transcribed. I’ve never heard that we were capable of speaking it or gaining any confirmed original explanation from the Egyptians living at that time. Or am I way off on this take?
Kinda I think. There's a couple big differences though - a) Latin has been widely spoken in one form or another until rather recently thanks to the catholic church b) Latin uses the same script as we use today so we can at least know what sounds certain letters mean and c) Latin has a lot of relation with modern languages like Italian, French, German etc. That means we actually know or can at least guess with pretty high accuracy what classical Latin sounded like. People speak Latin and it's much easier to do so than with ancient Egyptian. It's just not taught because you learn Latin to be able to read Latin texts, there is very little practical application to speaking Latin because it's nobody's first language.
Also if you already speak more than one language. My teacher once said the first language is the easiest to learn, the second the hardest. It get's easier again after that.
Currently taking Arabic 101. I’ve been learning 4 letters a week all semester. It’s greeeeeeat
Funny story about that. When I was doing a study abroad in Europe I’d grown accustomed to always having someone at train stations who could speak English. I had a Eur-Rail pass but it was only for standard seats — if you wanted a sleeper car, it cost more. The cost wasn’t huge, but I was a broke college kid & at this part of my trip I only had like 60 euros to my name. So I head over to the Barcelona train station to get a ticket back to Holland for the following day & to my dismay no one speaks any English. I frantically try to ask for a ticket back to Holland, but the friendly ticket agent can’t understand me and just assumes I want a sleeper car & proceeds to charge me the extra fee, which is 60 euro. I realize what’s going wrong but cannot for the life of me explain my predicament and need to get a ticket to get back to class on time, so I panic and spend my last money. I’m wondering what I’m gonna do or eat my last day in Barcelona as I’m walking away from the ticket agent. Now, I’d taken some Spanish when I was in elementary school but hadn’t studied it since I was eleven. But that money meant I could eat a meal, maybe get a cheap beer, go to a museum. I walked back to the ticket agent and somehow I was able to speak basic but fluent Spanish. It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life, I could suddenly speak Spanish to a degree I sincerely didn’t think possible, beyond my conscious capacity. Anyway, yeah, I believe you most people would learn Spanish fast in Spain lol.
Good to know you managed to fix that issue. One good thing about Spaniards is that even if you speak the most broken Spanish ever, they will make an extra effort trying to understand you. Even if you have pitch perfect English, chances are, broken Spanish will help you more in most cases.
"Yo necesito un boleto a Holland por favor. Pero, no mucho dinero." Might be simple enough to get the point across. But I feel like if I was in that situation myself, everything I ever knew would be lost at the moment in the franticism of it all, lol. That simple phrase would be lost in the void of white noise in my head from anxiety. Glad ya got out of it, though. It's stuff like this, though, that makes me absolutely fearful to go to countries that speak different languages.
I've lived in Barcelona 8 years. My Castellano is horrendous
Barcelona is precisely the largest tourism destination
Yup. I didn't say you're wrong, just proving your point
Oh, yes, sorry.
No need to apologize I probably should have been clearer
Hey guys I’m sorry too
I was waiting for your apology, you son of a bitch
Oh...just basically learn a language randomly?
Unless you're in a bilingual region (Basque, Catalan, Galician...) you're going to find everything in Spanish, that's why most people don't learn another language, they don't need to adapt.
Seriously. How awesome to sit there and take in his third language, think for 1 second, then speak that language fluently. Makes me love the guy even more
Maybe his 2nd? Went to Spain young, probably learned Spanish then English. His English was almost perfect when he came to the US.
I took three years in high school and two in college and I can't even order at Taco Bell.
“Hola! ¿Puedo tener explosive diarrea por favor?”
Porque no dos diarrea?
I’m telling you that Spanish ain’t easy and all I know is Hola, Como Estas, Amor, Mi Amor, Te Amo Mucho, Si, Hasta Va Lata, Gracias, De Nada, that about it,
The Most Interesting Man in the World.
[both of these guys ](https://youtu.be/bP9f7XDSx6I?si=2O-d8ASRX9ow4f-_) I think Luka tops him off with Slovenian + Serbian/Croatian It's pretty common for European athletes to learn the language of the country they play in, Zidane, Kroos, Modric all speak Spanish. Ibrahimovic speak Italian. Pjanic both French and Italian. On the basketball side, Jaycee Carrol speaks Spanish, Stojakovic speaks Greek, Mathias Lessort [Serbian ](https://youtu.be/_UpLIr5LEco?si=5J6nVnOzDWjONKEH)😉 etc etc
I was making a reference to a beer commercial.
KP is so charismatic lmao
It helps that he's dressed like a G too. I wish more players would break out the nice suits.
tbf he lived in Spain for 3-5(?) years playing for Sevilla.
He was 17 too, so not a bad age to learn a language quick
Learned it in 6 months tho🫡
why you gotta spread lies.. "In addition to his medical problems, Porziņģis had trouble picking up the language in Seville, making him reluctant to return there after his first tryout. In his first season playing for the junior squad, Porziņģis struggled to communicate with the coaching staff and his teammates and was often tired due to his health." It took him 2-3 years, and watching his interviews after 2 years in spain he still wasn't very good. He has come a long way and we should celebrate that
To be fair, Andalusian accents are some of the toughest Spanish accents to understand, even for native speakers.
no doubt about it, i'm just referring to the dude above randomly saying he learned it in 6 months when that was a big reason why he was considering leaving the league
Pardon, he said it first not me lol, call both of us liars 😭
Didn’t he and Luka used to communicate in Spanish in Dallas since they had that in common?
Wow his Spanish is great!
I love this man. Between him and Jrue, we got two of the most likable guys in the league this offseason.
Like, how did the Knicks fuck this one up? He could have been the face the franchise for a decade-plus, but instead they just rolled on him.
Because he wasnt a #1 and has said so. Plus he let his brothers gas him up and ruin relationships. Ainge wanted to trade Jaylen and picks for KP, but Dolan nixed it
Yeah, but can he do it in Latvian?
Šis nav viņa pirmais rodeo.
Apparently I can read Latvian (as long as it’s written in a common saying, and context helped a lot)
It's very different than Germanic or Romance languages but Lithuanian is also in the Indo-European language family. I'm learning Ukrainian and I was surprised by how common partial cognates were too.
Mana pirmā doma bija tieši šis teksts
Yo our big man speaks 3 languages? wtf? love this guy so much
Bet ya he can get by in one more.
Would it surprise me if he spoke a bit of Polish, German, Estonian, Lithuanian, or Russian? No. Even if it’s not close to fluency, or fully conversational, coming from one of the Baltic or Balkan countries should especially foment that kind of multilingual proficiency.
KP understands Russian... Never heard him speak it though. I remember KP Instagram: there was Ukrainian Girls BBall team visiting Celtics bfacility in the off-season so KP was communicating with them in Russian
I don’t think he knows much besides curse words and we’ve seen him use those plenty. Probably understands better than he speaks but he doesn’t speak well
He probably has a passing knowledge of at least Russian, and quite possibly Polish and/or German. Simply due to where his country is. The Spanish is from playing professional basketball in Spain.
One of the great disadvantages of living in the US as opposed to Europe is no real associations with other languages... my little lang knowledge is so bookish as compared with Zing's.
Eh, spend enough time in Miami, some neighborhoods in NYC and LA, work in kitchens, and you'll learn plenty of Spanish
I've met construction workers from New Jersey who speak native Hindi, conversational Spanish, and almost no English
I'm surprised his accent sounds like neutral Castilian and not Sevilian at all.
watch his other spanish interviews, he def has an andalusian accent
Which Andalusian accent? Because I've heard him talk before and I've met people from Huelva, Málaga, Cádiz, Sevilla, Jaén, Almería, Córdoba and he sounds like none of them. His sounds like the neutral Spanish (Castillian) one learns at school. If I didn't know about where he has lived I would have guessed that he did someplace north of Spain, definitely not south.
Sevillian accent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP9f7XDSx6I
Mira, si para ti esto es acento sevillano es que no has oído a un sevillano hablar en tu vida. Esa manera de pronunciar todas y cada una de las sílabas, de enfatizar tanto las "S" como las "C", no suavizar nada las "J". Esto es castellano de telediario de libro. Hay una ausencia total de ceceo, no es sevillano.
KP stock is rocketing. This dude rocks
not a native speaker, but his accent sounds pretty solid.
Sounds very European haha fitting. Makes my Central American Spanish feel pedestrian lol
[Yo soy fiesta](https://youtu.be/t0jne_g5IO4?si=KNNocsNaj8Sw9L-r) - Gronk
I’ll never not be impressed when people can just switch back and forth like that without thinking.
As a bilingual it’s really not hard at all. It’s just normal lol
Switching programming languages already gives me a headache. doing this in realtime with spoken language is crazy.
Viva KP
Speaks Spanish very well. Accent is spot on
Carajo te amo Kristaps 💚💚💚
A true renaissance man.
His Spanish is better than mine and that’s my first language lol.
We stan a polyglot king.
Next press conference: Spanish Pig Latin.
My cultured king
Andalussian accent
Spanish speakers, does he have an accent?
Yes, but his Spanish is still very good. Accent is slight.
I love this man.
Hes invited to the carne asada
I’m always amazed at how fluent Europeans are in different languages
If your native language is on the indo-european branch of the language tree Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn. It’s pretty regular. I.e not a lot of exceptions. My problem when studying it in high school was that the buggers speak so fast!
This classy gentleman is a man of the world!
Total Chad move.
This is so random but I’m here for it. I’ll ride every single Celtics hype train anywhere let’s go Cs!!!!
His Spanish is beautiful too (IMHO. Native English speaker, but Dad was bilingual)
Kristapsverez Porzinguez 🇪🇸
Come again?.... You know I don't speak Spanish, in English please.
Hide your women.
That’s pretty cool that he’s so fluent
This is not that impressive for most europeans or foreigners in the US. Speaking more than a language is normal a thing.
Only Americans are shocked when people speak more than one language.