What Languages Do The Royals Speak?


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Her_Majesty said:
Haakon reading a speech in German (starting around 0:50): (lovely accent :D)
YouTube - The Crown Prince and Crown Princess in Germany
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Nice video. It's cute how he's holding a speech in german even though he's not fluently at all (couldn't understand everything even though german is my mother tongue) What I noticed is that MM has a translator on her right side and once he made a joke everyone was laughing including MM who probably didn't know what she's laughing about because the translator translated it a few seconds later and she was already laughing. Still it was a cute video :)
 
Odette said:
I was actually struck by the fact that the majority of the Spaniards do not speak English well or do not wish to. I go to Spain often and for a country with such a booming tourist industry, the majority of the population cannot communicate in English.
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I have noticed that to be true as well.
 
I would imagine most royals know several languages.
 
since it passed several years and the next generation is grown up, i need to ask. how about little royals now?
how is their languages skills besides their mother tongue
 
Some websites claim that some royals speak languages when in reality their abilities ina certain language are poor.

For example in the Spanish Royal Family, Prince Felipe's english is horrible. Most of the Spanish Royal Family speak horrible english except for Queen Sofia but she cant really speak Spanish very well either. Don't get me wrong I love them.

I believe that it will be easier for the younger ones to speak english or other languages due to the fact that they are lots of bilingual and multilingual schools now and I bet the royals will send their children to those schools.

I was wondering if any royal speaks Hungarian?? Romanian maybe??
 
Do you have any video of Crown Princess Mary and Princess Marie of Denmark speaking in Danish? It would be really interesting to watch them.
 
Does anyone know if Queen Anne Marie knows Greek fluently?
 
I read that both HM QEII and Prince Phillip speak French fluently,but once I came across a reading that one of HM French cuisineurs Rene(do not remember his surname) mentioned that her French is not so brilliant.I read that Prince Charles passed A-level in French and speaks a liitle Welsh.Prince Philip without doubts,given his background.
 
I can understand how Mary feels as she is from Australia and in Australia not many schools teach a 2nd language and then to go work as an adult speaking only native tounge of English and then to move to a country where the language is forgien and hard to learn. I have met Mary and she speaks perfect Danish and french and english, you can see her thinking about how to say it in danish.

I personally am fluent in English, dutch, french. I know some Yugoslivian and Russian as my fathers side is Russian and Yugoslav and Russian and my mother is Irish. I was raised speaking english in Australia but learnt languages as I went to Uni and travelled and then married a Dane in denamark. I am teaching my children English and Danish as they go to a french school where we live in France. So learning languages for someone like Mary who is Australian is rather hard
 
Does Princess Caroline and Prince Andrea of Monaco learned some of Tagalog words upon their charity visit to the Philippines? The Philippines is a land of many languages, but Tagalog is the language widely spoken in the country.

Some of the Tagalog words:

Mabuhay! - Welcome!
Kumusta! - Hello
Maraming Salamat! - Thank you very much!
Mahal kita! - I love you!
Paalam at hanggang sa muli! - Goodbye and see you!
 
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I read that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were studying Welsh. Anyone know how that is going?
 
Monaco:
Albert: English, French, German, Italian and lang moneguse
Jazmin, Albert's oldest child: English, French?, Fijian?
Alexandre, Albert's oldest son: French, English?
Caroline: English, French, Italian, German & Spanish
Andrea: English, French, Italian, some German,possibly Spanish/Portuguse as well (Santo Domingo/Dellal influence)
Charlotte: French, English, shy in Italian, some german, possibly Spanish/Portuguse as well (Santo Domingo/Dellal influence)
Pierre: French, Italian, English, some German, possibly Spanish/Portuguse as well (Santo Domingo/Dellal influence)
Alexandra: French, English, German, and is likely learning Spanish, Italian or Moneguse in school
Stephanie: English, French, Italian
Louis: French, English, Italian
Pauline: French, English, maybe Italian
Camille: French, English, and learning either German, Italian or Spanish in school
Christian de Massy: French, English, Spanish?
Cecile de Massy: French, English
Keith-Sebastien Knecht de Massy: French, English, Italian
Donatella Knecht de Massy: French, English, Italian
Christine Knecht de Massy: French, English, Italian, and learning either German, Italian or Spanish in school
Alexia Knecht de Massy: French, English, Italian, and learning either German, Italian or Spanish in school
Vittoria Knecht de Massy: French, English, Italian, and learning either German, Italian or Spanish in school
Andrea Knecht de Massy: French, English, Italian, and learning either German, Italian or Spanish in school
Brice de Massy: French, english
Antoine de Massy: French, English
Leticia de Massy: French, English, Spanish, Dutch (her husband's dutch)?
Elisabeth-Anne de Massy: French, English
Jean-Leonard taubert-natta de massy: French, English, German?, Italian?
Melanie-Antoinette de Massy: French, English
 
I was wondering if any royal speaks Hungarian??
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Almost every Austrian Emperor and Crown Prince was speaking Hungarian, next to Czech, Croatian and German. What's more the late Archduke Otto spoke - being the last Crown Prince- German, Hungarian, Czech, Croatian, English, French, Spanish, Latin and learnt in his later years Italian, too. And by speaking I really mean speaking! He was taught German, Hungarian, Czech and Croatian since he was born and was also flawless in Spanish, French and English because of his studies in Belgium as well as living in Spain and the USA. Anyone here who can beat this ??? ;-) His two sons speak very well Hungarian too with Georg living in Hungary being almost flawless. What's more all his daughters had lessons in Hungarian with Walpurga speaking fluently Swedish as well....
 
The Brazilian Emperor Peter II was a legendary polyglot: He learned English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Sanskrit and Tupi-Guaran - Brazilian indians language. He brought teachers from all the world to teach him. His translations of hebrew and arabic poetry are pretty accurate.
 
Interesting thread.
I'm not surprised that there is some friendly disagreement about how much a certain royal speaks a certain language. There are different standards as to what 'fluency' in a language is. Sometimes people say that someone else 'speaks' a language if they are functional (basics such as 'hello',' how are you', 'how much does this cost' can be said so that native speakers understand them) while others feel that you don't 'speak' a language until you can hold an intellectual conversation. For royals the question can get quite muddy as a person can be coached to give a speech competently in a foreign language, who would be lost in a real conversation and can then be called 'fluent' forever after on the basis of that one speech. Also, people gain and lose language fluency with practice and lack of practice. Someone who came to a foreign country in their adult years can actually forget how to speak their mother tongue if no one is there to speak it with and people can also brush up on languages. I would bet that information on the websites of the different countries list all the languages that the person in question EVER spoke. And someone who met them when they were in practice and expecting to be spoken to might call them fluent, while someone who met the same person at another time might say 'no way.' Which would truly be right?

Also, some (I know Americans have this tendency and I believe the French do too) tend to feel that a person cannot really speak their language if they have a thick foreign accent even if they can understand everything the person says and can be understood by them. While others are more forgiving. And a good or even great accent accent actually can little to do with true fluency. I myself am a parrot and have been like this since I was a small a child--I can repeat anything that is said to me two or three times with the same accent, whether I actually know what I'm saying or not! This is a gift when learning languages obviously--when I have learned to speak a language I sound like a native. However, I also sound like a native BEFORE I can really speak the language. So if I stick to two or three set phrases, someone could (it has happened before) believe that I speak a language when I actually do not. This has happened to me with incredibly difficult languages. Once a gentleman was teaching a class of us children a few phrases in Xhosa (this is one of the click languages from the southern part of Africa). I was about twelve. He was completely convinced from my perfect accent that I was a Xhosa speaker though confused by this because of my appearance. I was never able to quite convince him that I had no idea what he was saying and had never even heard of the language before. I am not the only person in the world who has the ability--in fact, I believe that it is not rare at all in situations where children are in a multi-lingual environment before the age of five and have to speak several languages. Other languages are later easier for them and many of them keep the ability to pronounce the hundreds of different possible sounds humans can make to communicate, which most people lose once the critical language learning years are done. Many of the royals were brought up in such environments and so I am sure there are those among who can 'parrot' like I can--and that people are then happy to attribute another language to the 'polyglot'--who does know many languages but not that particular one.
Just some thoughts.
 
Letizia's English is pretty good. I was a bit surprised that she didn't speak English before marrying Felipe, given her education and career, but she's obviously put a lot of effort into it.
 
Her English sounds good. I understood her clearly.
 
I understood Letitzia but assumed her English would be much more fluent somehow. Her husband's is wonderful.
 
Frelinghighness said:
I understood Letitzia but assumed her English would be much more fluent somehow. Her husband's is wonderful.
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Well Felipe was at boarding school in Canada and did graduate studies at Georgetown in the US so speaking English well should not be a surprise. Letitzia was educated entirely in Spain and Mexico.
 
About languages
is there anyone who could write what the Danish royal say in some videos in danish language?
help me!!
thanks!
 
donina605 said:
About languages
is there anyone who could write what the Danish royal say in some videos in danish language?
help me!!
thanks!
Click to expand...

What video? Perhaps, if it isn't too long. :)
 
Oh! thank you very much
is a video of the speech of the prince henrik for the 25 years of their marriage.
 
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