NHL players with the worst English

[Past Considerations]

Subtitles can ruin a movie more than bad dubbing IMHO. I on my part always advise to watch the movies you already know in the original language to people who learn languages.

Subtitles can be distracting IF you're not used to them, but in regions where dubbing is not a thing (kids' shows & movies excluded) everyone gets used to reading subtitles and it becomes a second nature, so this is a pretty moot point.

Subtitles are also said to help developing reading skills of children. Sounds funny, but it is just extra practice and forces one to read quickly.

 

[Past Considerations]

I will have to lecture about language families a bit.

Russian belongs to the same language family as English unlike Finnish. So Finnish is in every way but the alphabet way further away from English. And the alphabet is really the smallest hurdle as every Russian knows and can read the latin alphabet.

Wrong. English is a Germanic language. Russian is slavic. Finnish is neither.

 

[Atas2000]

Wrong. English is a Germanic language. Russian is slavic. Finnish is neither.

Wrong. Germanic and Slavic laguages are both part of the indo-germanic or indo-european(in which "germanic" and "european" are merely to pinpoint the farthest western branch of those languages geographically, "indo" being on the eastern end of the span) language family, which Finnish is not as part of the diffrent finno-ugric language family. Russian, English, Persian(or Farsi), Sanskrit, Latin are all closer related than Finnish to any one of them. Germanic and Slavic are sub-groups within the indo-european language family, so yes, obviously Swedish, German and English are closer relatives than English and Russian.

It is however wrong to assume that a person totally uninvolved with even closely related languages would just like that understand more because of the relation. In my experience some education and practice is needed to spring open those benefits of relation of laguages. I for my part do see and benefit from similarities even in Russian and Latin or Sanskrit while I see fellow Russians struggle with even other slavic languages which I understand without much translation without ever really learning them. I have though some basic knowledge in some archaic russian vocabulary as well as the so called old-church-slavonic, that helps a lot. Germanic languages firstly have the same structures as slavic languages and then through Greek and Latin that for many centuries were the common tongues of the educated(and the respective churches too) there are many words with latin or greek roots within all those indo-european languages. BUT the finno-ugric languages I have close to no bridges to. The whole structure is different.

 

[Kshahdoo]

Russians shouldn't count because of context but I was always a bit surprised how Valeri Bure spoke/speak so much better English than his older brother.

Samsonov didn't speak English like at all, when he came to NA, and just a few years later he spoke English like a native speaker.

 

[member 305909]

Everything is dubbed. Yeah they teach but far away from nordic countries.

Maybe it is a cultural thing but I would feel silly watching any movie which is dubbed. Especially if the same monotonous voice reads the lines of all the characters.

 

[GrkFlyersFan]

Came here to mention Sergei Bobrovsky, but it sounds like he's gotten better? His rookie year here with the Flyers, the old Coatesy's Corner at intermission, Bob talked to Steve Coates(aka Coatesy), and because he didn't speak English, he just answered "Bob!" to everything.

Russians generally have the worst English, but Ivan Provorov speaks excellent English, his accent is very faint.

I realize though, that compared to the rest of the world, world language education is a joke here in the US. Some schools don't even require it, and other schools only require a couple years. I also speak Greek and Italian, but most Americans only speak English and are often proud of it.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Came here to mention Sergei Bobrovsky, but it sounds like he's gotten better? His rookie year here with the Flyers, the old Coatesy's Corner at intermission, Bob talked to Steve Coates(aka Coatesy), and because he didn't speak English, he just answered "Bob!" to everything.

Russians generally have the worst English, but Ivan Provorov speaks excellent English, his accent is very faint.

I realize though, that compared to the rest of the world, world language education is a joke here in the US. Some schools don't even require it, and other schools only require a couple years. I also speak Greek and Italian, but most Americans only speak English and are often proud of it.

Ya man, I'm in China and meeting a lot of Euros as the other foreigners here.. they usually have a native language and English down pretty solid. My Spanish buddy knows English, Portugese, some French, and some Mandarin. I'm kinda embarassed having just the one language.

Russian is crazy difficult to learn and doesn't seem very related to English, so if they don't emphasize it in schools I can see why a lot of Russians enter the league with bad English. Spanish/French/Italian always seemed similar, I can see some connections to English- and then Russian is just f***in out there, man.

 

[Atas2000]

Samsonov didn't speak English like at all, when he came to NA, and just a few years later he spoke English like a native speaker.

Few years are more than enough... if you are naturally gifted. It's like with hockey. If anybody could be Ovechkin or Datsyuk on the ice just with hard work...

 

[Atas2000]

Ya man, I'm in China and meeting a lot of Euros as the other foreigners here.. they usually have a native language and English down pretty solid. My Spanish buddy knows English, Portugese, some French, and some Mandarin. I'm kinda embarassed having just the one language.

Russian is crazy difficult to learn and doesn't seem very related to English, so if they don't emphasize it in schools I can see why a lot of Russians enter the league with bad English. Spanish/French/Italian always seemed similar, I can see some connections to English- and then Russian is just ****in out there, man.

Russian is of course related, but the bolded explains why you are having difficulties seeing it. It is known that having at least two languages in the background helps a lot picking up new ones.

And they do teach English in Russia, not more or less, better or worse than in many other countries. But in this thread we are basically talking about a special case - pro athletes who since their childhood dedicate a lot of time and effort to becoming pro athletes first and foremost. They are not the average students.

 

[Atas2000]

Maybe it is a cultural thing but I would feel silly watching any movie which is dubbed. Especially if the same monotonous voice reads the lines of all the characters.

It is professionally dubbed in Germany, but yeah, they butcher some movies pretty bad with it even with the most professional dubbing.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Russian is of course related, but the bolded explains why you are having difficulties seeing it. It is known that having at least two languages in the background helps a lot picking up new ones.

And they do teach English in Russia, not more or less, better or worse than in many other countries. But in this thread we are basically talking about a special case - pro athletes who since their childhood dedicate a lot of time and effort to becoming pro athletes first and foremost. They are not the average students.

I mean, I'll have to take your word on it, but I have enough Spanish to see how Spanish, French, Italian, or German would be relatively similar jumps. They have similarities to each other and to English. The connections between English and Russian would seem much more distant. Even if they're part of the same family, technically.

And ya, hockey players would not be a good sample of the overall population, but it's interesting that players from Russia seem to struggle more than most. Either means the languages are very different or English just isn't as big a part of pop culture as it is in other countries (not that that's good or bad, just that it's a thing). Or they just focus on hockey only with their prospects. or you don't think Russians particularly struggle, maybe there's just more of them in the NHL so it's a numbers thing.

 

[Atas2000]

I mean, I'll have to take your word on it, but I have enough Spanish to see how Spanish, French, Italian, or German would be relatively similar jumps. They have similarities to each other and to English. The connections between English and Russian would seem much more distant. Even if they're part of the same family, technically.

And ya, hockey players would not be a good sample of the overall population, but it's interesting that players from Russia seem to struggle more than most. Either means the languages are very different or English just isn't as big a part of pop culture as it is in other countries (not that that's good or bad, just that it's a thing). Or they just focus on hockey only with their prospects. or you don't think Russians particularly struggle, maybe there's just more of them in the NHL so it's a numbers thing.

Spanish, French and Italian are of course very close relatives(still not as close as slavic languages though). Surprisingly Italian is the easiest language to learn for a Russian out of those(if not out of any language foreign to a Russian). The pronounciation is very close to Russian, so a russian ear picks up the vocabulary easier from just hearing. And the grammatic structures are very similar. As I mentioned in the other post the vast variety of latin roots makes it even easier. Germanic languages are further away from Russian in structure and most importantly pronounciation. A Russian needs to learn it before he stars understanding the spelling from hearing. That's important for gaining vocabulary. Then the whole articles and tenses that just aren't a thing in Russian(but just like in Latin partially for example).

Look, the popular "I am score" from Malkin is the typical Russian speaking English thing.

For the NHL in particular I think it's the Swedes who set the standard. Swedes are even for Europe exceptionally good at English on the average and they are so many in the NHL. That raises the bar of expectations.

 

[Fixxer]

Antoine Roussel talks the most crap on the ice but I wonder just how much they understand what he says..

Roussel's trick is to talk so bad that the opposing players have to get closer to hear him. At that moment, he strikes. lol

 

[Fixxer]

First time I heard him speak, I thought of Sylvester Stallone!

 

[Braunbaer]

In Europe they don't teach english that much in Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc. Only in Nordic Countries and Netherlands they speak it good.

So you've never been to Germany. I realize the place is a mess since like every other person doesn't even speak German over here anymore, but most kids do learn English in school.

 

[VictorLustig]

Swedish players are usually pretty good when it comes to speaking about hockey related things. I think some of them have big problems with the language outside the rink though, especially when they first come over.

 

[dragovici]

Yeah. I already brought up how finnish is from another language family than swedish or english.

But, there literally are studies and surveys trying to measure the level of language proficiency among different countries. Finland has consistentlt ranked at the highest level and is among the highest in english proficiency. Some weird Swede saying it's not true because he sometimes visit's us here is not enough evidence for me.

Sure, grammatically i believe Finns are generelly pretty good, however the pronounciation is troublesome. Rally english

 

[MrThomas]

So you've never been to Germany. I realize the place is a mess since like every other person doesn't even speak German over here anymore, but most kids do learn English in school.

Yeah just a bit. And thats same level than in russia

 

[mjlee]

Tomas Holmstrom was hilarious. He spoke an incomphrehensible svenglish no one including his Swedish teammates understood since he's from the very northen part of Sweden. He chirped quite a bit as well but you wonder how much anyone understood him.

 

[matlock9]

Oh man, the amount of butthurt here by the Finns is hilarious. And I'm a Finn myself. In all seriousness, it surely represents something that we have all these Puljujärvis, Bosse Grönholms and Kimi Räikkönens. It's a national epidemy, just gotta deal with it. Might change some time in the future but right now, we lose the Fin-Swe fight as usually.

 

[Ronald Ocean]

I know this isnt a best english thread but I was surprised to hear Kasperi Kapanen speak. Kid sounds like hes from Toronto.

 

[Make]

I know this isnt a best english thread but I was surprised to hear Kasperi Kapanen speak. Kid sounds like hes from Toronto.

Well he grew up in NA when his father Sami was playing in the NHL. I'd expect him to be fluent in English.

 

[I Hate Philadelphia]

Patrice has come a long way

 

[sepHF]

Puljujarvi can say like 3 words in English

 

[flames96]

In Europe they don't teach english that much in Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc. Only in Nordic Countries and Netherlands they speak it good.

exactly, so what other languages do they teach in school? None perhaps? jeez, very backward