{"id":2304,"date":"2014-06-06T15:29:15","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T14:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=2304"},"modified":"2026-08-25T13:17:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:17:38","slug":"10-sports-stars-who-speak-other-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/en\/news\/10-sports-stars-who-speak-other-languages","title":{"rendered":"10 Sports Stars Who Speak Other Languages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1002\" src=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1199028822.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7784\" srcset=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1199028822.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1199028822-250x167.jpg 250w, https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1199028822-700x468.jpg 700w, https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1199028822-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1199028822-120x80.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<style>\nh2 {\nmargin: 3% 0 2% 1%;\n}\n<\/style>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It can often feel like life is all about sport, whether we like it or not. But have you ever wondered how good sports stars are at languages?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It turns out, pretty good. Like anyone who has to travel a lot for their work, athletes often find knowing only their native language isn&#8217;t enough. Here are 10 great examples of sports stars who speak more than one language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Gary Lineker<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Besides English, the former&nbsp;footballer learnt <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/spanish\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spanish<\/a> while he was playing for Barcelona, and picked up some <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/storejapanese\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Japanese<\/a> when he later moved to Nagoya Grampus Eight. He&#8217;s now a passionate ambassador for languages in schools, saying in an interview with <a title=\"Gary Lineker languages\" href=\"https:\/\/news.tes.co.uk\/b\/news\/2013\/09\/26\/gary-lineker-foreign-languages-are-not-taken-seriously-in-schools.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">TES<\/a> last year, &#8216;the learning of languages, for me, will always be helpful for the vast majority at some stage in their life&#8217;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Roger Federer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Not content with winning a frankly quite ridiculous 17 Grand Slam titles, the Swiss tennis player also speaks four&nbsp;languages fluently &#8211; his native <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/german-swiss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Swiss German<\/a> along with <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/french\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">French<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/english\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">English<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/german\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">German<\/a>. He&#8217;s known for his ability to switch effortlessly between languages in interviews and press conferences and can quite comfortably answer journalists&#8217; questions in their own language, a feat some of his fellow tennis players&nbsp;can&#8217;t keep up with. Wouldn&#8217;t be the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Tom Daley<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The British diver recently got an A in his <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/spanish\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spanish<\/a> A-level (congrats, Tom!), and makes good use of his language skills when in Mexico, where he spends a lot of his time. Here&#8217;s a <a title=\"Tom Daley speaking Spanish\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Y9u8Qbeig_Y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">video<\/a> of him showing off his Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Jonny Wilkinson<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here in England, Jonny Wilkinson is known (at least by me) as that guy who&#8217;s pretty&nbsp;good at drop goals. But he&#8217;s also a bit of a superstar in France, where he&#8217;s been playing for Toulon since 2009. He&#8217;s now fluent in <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/french\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">French<\/a> and&nbsp;was awarded <a title=\"Jonny Wilkinson Toulon honorary citizenship\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jonnywilkinson.com\/news\/jonny-wilkinson-awarded-honorary-citizenship-of-toulon-after-guiding-french-side-to-double-in-final-season\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">honorary citizenship<\/a> of Toulon earlier this week &#8211; giving his acceptance speech in the local language, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. Fernando Alonso<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Spanish&nbsp;Formula One racing driver speaks an impressive four languages &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/spanish\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spanish<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/italian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Italian<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/english\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">English<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/french\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">French<\/a>. And in case that&#8217;s not enough, he&#8217;s apparently working on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/alo_oficial\/status\/278998722216591361\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Russian<\/a> too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">6. Arsene Wenger<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Arsenal manager is well known for his interest in languages, speaking <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/french\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">French<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/english\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">English<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/german\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">German<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/spanish\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spanish<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/italian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Italian<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/japanese\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Japanese<\/a>. Like Gary Lineker, Wenger&#8217;s also known as an ambassador for languages, and last year he was voted Britain&#8217;s&nbsp;first <a title=\"Arsene Wenger Public Language Champion 2013\" href=\"https:\/\/www.britac.ac.uk\/news\/news.cfm\/newsid\/1022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Language Champion<\/a> by readers of The Guardian. In this video he explains why languages are so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"videoWrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"435\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aSWnNRrtfw0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">7. Novak Djokovic<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Never one to let Roger take all the glory, fellow tennis champion Novak Djokovic speaks five languages &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/serbian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Serbian<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/english\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">English<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/german\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">German<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/italian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Italian<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/french\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">French<\/a>. He studied&nbsp;English and German at primary school, and learned Italian when he worked with&nbsp;coach Riccardo Piati. In an interview with <a title=\"Djokovic languages Tennis Talk\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tennistalk.com\/en\/news\/20130603\/Polyglot_Djokovic_a_master_of_many_tongues\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tennis Talk<\/a> in 2013, he said, &#8216;We have a saying in our country: The more languages you know, the more is your worth as a person. I like to understand what people are saying wherever I am, at least to pick up a few phrases of those languages.&#8217;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">8. Paula Radcliffe<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Long-distance runner Paula Radcliffe has a first-class degree from Loughborough University in European&nbsp;Studies, and speaks <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/storefrench\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">French<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/german\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">German<\/a> fluently. She now lives in Monaco with her husband and two children, who are both bilingual, attending a French school but also&nbsp;fluent in&nbsp;English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">9. Cesc Fabregas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another Barcelona footballer, Fabregas speaks four languages &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/spanish\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Spanish<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/catalan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Catalan<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/english\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">English<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/french\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">French<\/a>, and&nbsp;his <a title=\"Cesc Fabregas Twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cesc4official\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a> feed is multilingual. When asked about his language skills in 2005, he replied, &#8216;These days you have to keep studying, not least because my mum tells me so.&#8217; Words to live by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">10. Daniela Hantuchova<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And finally, another tennis player, because tennis is my favourite. Daniela Hantuchova, from Slovakia, is&nbsp;by all accounts a very talented lady. Besides her tennis career, she&#8217;s also a trained classical pianist, and speaks &#8211; wait for it &#8211; six languages: <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/slovak\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Slovak<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/czech\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Czech<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/english\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">English<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/german\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">German<\/a> fluently, and some <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/croatian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Croatian<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/store\/italian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Italian<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Does anyone else feel like a bit of an underachiever now, or is it just me?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">If you know any other examples of sports stars who speak other languages, please tell us about them in the comments.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It can often feel like life is all about sport, whether we like it or not. But have you ever&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[150,49,244,231,103,3,312,9,170],"tags":[3985],"class_list":["post-2304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learn-english","category-learn-french","category-learn-german","category-learn-italian","category-learn-japanese","category-languagelearning","category-learn-russian","category-learn-spanish","category-sport-2","tag-general"],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":2304},"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":150,"label":"English"},{"value":49,"label":"French"},{"value":244,"label":"German"},{"value":231,"label":"Italian"},{"value":103,"label":"Japanese"},{"value":3,"label":"Language 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Howeson","author_link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/en\/news\/author\/richard"},"comment_info":5,"category_info":[{"term_id":150,"name":"English","slug":"learn-english","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":150,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":54,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":150,"category_count":54,"category_description":"","cat_name":"English","category_nicename":"learn-english","category_parent":0},{"term_id":49,"name":"French","slug":"learn-french","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":49,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":37,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":49,"category_count":37,"category_description":"","cat_name":"French","category_nicename":"learn-french","category_parent":0},{"term_id":244,"name":"German","slug":"learn-german","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":244,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":32,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":244,"category_count":32,"category_description":"","cat_name":"German","category_nicename":"learn-german","category_parent":0},{"term_id":231,"name":"Italian","slug":"learn-italian","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":231,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":27,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":231,"category_count":27,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Italian","category_nicename":"learn-italian","category_parent":0},{"term_id":103,"name":"Japanese","slug":"learn-japanese","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":103,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":18,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":103,"category_count":18,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Japanese","category_nicename":"learn-japanese","category_parent":0},{"term_id":3,"name":"Language 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