Who do you suspect will qualify? And which langauges do you suspect will be the top languages in the 2010 world cup?
English: England, USA, Australia, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Ireland Spanish: Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Costa Rica Portuguese: Brazil, Portugal Korean: North Korea, South Korea Arabic: Bahrain, Egypt French: France, Cameroon
This thread epitomises what this section and 'The Beautiful Game' have been all about in the last few months.
What do you mean Cmedina1983? This info is valuable to me....i actually thought English, then French...i expected more French ppl here esp cause of the French speaking africans....Spanish was ignorantly not high on my list.... I wanna give something im doing to some foreigners - kinda a souvenir....i will need translators though and i may only do it in english, and if possible in other languages as well....
In North + South America everyone that's not out yet speaks Spanish except for Brazil (Por), USA (Eng), Trinidad & Tobago (Eng). There are 8 births, you can expect that 6 of those teams will speak Spanish. Africa is quite difficult to predict... in North Africa, the official language is Arabic, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt have hope to qualify. Elsewhere, it's divided between French (Mali, Guinea/Côte d'Ivoire) and English (Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa). Cameroon has both English and French as official languages. There are other possibilities (eg Swahili if Kenya qualifies), but I don't think they are likely. In Asia, Arabic is spoken in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, porbably only 1 or 2 of them will qualify. Australia is English, both Koreans might qualify. Finally there's Europe. There might be multiple English speaking teams, but I doubt it will be more than 1 or 2. Switzerland is multilingual, they speak German, Italian and French, though the majority speaks German. So Spanish will probably be #1 with 7 countrys, English #2 with ca 5-7 countrys. Arabic and French will most likely be spoken by at least 2, probably more countrys each. Portuguese, Korean and German(Italian) might be spoken by up to 2 countrys.
English English English The refs have to know English and English is the biggest non-native spoken language out there. This is a no-brainer. If you are talking about the most common language that people can communicate in at the WC and the de facto language used, it'll be English, per usual. If we are talking about the amount of qualified countries that speak a particular language at the WC, that's a different story.
500,000 portuguese live in South Africa. Portuguese Official language in: Angola-africa Brazil Cape Verde-africa East Timor Guinea-Bissau-africa Equatorial Guinea-africa Macau Mozambique-africa Portugal São Tomé and Príncipe-africa
Announcing at (recent) World Cups was always done in the country´s native language, and English. Korean and English in 2002, German and English in 2006, for example. Even moreso next year as English is South Africa´s official language.
really? That would be AWESOME! I really appreciate that you offered! I just need someone reliable, whom i can trust and who can do it well...it's rather important...because its gonna be hard for me to know if its translated well...only the person who did it or the readers will know... This is a non profit thing and will cost me money more than anything else...but if it will mean something to even one person, it will be worth it. When this souvenir is complete in english, i would probably need translators for whichever language will have most readers or something like that....or, whichever country will "appreciate" it most. Initially i thought French...English is a must and since someone can do it in spanish, that can be used. In the end i will have to use whichever country/languages will be at my disposal as well as to the amount of space at my disposal. Atm i have English and Afrikaans which i can do myself....But i will exclude afrikaans to leave space for other languages and countries... I don't wanna give away too soon what this is about though... I will note you VAMOS MEXICO and explain more... thanks again
Dammit...Brazil speaks Portuguese....i really don't wanna exclude this language... I really need to relook my target audience....
Depends on how you call the top language in WC2010. In terms of teams playing, or the language of importance. If you go with number 1, then Spanish, just. English is a close second. However, overall, the most important language is English. Most widely spoken language. First language in South Africa, first language in FIFA, all announcements carried in English first, etc. A knowledge of Afrikaans might be useful, or one of the local tribal dialects...
By top language i mean the countries/languages that will have the highest attendance in SA. - Basically the highest number of 1st languages...There will be more French when both France and French speaking African countries, qualify. So when England doesn't qualify, there will be less english (just kidding England fans) So far English and Spanish tops my personal list...
Finally there's Europe. There might be multiple English speaking teams, but I doubt it will be more than 1 or 2. Switzerland is multilingual, they speak German, Italian and French, though the majority speaks German. Lisa11
And the Swiss are good at English. I lived in Rotterdam for a while, as an international student, and at the college I was at we had a lot of Swiss. I remember talking to them about this and they told me that they have to learn 2 languages at school. You have to learn one other "Swiss" language, so if you are in the German region, you have to choose Italian or French, and English is compulsory.