The secret agent part is obviously a joke. 47% of people worldwide are bilingual, while only 3% of people qualify as polyglots (speaking 4+ languages)
Shockingly, numerous celebs are members of this club:
Natalie Portman- Studying at Harvard couldn’t stop Natalie from learning multiple languages (Hebrew, English, French, Japanese, German, and Spanish)Â
Viggo Mortensen- Mr Mortensen might not come from a mythical land, but he does have an almost mythic level of knowledge in languages (Danish, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Norwegian, and Arabic)Â
Shakira- Shakira has long impressed fans with her ability to speak 6 languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, French, Italian, and English)Â
 Tom Hiddleston- The British actor is famous for his calming accent, yet he can understand countless others (English, Spanish, French, Greek, and Latin)Â
Sandra Oh- Sandra Oh might not be able to perform groundbreaking surgeries, but she can master different languages (English, Korean, Spanish, and French)Â
Trevor Noah- Trevor Noah speaks 7 languages (English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Tsonga, and German)Â
Daniel Bruhl- The character actor can do an awful lot more than simply appear intimidating. He can speak 6 languages (English, German, Spanish, French, Catalan, and Portuguese)Â
Mickey Curtis- The senior Japanese pop star speaks 6 languages (Japanese, English, German, French, Italian, and Thai)Â
Priya Anand- The Tamil mainstay actor speaks 7 languages (Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Spanish, and English)
Which celebrity’s language ability do you envy the most?Â
Posted by Far-Building3569
41 Comments
JosĂ© Mourinho can speak Italian, Spanish, French, Catalan (when he was an assistant manager at Barça), and English. He’s Portuguese, so his native language is Portuguese.
Shakira is cool.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt speaks 5. He counts.
Not that it’s anything crazy like 6 language, but I was super surprised to learn that both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck spoke Spanish.
I did not know about tom hiddelston
Emilia Clarke can speak Valyrian!
So was Natalie Portman like English 🇬🇧 and English 🇺🇸?
Natalie portman learnt 2 types of English?
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does tom hiddeston speak greek or did he study ancient greek in undergrad lol
!!!! DANIEL BRĂśHL MENTION!!!!!!
Iñaki Godoy (who plays Monkey D. Luffy in the live action adaptation of One Piece) is fluent in English, Spanish, and is semi-fluent in Japanese.
Spanish is his native language due to him being born and raised in Mexico, he learned English as part of his work as an actor, and he learned Japanese to better engage with One Piece’s Japanese fans (and picked up the language very quickly).
I honestly doubt half of these celebrities speak half of these languages. You think Natalie is fluent in Japanese? She took a couple classes 20 years ago.
How are we defining “speak a language” because I’ve noticed that a lot of Brits and Americans say they “speak a language” when they can’t even have a simple conversation in that language, while here in the Netherlands a lot if people will say they can’t speak German/French even tough they can at least have a little conversation/order stuff/understand directions etc.
This comment is not to shit on those people not being able to speak different languages, it’s just that the standard for saying you speak a language can differ a lot between cultures.
Freddie Highmore literally majored (or “double first” in the UK?) in Spanish and Arabic (though I think he did say he doesn’t consider himself that fluent in Arabic?) and grew up speaking French.
Well, TBF, some celebrities have actually served as secret agents – Christopher Lee, Josephine Baker, Julia Child, to name a few.
I’m going to doubt the fluency with which most of these celebs speak at least some of these languages listed until proven otherwise
This posts reads like ai wrote it. The descriptions are kinda weird.
Why would anyone think going to Harvard would stop Natalie Portman from learning multiple languages?
tbh viggo’s list is wild, arabic AND catalan?? dudes basically a UN translator lol
I mean can they speak or all conversationally?
Why… would studying at Harvard stop someone from learning other languages?
I dont want to be an asshole or undermine people’s achivements because is impresive to know many languages but how many of these claims can be proved? Ive never seen Natalie portman speak fluently japannese or german for example or Viggo speaking arabic ( maybe there is footage I havent seen). Shakira seems to be the only one with online footage to back those claims of multiple languages and not just one or two ( still impresive)
Also I have known many people claiming to speak spanish and they are just in a basic level and cant hold a real conversation, so I dont know anymore but I
 would love to see the footage backing this claims.
I don’t mean to be dismissive but speaking multiple languages from the same family is a lot less impressive than speaking multiple languages from different families.
Speaking Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan is a whole lot less impressive than speaking Danish, Arabic, and Korean.
What is defined as “speaking a language”? Can these actors watch a movie in these languages without subtitles? Can they hold a conversation with a native speaker? Can they read an entire book in this language?
I took Spanish in high school for 4 years (like most Americans), but I wouldn’t say I speak Spanish just because I know a few words and can string together a couple of sentences.
What about this guy?
I want to say Elsa Pataky, Chris Hemsworth’s wife, is fluent in Romanian, Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, and French. The Romance language aficionado.
Jackson Wang
He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, English, Korean, and has said he’s learning Japanese
The Natalie Portman one is not true! She doesn’t speak all of these languages. She knows several rudimentary expressions in each. She still conducts a lot of her French interviews in English.
Most of them don’t speak all of those languages tbh
Mortensen’s Spanish is native level, with Argentinian accent (but he can play with Spanish accents as well). He grew up speaking Spanish and it shows.
Daniel Bruhl has a high level Spanish but with a very distinctive German accent. He wouldn’t pass for a native for the life of him.
Christopher Lee was a polyglot, fluent in English, French, Italian and German and a few others I think, and spoke a few more.
Do they really “know” all those languages? Like, are they actually fluent? I know some of them are very similar, but the “Latin” for Tom Hiddleston is  at least a joke, come on now.Â
Many Indian actors would fall into this category. And many of the various Indian languages are completely uninterpretable to each other, with different scripts, so it’s not just like knowing different dialects
A significant lack of Christoph Waltz
I saw a video with Shakira giving interviews in all languages fluently, including accent and everything. Very impressive!
Latin isn’t a spoken language and hasn’t been for a long time. I studied it in college in the 90s.
Guarantee that title will trigger somebody and there will be a Portman conspiracy born because of it.
Calling routine interview answers fluent feels weird, but Tom Hiddleston latin is legit. Just curious who even checked these facts.