What Languages Do The Royals Speak?

[norwegianne]

back on topic. imo, henri has a pretty thick accent when speaking english, and margrethe does sound british, she threw me for a loop when i heard her speak english for the first time.

I don't find it very odd that Margrethe sounds British when she speaks English. After all, she attended boarding school there for a year, and later studied at both Cambridge, and London School of Economics.

King Harald of Norway and Queen Sonja also have slight British accents, I think, after having studied in Britain.

Of course, after 5 years in exile in USA when he was a boy, Harald and his sisters's English was so American that his grandfather, who had spent the war in London, shuddered at it. It didn't help that Harald couldn't understand the King's Norwegian, which was rather mixed in with Danish, as Harald had been taught mostly a very standard form of Norwegian during the war, and so that they had to speak English together.

And someone please correct me if I an wrong, but I thought Danish and Dutch were supposed to be difficult to learn

I don't know about Dutch, but Danish is supposed to be very difficult to most of the Western World. It is, strangely enough, supposed to be easier to learn for people knowing Chinese, as the rhythm and melody of the two languages are similar. And, let's not forget, amidst the difficulties: Danish is not spoken as it is written. At all. Half of the letters in Danish written words are never pronounced, and those that are... well, they never really sound the way you imagine that they sound... It can make it very difficult to learn.

 

[His Lordship]

I think to my American ears, I agree with the other person who said that Prince Albert sounds totally "American" when he speaks.

Prince Charles, for some reason, to me always seems like he stretches out the syllables in his words and is sometimes hard to understand. He sounds very POSH, as the English say, when he speaks, but that should be expected from a crown prince.

 

[sara1981]

I think to my American ears, I agree with the other person who said that Prince Albert sounds totally "American" when he speaks.

Prince Charles, for some reason, to me always seems like he stretches out the syllables in his words and is sometimes hard to understand. He sounds very POSH, as the English say, when he speaks, but that should be expected from a crown prince.

i would agree with you!

Prince Charles hardly understand what to says! but i understand why!

and I like Prince Albert's sound as American how many he speaks languages?

Sara Boyce

 

[Elspeth]

It seems that the younger the British royals are, the less upper-class they sound. The Queen and Queen Mother have/had real cut-glass accents; Prince Charles sounds a bit more normal in his vowel sounds, and some of the younger siblings and cousins have quite a bit of Estuary English mixed in their delivery.

 

[His Lordship]

I would imagine that each royal speaks their native language first, then English because of the universal use of it, then usually French and German, maybe Spanish.

 

[Eva-Britt]

I'm also very interested in wich languages they (really!) speak. You know princess Mathilde was said to be very fluent in Dutch.. but the new generation speaks it very well, the children of princess Astrid are bilingual...

Does someone know wich languages princess Mabel speaks? She is such a wonderful lady! I read that she studied Slavic languages for her work in the Balkan but wich one does she really speaks?

 

[asma]

The difficult question is:which language is spoken inside each royal family?most of these families are mixed.spain RF is spanish german.Dutch RF is german,dutch and argantinian.Danish RF is danish,french,hong kong ,german.

 

[pollyemma]

Queen Beatix speaks Danish. As well as Dutch (duh) and english. Does anyone know what else she speaks?

 

[Eva-Britt]

Beatrix can also speak French

 

[EmpressRouge]

I've heard that Felipe speaks great Catalan but does not speak it in public.

 

[zarzuela]

True, he does speak Catalan. He usually includes a few phrases in Catalan when he gives speeches in Catalonia. You can see this at the Spanish oyal Household website. I've noticed that some of his speeches given in Portugal include phrases in Portuguese so I am wondering if he can actually speaks that language... perhaps he can.

 

[jacqueline28]

I have heard Queen Sofia speak Spanish,it is perfect but she has a slight accent I do not know what it is,but it doesn't sound Castilian at all.I probably think that some words shared by the Greek and Spanish languages she pronounces it in the Greek way,which is just fascinating.

 

[yapyap814]

What does Letizia speak? and Felipe?

 

[Doña Metizia]

The Spanish Royal family speak both English and Spanish. Letizia has been learning English.

 

[yapyap814]

The Spanish Royal family speak both English and Spanish. Letizia has been learning English.

learning english? wasn't she a news reporter? shouldn't she know how to speak english already?

 

[Ennyllorac]

learning english? wasn't she a news reporter? shouldn't she know how to speak english already?

Why would a reporter from Spain need to know English? If she does have a 2nd language it doesn't necessarily have to be English. Do all American reporters know a 2nd language? Don't get me wrong, I think in today's World knowing other languages is definitley an asset.

 

[Lena]

As I get it Letizia´s english was brought on a higher level in the past 1.5 years. She surely had english in school and I guess as news reporter she has needed it every now and then. I might be wrong, but I think, she has also reported about international conflicts and for such things it´s surely an advantage to speak some english (since the international news world is based on english and big stations like CNN). Letizia is a hard working woman, and I can´t imagine, that she has just read the news without knowing about what she reported and how her colleagues have found that out...

 

[redeye215]

Does anyone know what languages the Scandanavian royals communicate in? I know Margarethe speaks Swedish but what about the rest of the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian royals?

 

[SpiffyBallerina]

I read somewhere that when the Scandinavian queens get together, they speak in Swedish. Queen Margrethe knows Swedish (I'm told it's excellent) as does Queen Silvia (obviously) and Queen Sonja learned it because it is supposed to be very similar to Norweigan.

 

[bct88]

Queen Beatix speaks Danish. As well as Dutch (duh) and english. Does anyone know what else she speaks?

Queen Beatrix speaks Danish? I've never heard that before. What would be her reason for learning Danish? I know she speaks German, English, and French apart from Dutch, but Danish?

 

[zarzuela]

Here's an extract of Queen Sofia's closing speech in Singapore in English, German, Greek, French and Spanish.

Finally, I wish to express my warmest regards and to thank you from the bottom of my heart for considering our Bid. We look forward to seeing you in Madrid.

Zuletzt möchte Ich Ihnen noch meine herzlichsten Grüsse übermitteln, und mich bei Ihnen sehr herzlich bedanken. Wir erwarten Sie in Madrid!

TELEIWNONTAS QA HQELA NA SAS DIABIBASW TOUS FILIKOUS MOU CAIRETISMOUS KAI NA SAS EUCARISTHSW EK BAQOUS KARDIAS GIA OLA. SAS PERIMENOUME STH MADRITH.

Finalement, avec mes meilleurs vœux, je vous remercie de votre attention. Nous vous attendons à Madrid.

Quiero, finalmente, transmitiros un saludo muy afectuoso y daros las gracias de todo corazón. Os esperamos en Madrid.

http://www.theroyalforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=166190

 

[redeye215]

Here is a video clip of Martha Louise speaking English in 2001. Thanks to Mandy for posting it on the Norwegian royals section of the forum.

http://www.idea2001.no/video/prinsessen.mov

 

[Smilla]

Why would a reporter from Spain need to know English? If she does have a 2nd language it doesn't necessarily have to be English. Do all American reporters know a 2nd language? Don't get me wrong, I think in today's World knowing other languages is definitley an asset.

Virtually everybody in Europe learns English at school, usually 4-8 years. After all, it's THE world language, and much business correspondence, etc. is in English. Americans are just lucky enough to speak it already, so everybody will understand them easily.

 

[Hannelore]

The Spanish Royal family speak both English and Spanish. Letizia has been learning English.

about time.

 

[lula]

The Princess Letizia if she was speaking English (for example, she was in the USA, covering the first anniversary of 11S, for what she had to speak it), but her English level was not that of other members of the Spanish Royal Family, where they all are bilingual (Spanish and English) from children. Because of it, she received classes of an English teacher, who forms the Spanish diplomats.

 

[zarzuela]

Does Princess Diana spoke any language other than English?

 

[marlene]

I don't understand why people would be so surprised that Letizia doesn't speak english.She lived and worked in Spain,not in America.Very few american reporters can speak another language fluently.Lets not be too ethnocentric in our views here.She was an excellent journalist and obviously her lack of english didn't hurt her career.Everyone talks about the fact that english is "the " language to speak, well the newest language statistics put forth last week indicate that if you want to do business and be successful at it you'd better be fluent in Mandarin by the year 2012.

 

[redeye215]

Princess Diana had to learn Welsh as she was the Princess of Wales. Although i'm not sure how fluent she was.

 

[zarzuela]

The thing is that Princess Letizia does speak English, perhaps she was not as fluent as the other members of the Spanish Royal Family, but that's why she's been receiving formal English lessons suitable for a Princess. She needs to learn diplomatic English rather than common English and I guess that she has improved a lot since she married Prince Felipe more than a year ago. In fact, I read that she started to take those lessons before thier marriage.

I don't understand why some of the members of this forum are so astonished as to why she doesn't speak perfect English... I think that it is just a matter of time. If by the time she becomes Queen of Spain her English level hasn't improved then I would agree that there is something wrong with her, but for the time being I think that she's been doing a good job trying to improve her English skills.

 

[Queen Malka]

Soraya of Iran spoke German, French, Persian, Italian and even english. Her linguistics were one of the reasons why the Shah chose to marry her because she could communicate and help him drive Iran's interests towards the west.