When a group of world leaders meets to talk about important global issues,
how do they communicate?
The G7 leaders, for example, speak five different languages.
Can you imagine trying to organize interpreters for all those languages?
Sometimes it’s easier to pick one language that most people have in common, and use that.
These days, the lingua franca is English.
But just how good are world leaders at English?
Hey everyone, I’m Abbe, a native English speaker
and English teacher here at MosaLingua.
Today, I’m “rating” the English skills of Presidents,
Prime Ministers, and other world leaders.
Before getting started, a little “disclaimer”:
I’m not here to criticize or make fun of these people.
I really admire anyone who puts in the work to learn a foreign language! ;)
Instead, my goal in analyzing their English was to find a learner takeaway for you,
so that you can learn something from them.
Let’s get right into it, with the newest representative in the Group of 7,
Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany.
A little background on Chancellor Scholz,
he didn’t go to school in an English-speaking country like a lot of his counterparts.
We haven’t heard much from him yet in English, since he was only recently elected.
But have a listen to this clip:
"Do you think it's possible to reach an agreement
before the US election...with the US?"
"I think it is possible to reach an agreement and
if there's enough effort it is always possible to do it really soon,
because we have agreements.
So if we put something to it... add something to it,
it is something that is really feasible.
But in the end it depends on all sides."
One good thing that Scholz does in this interview
is repeat the wording of the question in his answer.
When the reporter asked, “Do you think it is possible to reach an agreement?”
Instead of saying, “Yes,” he said,
“I think it is possible to reach an agreement,” and then he explained why.
This is an easy strategy you can use to sound more fluent—and not just in English.
It helps you build a more complete sentence, tells the speaker that you understood the question,
and gives you a few extra seconds to think about what you’ll say next.
One critique I have is that his intonation is
a bit flat and monotonous in some spots.
In English especially, our voices go up and down a lot,
for example to convey emphasis or emotion or mark the end of a thought.
German is usually more measured, and the pitch range in German
is a little bit narrower than in English.
Because English speakers rely on intonation like a roadmap,
it’s easy to get lost in what he is saying.
Now, it’s worth learning about the main differences
between your native language and your target language.
Knowing the common difficulties for speakers of your native language
can guide your learning process.
Next up is another leader who is relatively new to this group:
Mario Draghi, Italy’s Prime Minister since February 2021.
He earned a PhD in Economics from one of the most prestigious schools in the United States,
MIT, in the ‘70s,
and since then he has held quite a few positions in or with close ties to the US.
So theoretically, he should have excellent English skills,
at least when it comes to matters of finance and economics.
Let’s find out if that’s the case!
"...furthermore, when we look at the banks over all the Euro zone,
we see that their profits last year actually went up.
And this is the first year when interest rates had been negative.
And even the return they had
from the net interest income also increased,
which says basically that the category, overall, did well.
And within the category, of course, we have weak banks and strong banks."
Okay! He clearly knows his economics terminology, like I predicted,
and he seems quite comfortable speaking in English.
Transition phrases, like “Furthermore…” and filler words like “basically” and “of course”
make his English sound overall pretty natural.
In terms of mechanics, his “th” sounds are great.
And this is something that a lot of learners struggle with.
That brings me to something he does a little bit less well: vowel sounds.
So Italian vowels are big and round,
so his accent is more pronounced when he says words like “up,” for example.
My mouth is only somewhat open when I say “up,”
but his is wide open: “aahp.”
He also struggles with some other minimal pairs,
for instance /ee/ and /i/
as in “did,” and “interest,” which he pronounces "een-trest."
One thing you can learn from Mario Draghi’s English is that
mastering just two or three English sounds can drastically improve the way
native speakers perceive your pronunciation.
I’d really recommend working hard on your “th” sounds as a priority.
And I’ll link to a few videos that can help you.
Next up, Emmanuel Macron of France.
The French president never studied in an Anglophone country,
but he did have a great-grandfather who was English!
He gives a lot of interviews and speeches in English,
unlike his predecessors, which to me shows a lot of courage.
But does practice make perfect?
Have a look:
"Ahh...look, we are catching up.
And definitely we are vaccinating more and more people,
we vaccinated more than 12 million people
and we have, mid-May, the objective of 20 million; 30 million, mid-June.
And at the end of the summer all the adults will be offered a vaccine.
Which means that we are progressing
and we will progressively lift the restrictions after the beginning of May..."
Emmanuel Macron is a confident speaker.
So even though his English is far from perfect, it’s not painful to listen to.
He gets people so interested in what he is saying,
that we don’t focus so much on how he’s saying it.
So confidence goes a long way!
Now he does use some French sentence structures,
which shows that he’s probably thinking in French
and translating his thoughts into English on the spot,
rather than thinking in English.
Also, he has very French-sounding pronunciation for cognates.
Cognates are words that are very similar in two languages,
but they usually have slightly different pronunciation.
In this clip we heard “progressively,” and “restrictions” for example.
Now, we know that he can make a good English "r" sound,
because we heard it in other words,
so I think he's probably being influenced by the similar-looking French words.
If there’s one tip I’d give learners based on these clips,
it’s to make sure that YOU don’t fall into the
cognate pronunciation trap that Macron does.
Just because it takes less effort to learn the meaning of these words
doesn’t mean you should neglect learning the proper pronunciation!
And finally, the Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida.
Kishida actually moved to the United States for about 3 years when he was a child,
because of his father’s job.
He went to public school in New York City.
Let’s find out if he kept up his English skills!
"A country regarded as reliable by another country
will not lose that status overnight.
And this is because winning another country's trust
takes time and concrete actions, as well as words."
Overall, Kishida’s pronunciation of individual words is quite accurate.
He takes the time to enunciate, so his message gets across clearly.
It helps that his speech is well-written...
Unfortunately I couldn’t find a clip of him speaking more spontaneously.
The main issue I have with Kishida’s English is that it’s choppy.
He pronounces every word separately and doesn’t
connect them like a native speaker would.
Now you might think this makes your speech more clear,
but in fact, it just makes you sound robotic,
and it’s going to be difficult to sit through an entire 30-minute speech that sounds like this.
Now, this could be because he isn’t very familiar with the text he’s reading,
so if you have an English speech or presentation coming up,
be sure to practice, practice, practice,
in front of a native speaking conversation partner, if possible.
If you find that your own English isn’t very smooth, work on linking.
Especially if you are an intermediate or advanced learner
and already have a good-sized vocabulary,
listening to a lot of native content in English and practicing with targeted exercises
will help you understand when to join the end of one word to the beginning of the next.
Of course, I’m not going to review the English skills of the other three G7 leaders
—Joe Biden of the US, Boris Johnson of the UK, and Justin Trudeau of Canada,
who is perfectly bilingual in English and French.
However, I do want to point out that Joe Biden has some trouble with spoken English,
because he has a stutter.
If he was able to overcome those speaking challenges
and become the President of the United States,
YOU don’t have any excuses!
I’m confident that you can overcome any fears
or embarrassment about your own English skills.
And if you need a boost, check out our Speak English with Confidence MasterClass.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and I’ll see you again soon!
Take care.
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