Languages in teams

[Jg]

How are langauges taken care of for teams with many different nationalities? Do they pick one
language and that's it for everyone on the team? Is it usually the language that the team
originates from?

Do non-French riders on say, Brioche (Beloki now) need to speak French, continental Europeans speak
English on USPS, everybody start speaking German in Telekom, etc etc...

Is is usually a big problems for teams/riders? Are most riders multi lingual?

Thank you

[Antti Salonen]

JG <telfordutd@hotmail.com> wrote:

> How are langauges taken care of for teams with many different nationalities? Do they pick one
> language and that's it for everyone on the team? Is it usually the language that the team
> originates from?

I'm sure the country where the team comes from _generally_ dictates it. I would be surprised if
there are any Spanish, Italian or French teams in which the language used is not Spanish, Italian or
French, respectively. I'm sure in most teams there is a single language which everybody is expected
to know well enough.

In the Phonak team, it appears that mostly French and Spanish are used, even if the team is Swiss:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/?id=2004/jan04/jan16news1

I wonder about CSC, as I doubt everybody in the team knows Danish well enough to manage. Probably
English or French?

> Are most riders multi lingual?

Most likely. Most Europeans are multi-lingual to some degree.

-as

[Benjo Maso]

"Antti Salonen" <aksalone@blah.blah.cc.helsinki.fi.invalid> wrote in message
news:bvhfbp$jik$1@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
> JG <telfordutd@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > How are langauges taken care of for teams with many different
nationalities?
> > Do they pick one language and that's it for everyone on the team? Is it usually the language
> > that the team originates from?
>
> I'm sure the country where the team comes from _generally_ dictates it. I would be surprised if
> there are any Spanish, Italian or French teams in which the language used is not Spanish, Italian
> or French, respectively. I'm sure in most teams there is a single language which everybody is
> expected to know well enough.
>
> In the Phonak team, it appears that mostly French and Spanish are used, even if the team is Swiss:
>
> http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/?id=2004/jan04/jan16news1
>
> I wonder about CSC, as I doubt everybody in the team knows Danish well enough to manage. Probably
> English or French?
>
> > Are most riders multi lingual?
>
> Most likely. Most Europeans are multi-lingual to some degree.

But not all of the, Beloki doesn't speak one word French. On the other hand, Marcel Wust was fluent
in German, French, English, Spanish, Italian and Dutch.

Benjo Maso

[Ryan Cousineau]

In article <bvhhqp$re2jm$1@ID-75468.news.uni-berlin.de>,
"benjo maso" <benjo.maso@chello.nl> wrote:

> "Antti Salonen" <aksalone@blah.blah.cc.helsinki.fi.invalid> wrote in message
> news:bvhfbp$jik$1@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
> > JG <telfordutd@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > How are langauges taken care of for teams with many different
> nationalities?
> > > Do they pick one language and that's it for everyone on the team? Is it usually the language
> > > that the team originates from?
> >
> > I'm sure the country where the team comes from _generally_ dictates it. I would be surprised if
> > there are any Spanish, Italian or French teams in which the language used is not Spanish,
> > Italian or French, respectively. I'm sure in most teams there is a single language which
> > everybody is expected to know well enough.
> >
> > In the Phonak team, it appears that mostly French and Spanish are used, even if the team is
> > Swiss:
> >
> > http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/?id=2004/jan04/jan16news1

"Even if the team is Swiss"? Switzerland has three official languages, and French is one of them.

> > > Are most riders multi lingual?
> >
> > Most likely. Most Europeans are multi-lingual to some degree.
>
> But not all of the, Beloki doesn't speak one word French. On the other hand, Marcel Wust was
> fluent in German, French, English, Spanish, Italian and Dutch.

Not one word? It's still a Romance language. It's not Portuguese and Spanish, but I'd bet he gets
the gist of most simple conversations.

--
Ryan Cousineau, rcousine@sfu.ca http://www.sfu.ca/~rcousine President, Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club

[Poul Erik]

On 31 Jan 2004 23:56:41 GMT, Antti Salonen
<aksalone@blah.blah.cc.helsinki.fi.invalid> wrote:

>I wonder about CSC, as I doubt everybody in the team knows Danish well enough to manage. Probably
>English or French?

There "official" language is english.

Poul Erik Fjern cykel i adresse

--
== __o
Poul Erik Lindaa === _'\ <_ E-mail: lindaa@mail.tele.cykeldk
==== (¤)/ (¤)
------------------------------------------------------------

[Ewoud Dronkert]

On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 00:47:44 -0800, Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> "benjo maso" <benjo.maso@chello.nl> wrote:
>> Beloki doesn't speak one word French.
>
> Not one word? It's still a Romance language. It's not Portuguese and Spanish, but I'd bet he gets
> the gist of most simple conversations.

Sure. Doesn't mean he speaks it. I once witnessed a heated discussion between an Italian train
conducter and a Spanish passenger, each talking in his own language. And yesterday when Kevin
Pauwels won in Pontchâteau he talked to the commentator via an English-Dutch translator, although he
must have understood the simple questions (there's MTV in Belgium too).

[Benjo Maso]

"Ryan Cousineau" <rcousine@sfu.ca> wrote in message
news:rcousine-7C354B.00474401022004@morgoth.sfu.ca...
> In article <bvhhqp$re2jm$1@ID-75468.news.uni-berlin.de>, "benjo maso"
> <benjo.maso@chello.nl> wrote:
>
> > "Antti Salonen" <aksalone@blah.blah.cc.helsinki.fi.invalid> wrote in
message
> > news:bvhfbp$jik$1@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
> > > JG <telfordutd@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > How are langauges taken care of for teams with many different
> > nationalities?
> > > > Do they pick one language and that's it for everyone on the team? Is it usually the language
> > > > that the team originates from?
> > >
> > > I'm sure the country where the team comes from _generally_ dictates
it.
> > > I would be surprised if there are any Spanish, Italian or French teams in which the language
> > > used is not Spanish, Italian or French, respectively. I'm sure in most teams there is a single
> > > language which everybody is expected to know well enough.
> > >
> > > In the Phonak team, it appears that mostly French and Spanish are
used,
> > > even if the team is Swiss:
> > >
> > > http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/?id=2004/jan04/jan16news1
>
> "Even if the team is Swiss"? Switzerland has three official languages, and French is one of them.
>
> > > > Are most riders multi lingual?
> > >
> > > Most likely. Most Europeans are multi-lingual to some degree.
> >
> > But not all of the, Beloki doesn't speak one word French. On the other
hand,
> > Marcel Wust was fluent in German, French, English, Spanish, Italian and Dutch.
>
> Not one word? It's still a Romance language. It's not Portuguese and Spanish, but I'd bet he gets
> the gist of most simple conversations.

See http://www.rds.ca/cyclisme/chroniques/CYCLIS3FE1E0F9.html

Beloki: Tout va bien, l'unique problème c'est la langue. Je ne comprends rien de rien (rires). Mais,
bon, d'ici le Tour, j'aurais fait des progrès et j'espère comprendre au moins un peu de Français", a
affirmé dans un rire à l'AFP le coureur basque qui assure avoir été bien accueilli par ses nouveaux
coéquipiers.

Beloki: "Everything is fine, the only problem is the language. I understand absolutely nothing
(laughter). But well, from now on until the Tour, I should have made progress and I hope I will
understand at least some French".

Benjo Maso

[Antti Salonen]

Ryan Cousineau <rcousine@sfu.ca> wrote:

> "Even if the team is Swiss"? Switzerland has three official languages, and French is one of them.

I know that, but Spanish certainly is not.

-as

[Bvm]

I remember a few years ago someone like Bobby Julich was saying that when riders are just hanging
out, they gravitate towards people of the same language, not necessarily their team members. As for
on the team, how much talking can you do while riding? I'm sure they just have to know a few words
in the main language: attack, draft, get in the break. If there is something complicated, they
probably have some rider who can translate or talk on the team radio. Just my guess. You can see why
Botero had such a horrible TdF. He couldn't even talk with team members and didn't even practice
with them.

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 17:04:20 -0500, "JG" <telfordutd@hotmail.com> wrote:

>How are langauges taken care of for teams with many different nationalities? Do they pick one
>language and that's it for everyone on the team? Is it usually the language that the team
>originates from?
>
>Do non-French riders on say, Brioche (Beloki now) need to speak French, continental Europeans speak
>English on USPS, everybody start speaking German in Telekom, etc etc...
>
>Is is usually a big problems for teams/riders? Are most riders multi lingual?
>
>Thank you

[Otto]

I remember seeing botero warming up for the prologue (or maybe it was the first ITT) last year. His
helmet was too big, and he was complaining about it in english (a fairly bad level at that - even
worse than a NYC cabbie) to the mechanic, or whatever. From what I've heard from a friend who works
for adidas, I assume that french and english are the languages that the foreigners at t-mobile use
to communicate (at least socially).

BVM <bvonmoss@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<r3tq10t8jvioq0chadtjvh20hm9aal1f8k@4ax.com>...
> I remember a few years ago someone like Bobby Julich was saying that when riders are just hanging
> out, they gravitate towards people of the same language, not necessarily their team members. As
> for on the team, how much talking can you do while riding? I'm sure they just have to know a few
> words in the main language: attack, draft, get in the break. If there is something complicated,
> they probably have some rider who can translate or talk on the team radio. Just my guess. You can
> see why Botero had such a horrible TdF. He couldn't even talk with team members and didn't even
> practice with them.

[Alex]

Spanish speakers tend to understand better italian and to a slightly lesser extent portuguese.
Specially with italian there is a lot of commonality in both vocabulary, grammar and phonetics.
Portuguese is a bit more difficult phonetically but quite undertandable if spoken slowly. But
portuguese people will easily undertand spanish. Maybe this is because Spanish phonetics (specially
the vowels) are almost a subset of the others!

Spanish understanding spoken french?... Forget about it. I think even Romanian, among latin
dialects, is closer phonetically. But if you see it written, then everything becomes MUCH more
clear. Even then not as similar/easily as to Italian or Portuguese.

In Spain there are two other official languages that are dialects of latin: Catalonian and
Galician. Speakers of these will tend to undestand French and Portuguese respectively even better
than spanish speakers.

"Ewoud Dronkert" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:hcmp105bhq4vb062btj61jo0brtocq1h32@news.individual.net...
> On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 00:47:44 -0800, Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> > "benjo maso" <benjo.maso@chello.nl> wrote:
> >> Beloki doesn't speak one word French.
> >
> > Not one word? It's still a Romance language. It's not Portuguese and Spanish, but I'd bet he
> > gets the gist of most simple conversations.
>
> Sure. Doesn't mean he speaks it. I once witnessed a heated discussion between an Italian train
> conducter and a Spanish passenger, each talking in his own language. And yesterday when Kevin
> Pauwels won in Pontchâteau he talked to the commentator via an English-Dutch translator, although
> he must have understood the simple questions (there's MTV in Belgium too).

[Otto]

"alex" <alex.beascoechea@arcor.de> wrote in message news:

< Portuguese is a bit more difficult
> phonetically but quite undertandable if spoken slowly. But portuguese people will easily
> undertand spanish. Maybe this is because Spanish phonetics (specially the vowels) are almost a
> subset of the others!
>

From what friends from spain tell me, they find portuguese spoken by the portuguese pretty tough to
understand (except maybe for galicians). where as portuguese spoken by brazilians is easier to
understand. kind of like how i find spanish spoken by south american's and cubans/puerto ricans/etc
easier to understand than spanish spoken by spanish...?