Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A celebrity or not, anyone can learn foreign languages. We opted to learn English and used the skill to make the world smaller by bridging language gaps.
The following list of polyglots include not only celebrities in entertainment but also people who etched their names in politics, sports, and more. They are sorted by second language. Check it out:
Spanish
Al Gore
Antonio Banderas
Audrey Hepburn
Benicio del Toro
David Lee Roth
Dusty Baker
Gwenyth Paltrow
Kate Bosworth
Penélope Cruz
Ricky Martin
Will Smith
French
Alanis Morissette
Bradley Cooper
Celine Dion
Claudia Schiffer
Hugh Grant
Jodie Foster
John Kerry
Johnny Depp
Mitt Romney
Morgan Freeman
Tony Blair
William Shatner
German
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bill Clinton
Dirk Nowitzki
Heidi Klum
Kim Cattrall
Renée Zellweger
Sandra Bullock
Italian
Clint Eastwood
Colin Firth
Kobe Bryant
Russian
Condoleezza Rice
Montel Williams
Sidney Poitier
Some of those appearing on the list might surprise you. We are definitely amazed. While several have a native advantage in speaking a lanuage other than english, many made the effort to go to language schools, knowing as many do how beneficial learning other tongues is.
The following lists of celebs are people who are not just knowledgeable in one single foreign language, but many foreign languages indeed!
- Audrey Hepburn – Spanish, French, Dutch/Flemish, Italian
- Cillian Murphy – French and Irish (Gaelic)
- Garry Kasparov – Russian, German
- Ingrid Bergman – Swedish, French, German, Italian
- Jennifer Connelly – Italian and French
- Maya Angelou – French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, and Fanti
- Monica Bellucci – Italian, French, Spanish
- Montgomery Clift – French, Italian, German
- Mother Teresa – Albanian, Serbo-Croat, Bengali, Hindi
- Natalie Portman – Hebrew, some French, German, Japanese and Spanish
- Pope Benedict XVI – German, Italian, French, Spanish, Latin
- Salma Hayek – Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese
- Shakira – Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Arabic
- Ted Koppel – German, Russian, French
- Viggo Mortensen – Spanish, Danish, French; some Swedish and Norwegian
Aren’t they amazing too? And lastly, the following list includes celebrities you may be surprised to know speak unusual languages:
- Charlize Theron – Afrikaans
- Christiane Amanpour – Farsi (Persian)
- Colin Powell – passable Yiddish
- Kelly Clarkson – Greek
- Mike Huckabee – koine Greek (reading only)