{"id":711,"date":"2019-12-16T23:02:49","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T23:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pandatree.com\/blog\/?p=711"},"modified":"2021-04-03T02:52:37","modified_gmt":"2021-04-03T02:52:37","slug":"an-interview-with-santa-claus-polyglot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/16\/an-interview-with-santa-claus-polyglot\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with Santa Claus, Polyglot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Picture<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ever wonder how Santa Claus copes with letters from kids in hundreds of different languages? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Interviewer<\/strong>: Mr. Claus, thank you for joining us\ntoday. I know it is a really busy time of year for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Claus: <\/strong>Ho ho, glad to be here. Some of the elves\nwere starting to get testy so I\u2019m glad for a little break. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Interviewer: <\/strong>And Mr. Claus, what should I call you? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Claus:<\/strong> Oh, you can call me anything. I answer to\nso many names. Saint Nicholas, Sinterklaas, Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Pere\nNoel, Papai Noel, Julenisse, Noel Baba, Father Christmas, Babbo Natale, Sion\nCorn, I could keep going. It doesn\u2019t matter what you call me, I\u2019ll still\nanswer. Ho ho. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Okay, I\u2019ll stick to Mr. Claus. I want to ask you about languages. How many languages do you speak? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Claus: <\/strong>The last time I counted, I speak about 84 languages fluently, and I can understand enough to read a Christmas letter in another 100 or so languages.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewer: <\/strong>That\u2019s remarkable. How did you learn so\nmany?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Claus:<\/strong> Well I didn\u2019t learn them all at once.\nOriginally I was most popular in Europe, so I spoke Turkish, Greek, Italian, English,\nGerman, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Over the years my popularity has grown,\nand now I get letters from kids all over the world. I think TV and movies have\nreally helped my reputation spread. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you know, I\u2019m pretty old, so I\u2019ve had a lot of time to\nlearn. And once Christmas is over there\u2019s nothing I like better than putting a\nfire on and reading a book in a different language. Lately I\u2019ve been learning Rotokas,\nwhich is spoken in part of Papua New Guinea. There are only about 12 letters in\nits alphabet! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> What do you do if you get a letter from a\nchild in a language you don\u2019t know yet? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Claus: <\/strong>Well, Mrs. Claus speaks another 45\nlanguages, and my elves are all multilingual. Together we can handle just about\nanything. If we really get stuck we use Google Translate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have to be careful with Google Translate though. If a\nkid asks for a Kindle they aren\u2019t looking for firewood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewer: <\/strong>How do you learn new languages?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Claus: <\/strong>Conversation practice is key. I like to\ntalk to the Elves in their native languages. And I make it fun. Mrs. Claus and\nI sometimes play Scrabble in different languages. One year the Elves made us a\nspecial Scrabble set with the letters and accents from different languages. And\nof course, once you\u2019ve learned a second language, each additional language gets\neasier. There\u2019s a lot of commonalities between different languages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it still takes work. Portuguese verb conjugations \u2013 now that\ntook a lot of practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image
Mr. Santa Claus in his study practicing Portuguese verb conjugations. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Do you have a favorite language? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Claus:<\/strong> They are all my favorite. Each language\nhas something to appreciate, it\u2019s like music. I love rolling my rrr\u2019s in\nSpanish. I love making the tongue clicks in Xhosa. I love the facial expressions\nin American Sign Language. I love the tones in Chinese. Each language helps you\nsee something different about the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> What keeps your mind so alert? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Claus:<\/strong> Oh, I never stop learning. There\u2019s always new words being invented, especially in the toy business. This year there are words like Osmo, Lumies, Hatchimals, Owleez, Novie, Hairdorables… I could go on. I may be old, but it’s my job to keep up. Language changes and there are always new words to learn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Thank you, Mr. Claus. Merry Christmas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Claus:<\/strong> Thank you. Ho ho ho. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever wonder how Santa Claus copes with letters from kids in hundreds of different languages? Interviewer: Mr. Claus, thank you for joining us today. I know it is a really busy time of year for you. Mr. Claus: Ho ho, glad to be here. Some of the elves were starting to get testy so I\u2019m … Continue reading “An Interview with Santa Claus, Polyglot”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"coauthors":[16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720,"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dashboard.pandatree.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}