President Obama Speaks Indonesian!!!!!!!!

[MochaMan121]

Did anyone notice when the President was getting ready to glad-hand with reporters, an Indonesian reporter spoke to President Obama in his native tongue and he answered him and they spoke to each other for about 30 seconds. WOW.Mr. President is full of suprises.


Let me make myself perfectly clear. They were speaking in a specific Indonesian dialect.

[leftstreet]

1. What did he say?

[jkirch]

4. Gado Gado.

[whirlygigspin]

15. mmm, delicious, now i'm hungry

:rofl:

[54anickel]

18. Just made some for supper tonight. Had to use Skippy, but mmmm good! n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. he used to live there

[CatWoman]

6. isn't his stepfather Indonesian

as well as his half sister?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. yes

[Kaylee]

3. I caught the tail end of this...what did he say?

[Triana]

5. He does. That's been mentioned in a place or two - maybe one of his books...

..can't remember.

[Lex]

10. Yes, in "Dreams From My Father" he talks about his time in Indonesia.

:)

[K Gardner]

26. He picked up Indonesian so well that his mother had to tutor him in English prior to sending him

back home.. that's in his first book. :-)

[Aviation Pro]

8. As opposed to Two Shoes.....

...whose Spanish was how shall we say it, shit.

[SeattleGirl]

9. Hell, Two Shoes couldn't even speak English!

[TheKentuckian]

14. That was my 1st thought

nt

[Hawkeye-X]

11. Once again, here's my complete knowledge of Indonesian..

Kamar Kecil (which means toilet) - found on an airplane (since long sold, was previously acquired by Frontier from Garuda Indonesia)

Hawkeye-X

[InvisibleTouch]

12. Cool!

I know from my Indonesian relatives that there are numerous dialects in the country, some differing to the point where they can't understand each other. (A surprise to me, when I pestered my cousins to tell me what the lyrics meant to the cool Indonesian music I was listening to. Or maybe they just didn't want to translate. :)) I can only assume, though, just like there's an "evening news" English and a "high German," there's a "main" dialect in Indonesia also. Sadly I've forgotten what little I knew, by now.

[Posteritatis]

22. Indonesia has eleventy brazillion language families

It's nuts that way; anthropologist's nightmare, linguist's dream, etc. Going around the region you can apparently find two neighboring communities here and there where the languages are about as similar as Japanese and Finnish.

The actual count is something like 750. Gah.

[anakie]

30. that maybe true

but they have a common language - Bahasa Indonesian. Bahasa is also spoken in Malaysia. Probably a bit like the English spoken in say Mississippi compared to Canadian English. Same language, often sounding very different.


Peace

[EraOfResponsibility]

13. I saw that on tv today I wish it was on youtube

[Clio the Leo]

16. Who? Huh? What? When was this?

So I can try to find it.

[pot luck]

17. ABC has the video up on their website.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6712102

It's the second video: "Obama shows off his Indonesian."

[K Gardner]

27. Went to the link but couldn't find it.. !

[Kaylee]

28. Too f'in cool....

Of course we all knew he lived there, but I didn't realize he still remembered the language. It is so amazing to have a President who has experienced the world.

[bdamomma]

38. I think he's just great so cool in manner and demeanor.

what a change unbelieveable.

[marimour]

19. is there video of this?

I would love to see it.

[Igel]

20. He lived there for a couple of years as a child.

Children learn languages quickly when they're exposed to them and motivated to use them. It would have been irresponsible of his mother not to let him learn the local language (presumably the local variant of Bahasa Indonesian, I don't think they were in the boonies), and irresponsible of him not to have made considerable effort to learn it.

I forget where, exactly, he was: That would determine, probably, the language he'd have learned (if not just the standard, national language, Indonesian). Quoting Ethnologue, "The number of languages listed for Indonesia is 742. Of those, 737 are living languages, 2 are second language without mother-tongue speakers, and 3 are extinct." http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=ID

He probably has limited heritage speaker ability at this point, a balanced bilingual he isn't.

[Posteritatis]

21. That's gotta be a new one for the presidents

Various European languages, Latin or Greek, they've been done, though I can't argue with a president (or anyone else) having any second/third/etc languages.

I wonder where the other recent presidents stand in terms of other languages...

[Metric System]

23. That just ain't right. The President should only speak American.

[kskiska]

24. Clinton spoke some German

Not many people know that.

[InvisibleTouch]

39. I knew it.

That's cool to me too, because in addition to Indonesian relatives, I also have German relatives.

[rvablue]

25. Big deal. Most halfway intelligent people can speak a few sentences in another language

it's just another faux "heart attack" from the MSM about something that EVERY American should be able to do.

I think it's cool. But not impresive. All of us should be able to do this at the ripe old age of 47.

That is, if we were doing the right things.

[Kaylee]

29. The ability to speak another language is not the impressive part.

As you said many of us speak a few sentences in Spanish, French or German. Rather it is the fact that it is an Indonesian dialect he can speak. Too often we find only value in European cultures. To see that he remembers enough Indonesian to understand and respond to the State Department employee is exciting. To have a President that has lived and experienced cultures that many of us have never even visited gives him a unique perspective that will serve him well in office. I mean we went from a President that never went outside of the country (except for a Tequila run to Mexico) to a President with Kenyan, American and Indonesian experiences. To me it is a BIG DEAL.

[Posteritatis]

41. There's a reason that trilingual/bilingual/American joke exists, though

A president being fluent in another language - especially a non-Indo-European language - actually is weird enough these days to be worthy of note. Remember, people who speak more than one language often get attacked in American election campaigns because of it.

[niceypoo]

31. He went to grade school there....

...of course he speaks indonesian

[ellacott]

32. I was at a Muslim blog and the people were impressed that he prounounced Pakistan correctly

They were impressed with him and that swayed their minds to him more than anything. They said it showed he had enough respect for them that he takes the time to pronounce their country correctly.

[ClarkUSA]

33. Barack speaks Indonesian fluently. He grew up there, after all.

Some things you don't forget. :shrug:

[beac]

34. And cue freeper outrage in 5... 4... 3... 2...

[bdamomma]

35. that's great, President Obama is sooo multi cultural.

[olkaz]

36. Oh whatever. Bush could speak fluent Spanglish!

A monkey speaking spanglish IS impressive.

[Maven]

37. OMG I KNEW HE WAS A MUSLIN

;)

[Vinca]

40. Yep . . . and he was probably giving instructions to the "cell."

:rofl: