Cristiano Ronaldo is a global sensation and a name that is virtually known around the whole world. He is definitely one of the most popular footballers in the history of the game and among the true icons of combat sports since its inception.
Ronaldo has a reach around the globe that can rarely be matched by any other sportsperson of his generation. He has over 550 million followers on Instagram, and arguably many more fans who are not present on the social media platform either.
Because of how popular he is among fans from different countries and his journey of having played in a lot of different leagues in his career, Ronaldo has had to develop a fluent vocabulary that allows him to interact smoothly with people of different languages.
It’s almost the duty of a footballer to make themselves fluent in the language of the country where they are playing. Some footballers take time, but being the dedicated professional he is, Ronaldo is obsessed with putting in the work and adapting himself to different environments smoothly.
Where has Ronaldo played in his career?
The Portuguese forward’s career, of course, started out in his home country as he found the spotlight thanks to his heroics at Sporting Lisbon. He then joined Manchester United (England) in 2003 and went on to introduce himself to football fans – winning his first Ballon d’Or trophy with them in 2008 as well.
In 2009, he joined Real Madrid and spent the major chunk of his career with Los Blancos (Spain) – winning four Champions League titles as well as a few La Liga trophies as well – all while fighting it out with arch-rival Lionel Messi.
Ronaldo left Madrid to play for Juventus (Italy) for a couple of years, before his famous return to United in 2021. Of course, his second stint in Manchester wasn’t as memorable – as he ended up leaving in bitter fashion last year and went on to pen a world record deal with Saudi Arabia club Al Nassr.
The Portuguese forward is now dominating the Saudi Pro League and scoring goals left right and centre. He also appears to have started learning the language of Arabic, which is the language spoken in Saudi Arabia. Ronaldo recently uttered a few Arabic words in an interview, something that was adored by the fans.
How many languages can Ronaldo speak?
It appears that Ronaldo has added yet another language to his vocabulary. He is known to speak five other languages, some more fluently than others. Of course, Portuguese is his mother tongue, and it’s one language he’s obviously mastered.
Ronaldo can also fluently speak Spanish and English – thanks to the many years he spent playing for Real Madrid and United in their respective countries. During his years at Juventus, Cristiano also learned to speak Italian to make himself more comfortable with the Italy crowd and teammates at the club.
One surprising language that some fans might not know him to speak, is Russian. Ronaldo has given a few interviews in Russian and can at least speak the lingo, even if he’s not totally fluent. That is because his ex-girlfriend Irina Shayk – with whom he had a five-year relationship – was Russian.
So Ronaldo can speak five languages pretty well, and Arabic will be the sixth one in his arsenal. Cristiano appears to be serious about seeing out his two-year contract with Al Nassr and will hope to take them to become the best club in Asia – as well as improve their global popularity using his insane reach.
