Amadou Onana has been one of Everton’s best signings over the last decade – a point in which the club has been notorious for engaging in bad business. The Belgian midfielder is the kind of explosive, energetic and physical outlet that is tailor-made for the intense Premier League matches.
The 22-year-old has a long career ahead and his heroics for the Toffees have attracted widespread attention. He’s heavily being linked to a summer move to a European heavyweight, with the likes of Barcelona and Manchester United being among the names reportedly interested. Not only is Onana is tough-tackling, all-round midfielder but he also possesses the character to represent a major club.
He is a humble, sociable personality who can definitely impress with his speaking skills. In fact, Onana’s English-speaking ability is so good that any random person would be stunned to learn that he isn’t raised in England.
Onana has often taken part in interviews or events where he’s spoken in extremely fluent English. This is especially surprising considering that the 22-year-old never even played in England before his move to Everton. He was born and raised in Dakar (Senegal) and spent 11 years in the country before moving to Belgium.
In Belgium, the ‘official languages’ spoken are either Dutch, French or German. But being a committed, studious child with an eagerness to learn – Onana ended up learning all three languages after moving to Belgium. Before that, he was already fluent in speaking Wolof – the language spoken in Senegal.
Before his move to Everton, Onana had already spent years playing in Germany (Hoffenheim II and Hamburg) and one season at Lille (2021-22) before arriving at Goodison Park in 2022. But it’s clear that the Belgian star had worked on his English-speaking skills well before his move to Everton, perhaps anticipating a future move to the Premier League.
Right from his arrival at Everton in 2022, Amadou has been surprising fans with his accent. Not only can he speak the English language fluently, but his accent has caught many fans by surprise. That is because he doesn’t seem to have the accent of someone raised in Senegal.
A lot of supporters were particularly surprised with how British Onana’s accent sounded like in a recent video he was featured in which the 22-year-old shows his daily routine during the holy month of Ramadan, where he needs to fast for entire days and also keep up his training routine.
Onana’s accent is actually really similar to many Afro-Brit people living in England. While he has quite a deep voice note, the 22-year-old’s words are perfectly understandable and come off as someone who has lived the majority of their life in the country.
He actually does come off as a person who has been raised in London, having a similar accent to many Londoners.
Football fans can’t stop admiring Onana due to his English-speaking skills and multi-lingual nature.
While Onana has never spoken about his English-speaking manner, he has often voiced how eager he is to keep learning. As a child, his favourite subject was maths as he once detailed: “I was really good at school and I liked maths. There were subjects like languages where I didn’t really have to do anything to get good grades, but in maths I had to dig in and work hard to understand it. That was kind of a challenge. And I’m a guy who likes challenges.”
It’s probably his love for challenging himself and his ability to quickly learn subjects that have allowed him to be so fluent in speaking so many languages. Onana probably had to take rigorous English lessons before his move to Everton, but has now perfected the language so well that he comes off as an Englishman in the manner he speaks. Being multi-lingual also helps open up future paths for him.
He can easily adapt to a German or French team if he joins them in the near future due to his experience of playing in the country and languages. While Onana might not speak Spanish, if he does join Barcelona, one can be sure that it won’t take much time for him to start speaking the local language fluently.
