Cafiero speaks in English at an expo in Dubai

[sts7049]

I still think he did a pretty good job. For having been in this exact situation several time but in reverse I give him credit.

I find him even more relatable when he called Lareta a dickhead on the radio. I eont know either one of them but that was pretty funny.

the radio interview was hilarious, with the hosts trying to translate dickhead to spanish hahaha

 

[Stantucker]

Hysterically funny. Literally made me laugh out loud.

And LORD but it's nice to hear that someone else sees through the BS coming from the Clarin mentimedia empire.

Better stick with that Kirchnerista rag sheet Página 12 and C5N then.

By the way, Majul is on La Nacion's tv news channel, not one owned by Clarin.

 

[BeraRane]

From my experience most people with manners and basic education are extremely forgiving when someone speaks a language that is not their own.

 

[elhombresinnombre]

Most in my Argentine circle agree with @Redpossum though I see this as a civil service failure and one that ought to be corrected at once - if that's politically expedient, that is. That speech would have been written for him by an advisor: by all accounts, his English reading, writing, listening, speaking skills are good but should that extend to error correction in a foreign language too? I'd say that it's his speech writer who needs a b******ing

 

[D.B. Cooper]

It reminded me of Manuel of Faulty Towers fame.
It sounds like he has no idea what he's talking about.
A total embarrassment.…Que???

 

[Redpossum]

It reminded me of Manuel of Faulty Towers fame.
It sounds like he has no idea what he's talking about.
A total embarrassment.…Que???

OK, that video was hysterical.

On the larger issue, I am generally supportive of Peronismo, and I do admire Cristina, but I am enraged by government officials who cannot be bothered to do their job. English is the international language in the world today. There is no excuse for the FM of Argentina, the nation's highest diplomat, to speak English so poorly in the first place, let alone to do such a poor job of preparing for a set speech.

But if you check his bio, you will see he was born in 1979, he has a Masters in Public Policy from a private university, and got his first government job in 2007, when he would have been 28 years old. This means he went almost straight from university into government. The silly clown has probably never had a real job. Certainly he's spent the last 14 years feeding at the public trough.

(/me bangs head on table)

 

[Alby]

In the last five decades my country has only had one foreign minister who spoke a language other than English (he allegedly was fluent in Mandarin, but probably exaggerated, and very few people would be in a position to know how true his claims were).

Worse, the sad truth is that few of our professional career diplomats are any better. Only around 50% of our ambassadors in Latin America over the last decade spoke Spanish with any degree of confidence, precision, and fluency. The rest topped out at reading a prepared speech to about the same standard as Cafiero managed in Dubai. Their official bios routinely proclaim "XX speaks Spanish," but place half of them in a situation where they have to speak impromptu and the pretence quickly falls away, with cringeworthy results. And they don't improve over the course of their posting. They are entitled to two hours language training per week, but don't take advantage. Often the teacher turns up to find them out of the office. Nice teaching work if you can get it. The language skills of Argentina's diplomats put them to shame.

The thing that strikes me most about Cafiero is how juvenile and lacking in gravitas he presents in the year he turns 43. That seems more embarrassing than his attempts at English.

 

[Redpossum]

Better stick with that Kirchnerista rag sheet Página 12 and C5N then.

By the way, Majul is on La Nacion's tv news channel, not one owned by Clarin.

Clarín y La Nación se quedaron con la totalidad de CIMECO por partes iguales - Convergencia Latina

Argentina, Finanzas/General -

www.convergencialatina.com

Both owned by the same parent corporation, both part of the same media empire, much of which (most notably Papel Prensa) was acquired during the dictatorship after being taken away from those kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered.

 

[Alby]

On a technical level, it is interesting to think about the Lanata gaff. Cafiero has enough English to know that the compound dickhead = idiot, but presumably not enough to know that the first part of the compound dick = penis. Thus, any Spanish speaker who didn't know the slang word itself but who could assemble to the two parts to form a literal synonym of it and then translate that to Spanish, would conclude the word to be much worse than it really is. And some did. The radio interviewer seems to know more English because she quickly grasped a problem with the "joke" that the fool who uttered it remained completely oblivious to.

 

[Stantucker]

Clarín y La Nación se quedaron con la totalidad de CIMECO por partes iguales - Convergencia Latina

Argentina, Finanzas/General -

www.convergencialatina.com

Both owned by the same parent corporation, both part of the same media empire, much of which (most notably Papel Prensa) was acquired during the dictatorship after being taken away from those kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered.