Entertainment

Tom Hiddleston Speaks So Many Languages

by Alexandra Watt

Talk about a Renaissance man. In the age of specialization, Tom Hiddleston has put the notion of mastering none to bed. The actor, who is most well known for his role as troublemaking Loki in the Marvel cinematic universe, is also a polyglot. Hiddleston's most recent role in The Night Manager finds him smack dab in the middle of Egypt, and dabbling in Arabic to boot. Does Tom Hiddleston speak Arabic, in real life, though? Though his character knows a fair amount, Arabic doesn't appear to be part of Hiddleston's multilingual arsenal.

The Night Manager, a new miniseries on AMC, follows Hiddleston as a manager of a luxury hotel who is suddenly involved in espionage to bring down a major international arms operation. While Hiddleston is no stranger to playing the suave man of mystery, in order to capably depict Jonathan Pine, a seemingly complacent manager who quickly delves into his Army background and patchwork of skills to play into Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie)'s conniving games, Hiddleston had to be deliver a few of his lines in Arabic.

But, although Hiddleston is not on record for having learned Arabic at any point in time beyond what was required for the role, he does know how to speak several different languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, and Greek, in addition to bits of Latin, German, Russian, and more, according to Bustle. A man that well-versed in the world's languages can certainly inspire you to brush off that Rosetta Stone, but he's not the only celebrity who knows more than just King's English.

Charlize Theron

The star of The Huntsman is a native of South Africa, and therefore, is fluent in the Afrikaans language, as well as English. She demonstrates above for Piers Morgan, who interprets he speech to mean "I fancy you." Keep dreaming, Piers.

Kim Cattrall

Samantha Jones' tongue is useful in many areas of life! Cattrall became fluent in German when she lived in Germany with her husband in the 1980s, according to TheLocal.de.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Gordon-Levitt studied the French language while he was an undergraduate student at Columbia University, almost becoming fluent in the process, according to Zimbio.

Natalie Portman

Portman was born in Israel before emigrating to the United States, where she was then enrolled in Jewish elementary schools and continued to learn the Hebrew language, according to Business Insider, which also reports that she knows conversational French, Japanese, German and Spanish, and also used sign language in a video for Paul McCartney. All very casual.

Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis lived in the Ukraine as a child until she and her parents relocated to Los Angeles, according to The Independent. She grew up in a bilingual household, and appears to still have a firm hold of the Russian language, even if she thinks it sounds "like Klingon."

Shakira

Her hips don't lie in at least four languages, according to WetPaint. Shakira, a native of Colombiai , is proficient in Spanish, English, Italian, and Portuguese.

Colin Firth

Firth is proficient in Italian, according to Time.

So, Tom Hiddleston is in a pretty elite multilingual club.