{"id":470,"date":"2015-07-22T11:00:11","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T11:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/neurecall.com\/blog\/?p=470"},"modified":"2025-05-29T17:17:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T17:17:21","slug":"nigel-richards-french-scrabble-champion-cannot-speak-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/nigel-richards-french-scrabble-champion-cannot-speak-french\/","title":{"rendered":"French Scrabble champion cannot speak French"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/phil-hearing-LncCgJXNP-k-unsplash-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"1049\" data-id=\"1904\" src=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/phil-hearing-LncCgJXNP-k-unsplash-700x1049.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1904\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/phil-hearing-LncCgJXNP-k-unsplash-700x1049.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/phil-hearing-LncCgJXNP-k-unsplash-250x375.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/phil-hearing-LncCgJXNP-k-unsplash-768x1151.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/phil-hearing-LncCgJXNP-k-unsplash-1025x1536.jpg 1025w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/phil-hearing-LncCgJXNP-k-unsplash-1366x2048.jpg 1366w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/phil-hearing-LncCgJXNP-k-unsplash-120x180.jpg 120w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/phil-hearing-LncCgJXNP-k-unsplash-scaled.jpg 1708w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@philhearing?utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=unsplash\">Phil Hearing<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/a-group-of-people-playing-a-game-of-scrabble-LncCgJXNP-k?utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=unsplash\">Unsplash<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a stunning turn of events, Nigel Richards, it turns out that the new French Scrabble champion, can barely speak a word of French. In preparation for his participation in the World championship for Francophone scrabble, Richards memorized all 386,000 words present in the French Scrabble dictionary in a mere nine weeks. As former president of the New Zealand Scrabble Association said, \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/310418-french-scrabble-champion-language\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He doesn\u2019t speak French at all<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, he just learned the words. He won\u2019t know what they mean, wouldn\u2019t be able to carry out a conversation in French I don\u2019t think.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite his inability to speak French, Richards still managed to claim victory against his French-speaking opponents. His feat reminds players of an unusual truth often forgotten in the world of Scrabble. Scrabble, like many games, is a game of strategy. Instead of knights, bishops, and pawns, the game pieces are words and Richards acquired all 386,000 of them for his arsenal. The meaning associated with each word or the context in which they are used is irrelevant to him. To Richards, it is almost as though they are not words but valid combinations of letters that he can use to play.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash. In a stunning turn of events, Nigel Richards, it turns out that the new French Scrabble champion, can barely speak a word of French. In preparation for his participation in the World championship for Francophone scrabble, Richards memorized all 386,000 words present in the French Scrabble dictionary in a&#8230; <a class=\"view-article\" href=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/nigel-richards-french-scrabble-champion-cannot-speak-french\/\">View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":1904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>French Scrabble champion, Nigel Richards cannot speak French<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nigel Richards, the new French scrabble champion, can barely speak a word of the language, he memorized all words present in French Scrabble nine weeks.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/nigel-richards-french-scrabble-champion-cannot-speak-french\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"French Scrabble champion, Nigel Richards cannot speak French\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nigel Richards, the new French scrabble champion, can barely speak a word of the language, he memorized all words present in French Scrabble nine weeks.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/nigel-richards-french-scrabble-champion-cannot-speak-french\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Syngli - 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