A Kiwi Won The French-Language Scrabble Championship And He Doesn’t Speak French

Nigel Richards from Christchurch just won the French-language Scrabble world championship despite not being able to speak any French (well, he probably knows ‘bonjour’).

He defeated a man who actually speaks French at the final in Belgium.

While he doesn’t speak the language, Richards picked up a French dictionary eight weeks ago and just started cramming all the words into his head.

Liz Fagerlund, a good friend of Richards, said: ‘He doesn’t speak French at all, he just learnt the words.

‘He won’t know what they mean, he wouldn’t be able to carry out a conversation in French I wouldn’t think.’

As any fan of Scrabble knows, the game has as much to do with tactics as it does with having a large vocab but to not actually know the language you're playing in is pretty damn impressive (only second to how impressive his facial hair is).

Richards has won five US National scrabble titles and the world Scrabble Championship three times.

Despite being known as the finest Scrabble player alive, Ms Fagerlund, who is also the former president of the New Zealand Scrabble Association, said Richards’ win in Belgium was ‘quite remarkable’.

One of the contestants who Richards beat during the French tournament reportedly joked ‘are you an extra-terrestrial or something’ when witnessing his amazing ability.

source: metro.co.uk