Featured Image Credit: Synthesia/YouTube
Topics: Lionel Messi, Football
Adnan Riaz
An AI software was used to make Lionel Messi speak up to 10 different languages and hearing the Paris Saint-Germain star talk in ‘fluent’ English is a scary experience.
Despite being born in Argentina and playing for Newell’s Old Boys, Messi spent a large part of his club playing career at Barcelona and lived in Spain with his family.
Messi is often heard speaking in Spanish owing to the fact that the language is used in both Argentina and Spain.
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According to Goal, the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner is also fluent in Catalan and it is ‘[assumed] that Messi does not speak English.’
AI video software Synthesia used its technology to show Messi speaking in different languages by using five minutes of footage from the Argentina captain.
Synthesia added that it created a “synthetic representation” of Messi by using its “deep, learning algorithms,” which allowed him to speak multiple languages.
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One fan said in response to the footage: “Playing like an alien, now sounds like a robot. Very scary!”
“This is insane… soon we won’t be able to distinguish the real from the fake one,” another fan wrote.
Someone else commented: “My God, he sounds so cool speaking English.”
A fourth added: “His mouth looks so realistic with [the] actual conversation. Hah.”
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While one fan posted: “It's cool to hear him in English.”
Messi previously admitted that he had been learning English when he was linked with Manchester City, ahead of his departure from Barcelona in 2021.
Speaking to Guillem Balague ahead of his unveiling at PSG, the 35-year-old Argentine forward said he had been “learning English for a year and a half.”
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Messi told Balague: “I’ve been learning English for a year and a half.
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“But when you’re there in England, you get to learn it through necessity... Yeah, exactly. I understand it but I don’t speak it.”