Did you know Ben Affleck is bilingual?

While speaking about his new movie Air, the Oscar winner showcased his conversationally fluent Spanish in an interview with Spain-based radio network La Cadena SER, which was posted on the outlet's TikTok account on April 3. The video has gone viral and has spurred jokes from fans, including one who commented, "This is our new Benito, huh?"

The Justice League actor has showcased his Spanish skills before, chatting in the language with paparazzi on the street and journalists on TV.

So how does Ben know how to speak Spanish so well? In 2020, he said on The Kelly Clarkson Show that he speaks Spanish "passively" and learned the language as a teen actor working on location in Mexico in the '80s.

He appeared to be referencing his experience filming the PBS educational series The Second Voyage of the Mimi, which focused on a fictional crew of a sailboat who explored Mayan ruins in southern Mexico. It served as a sequel to The Voyage of the Mimi show, which marked the actor's TV debut.

"I did a little kids TV series when I was young, and when I was 13, that season, that year was in Mexico," Ben told Kelly Clarkson. "And so I was in Mexico for a year, and that's how I picked it up."

The actor noted how he helped his and ex-wife Jennifer Garner's eldest daughter Violet Affleck—14 at the time and now 17—improve her own Spanish skills for school.

"She's gotten to the grade where she's like in the harder Spanish classes and she's getting better and she's like right at the point where I think she might be passing me," joked Ben, who has since married Jennifer Lopez. "And that was when I was like, 'Nope, this is not happening. I don't mind that I can't do your math homework and you're 14 years old, but you are not gonna be better at Spanish than me.' And so, I've decided now, I've gotta like, take classes, I've gotta do something to keep up."

Ben noted how he's run into criticism of his Spanish skills from fluent Spanish speakers. "The problem with Spanish is that you learn a bunch of words, like I learn all these words, in Mexico, some good, some ya know. And then you go somewhere else, like you go to Spain or you go to South America and they're like, 'No, that's not Spanish.'"

He added, "And then they're like, you have a Mexican accent."

Source:
courtesy of E!ONLINE

by CORINNE HELLER

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