What Other Language Can Kobe Bryant Speak?

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Kobe Bryant, whose native language is English, can also speak fluent Italian and Spanish. When he was six, Kobe moved with his family to Italy where his father played professional basketball. Kobe learned to speak Italian and Spanish during the eight years his family lived in the country.

The Italian and Spanish languages have a similar vocabulary with simple rules for converting between them. The two languages are part of the Romance languages, namely, languages derived from simplified Latin as spoken by the Roman public during the times of the Roman Empire. Except for a few words of non-Latin origin, words in both languages have the same roots making it easier for someone who speaks one of the languages to learn the other.