San Antonio Spurs: Manu Ginobili is Team Translator

It’s hard not to be a translator when you can speak multiple languages.

Manu Ginobili can speak English, Italian, Spanish.

Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News wrote a piece in 2013 calling Ginobili the team’s “resident translator.”

Fluent in English, Italian and, of course, Spanish, Ginobili serves as the team’s resident translator. He speaks the latter with Tiago Splitter, the middle with newcomer Marco Belinelli and the former with everyone else on the team. Sharp as he might be, keeping track of so many different languages isn’t easy.

“At times it’s confusing,” Ginobili said. “I start speaking Italian to Patty (Mills) and Spanish to Pop, and then I know I have to back up a little bit and take it easy. But it’s fun. You feel like you have a little advantage that you can communicate in a different language the other ones are not understanding.”

Perhaps Ginobili has a future career on his hands after he retires from his current gig.