
Winner of French Scrabble Title Does Not Speak French (2015) - hirundo
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/21/424980378/winner-of-french-scrabble-title-does-not-speak-french
======
nippoo
I was at the World Scrabble Championships in Prague a few years ago (with
Nigel Richards). The amazing thing was how many of the highest-level Scrabble
players were Thai and spoke barely any English. There are about 200,000 words
in the Scrabble dictionary and and an average English speaker only knows
40,000. So knowing the language doesn't give a huge advantage, and all
competitors end up spending years memorising word lists with no definitions -
at a high level it's basically just a combinatorics game. The majority of the
English-speaking competitors were mathematicians / scientists, rather than
linguists for similar reasons.

This sometimes has amusing repercussions - the world no 2 at the time, who was
Thai, played the word "hetairas" and then challenged the word "twigs"...

~~~
Benjammer
At the highest levels, Scrabble is not a word game at all. It's a territory
control game with 200,000 different valid ways to play resources.

~~~
mkl
Territory control? Either player can build off any word, so I don't think you
can control any territory. You capture valuable squares before your opponent
can when you have the opportunity, because unused squares are no man's land,
and up for grabs.

~~~
TheNorthman
Because Scrabble is turn based, any opportunities you create for yourself, you
create for your opponent first. Making sure you don't make `valuable squares'
available to your opponent is, arguably, more essential to winning than
claiming them for yourself.

~~~
Someone
‘scorched earth’, wasting a valuable square on a low-scoring move, say (as an
extreme example) by playing a blank tile on a triple-character square, just to
deny the next player from using it, can also be a valuable tactic at times.

Many people don’t realize that, in competitive games, the goal isn’t to make a
high score, it is to make a score that’s higher than that of your opponents.

Another game where many players dont realize that is Twister
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twister_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twister_\(game\))
). You shouldn’t play to make it easy for yourself to stay in play, you should
play to make it easier for you than for your opponents to stay in play. In
general, that means occupying circles close to your opponent, rather than
those easily reachable by you. You should try to ‘lock’ your opponents in a
corner of the playing area.

------
walrus01
Memorizing an entire dictionary is kind of like the cases I've read about with
persons whose native language isn't arabic, but have successfully memorized
and can recite verbally the entire Quran.

~~~
zakki
In Indonesia it is more on learning on recognizing Arabic letters, write it
and spell it. For Quran also learning the tajwid (تجويد). I want to say that
it is not memorizing the entire dictionary. Off course it raises new problem,
they can recite Quran but not understanding much the meaning unless they read
the translation.

~~~
vxNsr
This true for many Jewish kids as well. We can read, and write in Hebrew but
have no idea what it means without a translation.

~~~
samatman
True, but less so.

I've learned a couple alphabets, Hebrew among them, just for fun. I'm pretty
confident I could learn to _recite_ the Quran with a month of steady practice.

But memorize the whole thing? Like, name a sura, and I'm off to the races?
That's very impressive.

And without any understanding of the underlying words! That's even more
impressive, but my heart sinks a little at the waste of human potential which
it represents.

Perhaps they're right, and they earn a lifetime in Paradise for their trouble.
I can't help but thinking there are better ways to spend ones youth.

~~~
danielheath
I mean, if they’re right it seems like a pretty good trade.

~~~
smabie
Just do it when you're old. More efficient that way.

------
kebman
Back when I worked in sales, there was a guy on my sales team that would have
the entire Norwegian Top 40 billboard memorized since its inception in the
50's, complete with producers and writers of lyrics. While a bit socially
awkward, he still did alright at sales by following the script. So by that
token he was regarded by my collegues as a bit of a savant.

"Lest you suspect," also makes for quite unusual language in the article, btw.
Haven't seen that in many modern news articles, at least. But strangely this
rather archaic phrase seems to be more common in modern American litterature
than in British literature. Together with the verbal addition of "I would
think" at the end of that quote in the start, the article takes on a rather
rustic feel.

~~~
asveikau
> But strangely this rather archaic phrase seems to be more common in modern
> American litterature than in British literature.

There is an interesting phenomenon I've read about where distant colonies,
kept isolated from where their language originated, end up sounding _more
archaic_ than their home territory. The act of crossing an ocean can serve as
a linguistic time capsule and changes made in the homeland don't always
propagate.

I've heard this claimed about a few languages:

* Quebec French vs. France. (true to the form of TFA I do not speak French, so I cannot assess this claim.)

* Judaeo-Spanish spoken by expelled Jewish communities vs. Spain. (from what I recall of recordings of the former it did seem like it lacks some phonetic changes that Spain had around the 15th-16th centuries, like [ʒ] and [ʃ] moving to [x], loss of initial /f/ in words like _hijo_ , _hablar_ ... and consequently generally has this almost Portuguese-sounding feel to it. Interestingly these same phonetic changes made it across to Latin American colonies but not to expelled Spanish Jews in Europe)

* American English vs. England. (I've heard this claimed variously, as if to say that Shakespeare spoke with one of today's American accents, and frankly that sounds kind of dubious. But there may be bits and pieces of American English that sound old fashioned across the pond.)

~~~
kibwen
_> as if to say that Shakespeare spoke with one of today's American accents,
and frankly that sounds kind of dubious_

To suggest that Shakespeare spoke with an American accent would be silly, but
it is true that the non-rhotic "r" didn't become widespread until after
Shakespeare's time, starting as a marker of prestige among the British upper
classes in the mid-1700s (and spreading to the wannabe-aristocracy in the
colonies, hence the stereotypical accent of the American Southern plantation
owner). If the pronunciation of words like "car" is how one distinguishes
British from American, then I suppose yes, Shakespeare would sound a bit less
British than you might expect.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English)

~~~
DFHippie
To complicate things a little, the non-rhotic accents of the eastern seaboard
of North America aren't generally considered posh: Southie, Mainer, Brooklyn.
Newfoundland is the region of North American longest settled by English
speakers, I believe. Google "Newfie accent" to hear true Shakespearean
English.

~~~
stan_rogers
Newfanese is pretty much crystallized Hiberno-English, at least if we're
talking the language of the bay wops rather than townies. It has a surprising
amount of commonality with African-American vernacular, likely due to
transportation and indenture (which is why AAVE, while distinct, barely edges
into typical creole patterns).

The English of Shakespeare's time, or at least of his plays, has been largely
reconstructed by linguist David Crystal, whose son, the actor and director Ben
Crystal, is probably the best-known practitioner. There are a number of videos
on YouTube of Ben doing Shakespeare in OP. A good starting point is
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s)
\- and if one had to tie it closely to a modern regional variant, it would be
West Country. But that would just be something it would remind you of rather
than a template.

~~~
DFHippie
It was a joke.

------
hartator
I wonder if that give him any advantage learning actual French or if this so
different area of the brain that actually doesn’t matter.

~~~
claudeganon
He memorized the French scrabble dictionary, so I doubt it’s in any way
useful. He doesn’t know the meaning of any of the terms.

~~~
echelon
His brain is now wired with the space of possible spellings and phonemes. That
can't have a nonzero impact on learning. He might have a jump on pattern
recognition for conjugation, for instance.

~~~
LudwigNagasena
I don’t think it’s allowed to conjugate verbs in Scrabble.

~~~
minitoar
You can definitely use conjugated verbs: "All words labeled as a part of
speech (including those listed of foreign origin, and as archaic, obsolete,
colloquial, slang, etc.) are permitted with the exception of the following:
words always capitalized, abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes standing alone,
words requiring a hyphen or an apostrophe" [https://scrabble.hasbro.com/en-
us/rules](https://scrabble.hasbro.com/en-us/rules)

~~~
LudwigNagasena
Ah, ok, in Russia in scrabble-like games (Scrabble itself is not very popular)
subjugation and declension usually aren’t allowed.

~~~
317070
Same in Dutch, I assume because of the possibility of just adding an "e" or a
"t" to most words to score its points again.

~~~
minitoar
Nice I love these sort of language differences. In English of course you can
add an "s" to many words to make them plural, and that is permitted in
Scrabble.

------
11001001011010
Indeed memory, the point where computers totally outsmart us all. That's why
traditional school where you get to the next grade by showing off your memory
is totally deprecated.

It might be me, but these kind of contests and our excitement about it only
shows our stupidity even more. Our specialty is very fortunately not memory,
it should never be. We are incredibly special creatures with much more
interesting capabilities.

~~~
nickelpro
Machines can also throw javelins and shots farther than any human can ever
hope to. Hydraulics can trivially lift more than any strong man. A large
enough spring can outperform any long jumper. More directly relatable, chess
engines have been outperforming the grand masters for a decade now.

That a machine can outperform a human doesn't make a human doing it
unimpressive. The excitement and fun of the competition remains.

~~~
wozniacki
But games like Scrabble seem even more pointless than the Spelling bee which
is in itself pointless ( making a competition out of memorizing or
constructing from memory similar rooted words that one would barely use in any
but the most scholarly of arcane academia or in the practice of law, is
anything but useful or worthy of one's time ).

A more worthwhile competition would test the participants on their reasoning /
logic and turn it into an engaging game. Even gamifying brevity of language is
a worthwhile pursuit since so many of todays youth speak so poorly or struggle
expressing their thoughts in a coherent and curt manner.

Scrabble and Spelling Bee encourage rote learning and little beyond that. A
terrible waste of potential like OP alluded to. Memorizing and parroting,
needless to say, is just not a very good use of the human intellect. Its
really bad form and speak to the vanity and vainness of the organizers and
contestants to have these silly competitions in this day and age.

~~~
DFHippie
I've always been embarrassed that spelling bees are a thing in English. It's
interesting that you can see the etymology of a word in its spelling, but
horrific spelling sure is a barrier to literacy. How do you pronounce "lough"?
How about "rough" or "dough"? And "plough"? Now try "hiccough".

I envy Finnish kids. They've already mastered the grammar and are well on
their way with the vocabulary. Spelling is barely a speed bump. English
speakers have national competitions to demonstrate that they've mastered
spelling.

------
kregasaurusrex
Scrabble is largely a game of area-based combinatorics, which rewards finding
sequences of letters that happen to be words and fit into the board's
multiplier spaces. Memorizing the two-letter word list is extraordinarily
helpful when playing competitively because it allows for playing a tighter
game that doesn't resemble words commonly used in English.

~~~
TwoBit
Makes me wonder if he could have won while knowing only a fraction of the
French dictionary.

------
zacwest
If you're interested in watching competitive Scrabble, the NASPA YouTube
channel recently did a virtual Tournament of Champions:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhvDB0pE-3ptFJBqemMOh...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhvDB0pE-3ptFJBqemMOhxe3Z625OUbDY)

------
cm2012
I would find a scrabble tournament a lot more interesting if it limited it to
the top 10k most common english words.

------
United857
Similarly, a lot of Chinese students do surprisingly well in the verbal
section of US admissions exams like the SAT and GRE, despite being non-native
speakers. They just memorize long lists of obscure English words that would
rarely ever be used in practice.

~~~
jgr0
Not sure if this is a good comparison. For SAT, GRE you need to know a word
innately, be able to use it in a proper context, understand homonyms,
distinguish between similar words and know which one to use in the given
prompt etc.

Yes, this does involve remembering long lists of words, but there is a lot of
context and I would consider this proper language learning. It is vastly
different from the memorization referred to in the article.

~~~
loxs
From my experience as an English language student (non-native), I disagree to
some extent. Taking (and learning) the SAT is quite a different experience
than learning the language. It seems that people who are good at "taking
tests" excel at it and this does not correlate completely with their ability
to use the language. Of course often they ALSO learn the language (by other
means), but I know people who successfully took the SAT in order to
participate in student exchange programs and when they go to the USA they
realize that they are quite poor at English and tend to stick to ethnic
communities, because they are not comfortable to use the language at a higher
level.

On the other hand, if you study for the SAT when you already know the
language, it seems to indeed improve your English a lot.

~~~
DFHippie
I think being good at test taking correlates with perfectionism. The ones who
test well but then stick to speakers of their native language may simply be
perfectionists who are horrified at being seen as stupid when their English
isn't perfect.

~~~
loxs
As far as I can attest (I studied together with them), this is not the case :)

------
mongol
The Wikipedia page of this fellow:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_(Scrabble_playe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_\(Scrabble_player\))

------
cainxinth
Two documentaries about word games came out at similar times. “Word Wars”
(2004) was about Scrabble and “Wordplay” (2006) was about crosswords. Both are
excellent films about high-level play in these games.

After watching them, what struck me was that the best Scrabble players were
all, shall I say, a bit weirder than the best crossword players.

Crossword requires a large general fund of knowledge. Scrabble only requires
rote memorization. Crossword attracted well-rounded people. Top Scrabblers
were monomaniacs.

------
pinewurst
(2015)

~~~
alex_young
Thank you. I was just telling my friend about this and she insisted this
happens every few years. That didn’t seem likely, and your comment helped us
figure out that we’d actually talked about this years ago :)

~~~
disown
It's likely you guys talked about it twice.

"He competed in the French Championship and won his second Classique
Championship" (2018)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_(Scrabble_playe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_\(Scrabble_player\))

There was even a brief HN comment thread about it 2 years ago.

"Fun fact: the current top player of French scrabble is from New Zealand and
doesn’t speak a word of French. He just memorized all ~200k valid words in the
OSD."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18689565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18689565)

------
zzo38computer
You can play Scrabble without knowing how to speak the language, or what the
grammar is, or what any of the words mean; you only need to know how to spell
the words of that language (or least the ones which are permitted in
Scrabble).

------
komali2
IIRC this person was interviewed for "Ultra learning," which reminds me I need
to read that book still.

~~~
slyall
Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate
Your Career by Scott Young

[https://www.amazon.com/Ultralearning-Master-Outsmart-
Competi...](https://www.amazon.com/Ultralearning-Master-Outsmart-Competition-
Accelerate/dp/006285268X)

------
apricot
Is this Duplicate Scrabble (all contestants playing the same letters)? If so,
I imagine computers reached perfect play long ago, as it seems to involve
nothing beyond memorizing huge lists of numbers and searching the board for
the best place to put them.

But what about regular Scrabble? Sometimes, the best play is not the word
that's worth the most points, because it might give your opponent a chance to
make a big play (the simplest example is refraining to play a high-value word
that opens a triple score square for your opponent). The best play depends on
the probabilities of your opponent holding, now or in the future, certain
letters, and you can make a probabilistic model of that based on the letters
that are in play at any moment. Perfect play seems to involve a lot of
computation. What's the state of the art on this?

------
aj7
What Scrabble degenerates into.

~~~
justwalt
Many enjoyable games become quite a bit different when they’re played at a
high level. Whether or not the game is still enjoyable at that point is not
always easy to say. I definitely would not enjoy memorizing lists of words in
order to be more competitive.

------
abnry
This makes sense when you realize Scrabble isn't a word game, it is a board
control game.

------
maest
Analogous to this:

GPT-3 doesn't speak English.

------
Khelavaster
From 2015..

------
Khelavaster
In 2015..

------
feralimal
Imagine memorising the best part of 200,000 words in a foreign language in
order to win a game of scrabble! And not being able to string a sentence
together in that language!

Some people have waaaaayyyy too much time on their hands!

~~~
jobigoud
Many sports & activities feel like this at high level. An athlete will train
everyday and build muscle memory in order to jump over a bar placed as high as
possible. A chess player, a football player, etc. Highly specialized skills
that are of no use in day to day life. The collateral benefits like fitness or
entertainment value can also be found here.

~~~
feralimal
I can understand the value of sports, and of doing anything at a high level.
Mastery of anything is its own reward. I get that. But what these Thai champs
are doing seems crazy.

Imagine, as an English speaker, waking up wanting to win the Hungarian
scrabble tournament. No, you don't want to know how to speak Hungarian. You
only want to win the Hungarian scrabble tournaments. And you're prepared to
invest months of your life memorising sequences of letters to do it!

Its insane.

~~~
jobigoud
When you do something competitively it decouples the activity from the
original use. Just like a Pole vault champion is not really interested in
being able to reach the second floor with a stick.

In this sense the fact that the words have to match the Hungarian dictionary
feels arbitrary. But it's a bit like the rules for triple jump where you have
to land the first jump on the same foot, or the rules of high jump that
prevent you from taking off with two feet at the same time, these rules feel
arbitrary in the context of the original utility of the skill.

~~~
feralimal
You like to argue huh? :)

Triple jump is valuable in itself - you train your body, and that has
consequent benefits. Learning strings of consecutive characters characters
perhaps has a memory benefit. But then, why not train your memory to get that
benefit AND get a consequent benefit at the same time. Eg card counting to
make money at casinos? Or actually learn English, so this becomes a vocab
extension exercise? But all that effort to win....? At scrabble?!? The mind
boggles.

And anyway, if you were that good, no-one would want to play scrabble with you
at Christmas...

