Fire forward Fabian Herbers has a flair for languages, and it has helped him and his teammates during his career.
Growing up in Ahaus, Germany, Herbers learned his country’s native language. English was taught starting in fifth grade. Ahaus sits near the Netherlands border, and Herbers spent time in the FC Twente youth system, so he picked up Dutch, though he admits that’s fading a little bit.
As an adult playing for the Philadelphia Union in 2018, Herbers learned Spanish, a language he honed when he joined the Fire a year later and had numerous teammates with Hispanic and Latin American roots. That skill helped him bond with those teammates. In fact, Herbers’ girlfriend is from Ecuador, and the couple speaks Spanish at home.
Herbers even does media interviews in Spanish, beginning with a Zoom session during the pandemic when the Fire’s media-relations team asked him for his time. Herbers was comfortable enough to do it.
“Even though you don’t know all the words all the time, I feel like people still understand you and respect when you make an effort,” Herbers said. “Even though you’re lacking a little bit of vocabulary here and there, people are still able to understand you.”
German, English, Dutch and Spanish aren’t the only languages Herbers has -studied.
In seventh grade, Herbers had to choose between French and Latin. His friends picked Latin, so Herbers picked Latin.
Though Latin is rarely spoken anymore, Herbers enjoyed delving into the ancient language for eight years, which set him up to keep improving at others.
“I kind of liked it because once you know all the vocabulary and the grammar, it was a lot of translating old, ancient texts,” Herbers said. “From there, it was pretty straightforward. It helps you to know languages and how to learn them in regards to the grammar, the vocabulary, the sentence structure, the verb, the object and the past tenses.”
Knowing multiple languages is a useful and impressive gift for anybody. Herbers’ father instilled that when the family would vacation in Spain, when the older Herbers would tell his young son to learn how to count in Spanish by the time the trip ended.
“I like it, in general,” Herbers said. “I want to say I have a talent for it, too. For some people it’s easier, for some people it’s not. It’s still not just looking at the language and you can speak it, you have to practice it every day.”
Soccer players can practice languages every day. Herbers sees being multilingual as a way to communicate with teammates from different backgrounds. He can speak German with teammates Maren Haile-Selassie and Allan Arigoni and connect with Spanish speakers who haven’t learned English yet.
“It helps not only to speak their language because they feel welcome, but also I understand their culture a little bit through my girlfriend and having had experiences with other teammates,” Herbers said. “You understand where they’re coming from and their habits and their customs.” V