191 20241217 Scrabble

[김순희]

A New Zealander has won the Spanish World Scrabble title.

But there's just one thing: he doesn't speak Spanish.

Nigel Richards, a professional player who holds five English-language world titles, started memorizing the language's Scrabble word list a year ago.

He lost only one out of 24 games, as opposed to the runner-up, who won 18 of his games and does speak Spanish.
 
Richards has done this before.

In 2015, he became the French-language Scrabble World Champion, despite not speaking French, after studying the word list for nine weeks.

He took the French title again in 2018.