Non-French speaker wins French Scrabble title

A New Zealand man who barely knows how to speak French has claimed a Scrabble world title in France this week.

Nigel Richards went to the French town of Louvain and conquered all before him to claim the 44th World Championships of French Scrabble, France24 has reported.

Not that he is half-bad at the famous board game. In fact he’s considered a Scrabble phenomenon and currently rated the world’s top player.

In total he’s racked up three world championships, and five US national championships.

Richards says it took him nine weeks to learn French vocabulary from the dictionary well enough to conquer players from France, Canada, Belgium and Africa.

"Nigel can say ‘bonjour’ – with an accent – he can tell you the scores in French … But that’s all," Yves Brenez of the Belgian Federation of Scrabble said at the event.

The crowd in attendance were amazed a non-first language French speaker could take out the competition and he was was loudly applauded upon winning.