Barca’s Bommel learns Spanish in a convent

MADRID: FC Barcelona's recently signed Dutch midfielder, Mark van Bommel, has spent five days in a convent in an attempt to improve his Spanish. 

Van Bommel, who already speaks Dutch, English and German, learned the basics of his new language with Spanish nuns in Vught, a village close to the Dutch city of Eindhoven, leading daily El Pais reported Friday. 

“Yes, it's true that I locked myself away in a monastery with Spanish nuns for a week to start to learn the language. It was the ideal place to concentrate on the first Spanish words,'' van Bommel was quoted as saying in Spanish. 

The Dutch international, who joined the Spanish league champion from PSV Eindhoven in June, is taking the task so seriously that he has delayed his first news conference for several days to allow him time to deliver it fully in Spanish, the paper said. – AP