# Asking all armchair aqualinguists: "Freestyle" vs "front crawl" in your language?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 7, 2013, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364 "2013-06-07T08:37:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/1 "2013-06-07T08:37:19Z")
That swimming style where you make circular motions with your arms and pull back the water, propelling yourself forward somewhat… what do you call it in your language?
In the distant past, I lived in Taiwan only ever heard it called “freestyle” (自由式) there. Moving to America, it was still called freestyle for a few years, but it seems to me – and maybe this is just a coincidence – that there’s been a recent push to call it by its more technically correct name, the “front crawl”. Did something change? Have you noticed one or the other term being more popular, wherever you are?
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/2 "2013-06-07T10:00:46Z")
I always understood that the stroke itself is called “front crawl”. “Freestyle” is the name of a swimming event where you can use any style, but everybody uses front crawl because it’s the fastest.
Wikipedia [concurs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freestyle_swimming).
(I’m in England, BTW. And I’ve never mastered front crawl. I find it 10 times as tiring as breaststroke, and marginally slower. Some day I might learn it properly…)
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### Author:  [@Cyros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyros)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/3 "2013-06-07T10:11:30Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> I always understood that the stroke itself is called “front crawl”. “Freestyle” is the name of a swimming event where you can use any style, but everybody uses front crawl because it’s the fastest.
>
> Wikipedia [concurs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freestyle_swimming).
>
> (I’m in England, BTW. And I’ve never mastered front crawl. I find it 10 times as tiring as breaststroke, and marginally slower. Some day I might learn it properly…)
In western Canada I’ve heard both front crawl and, years ago, Australian crawl. In eastern Canada I’ve only ever heard front crawl.
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### Author:  [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/4 "2013-06-07T10:37:56Z")
In Dutch:
Front crawl - borstcrawl (lit. breast crawl)
Breaststroke - schoolslag (lit. school stroke)
Freestyle - vrije slag (lit. free stroke)
Because “schoolslag” is the first thing you learn in school swimming lessons. It’s odd that there isn’t really a Dutch word for “crawl”, it must be because the stroke only came over in the 20th century and was introduced by English swimmers.
RE: “freestyle”, wikipedia mentions it just became synonymous with front crawl because that is the fastest swimming style, so in a freestyle competitions everyone would pick the front crawl. “Vrije slag” isn’t used in the Netherlands to mean front crawl, as far as I know. If you hear “100m vrije slag” it refers to a competition where participants can choose a stroke.
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### Author:  [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/5 "2013-06-07T10:49:51Z")
Oh yeah, I forgot I know for Portuguese too!
Breast stroke - de peito (lit. of the chest)
Front crawl - crawl (lit. duh)
Freestyle - livre (I think + lit. duh)
I’m not sure actually if “livre” would be used to mean crawl in Portuguese. I don’t think so, but I only know the words because I taught kids to swim, I don’t really know about swimming as a competitive sport over there.
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### Author:  [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/6 "2013-06-07T11:14:50Z")
Ah, this brings back memories… When I was a kid, I was in a swimming club in Spain.
Anyway, in Spanish, it would be:
Breast Stroke = Braza (something like “arm-style”, although “braza” by itself actually means “fathom”, as in the measurement unit. No, I can’t fathom why, either)
Front Crawl = Crawl
Freestyle = Libres (the plural of “free”)
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### Author:  [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/7 "2013-06-07T11:17:48Z")
American here. My understanding of the two terms is identical to Colophon’s. Crawl is the stroke, freestyle is a race event.
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### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/8 "2013-06-07T11:19:37Z")
Another Briton agreeing with **Colophon** ’s interpretation.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/9 "2013-06-07T12:50:22Z")
We called the stroke an “Australian Crawl.” Though it’s been around for centuries, the first modern version seems to have been developed there.
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### Author:  [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/10 "2013-06-07T13:25:50Z")
As a swimmer we don’t usually say crawl or front crawl, we almost always use free. We don’t use Freestyle either, it’s just ‘free’. I just looked at a meet form and it says 100 Free so clearly us Americans call it Free, not even freestyle or front crawl.
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### Author:  [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/11 "2013-06-07T14:06:59Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> I always understood that the stroke itself is called “front crawl”. “Freestyle” is the name of a swimming event where you can use any style, but everybody uses front crawl because it’s the fastest.
This. When I learned the crawl it was called the ‘Australian crawl’, now we just call it ‘free’. I’ve seen people do the butterfly in a freestyle event.
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### Author:  [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/12 "2013-06-07T14:09:04Z")
When I learned it it was called the “Australian Crawl.” Now that my kids swim in meets it’s just called “Free.”
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### Author:  [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/13 "2013-06-07T14:16:38Z")
> [@Edward\_The\_Head](#):
>
> … I just looked at a meet form and it says 100 Free so clearly us Americans call it Free, not even freestyle or front crawl.
That is because, as **Colophon** noted, for the event you are free to swim any stroke. The front crawl is fastest, so everyone uses that, because they’d like to win.
Generally, most everyone just refers to it as “free” or “freestyle”, and since no one ever uses any other stroke than the crawl for that event, swimmers know what they’re referring to if they’re talking about the stroke. However, when I was learning WSI (years and years ago), we actually had to learn the technical differences between variants like the Australian front crawl and American front crawl. So it’s sometimes used in technical discussions like that – although from what I recall, the differences were so minor that the distinction was somewhat ridiculous.
Random trivia: “freestyle” means any stroke you want, _except_ in a medley event, when it means any stroke you want that isn’t a required stroke in the medley. I actually had to DQ an 8yo for that one time.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/14 "2013-06-07T17:18:18Z")
I never hear “front crawl” just “crawl” or “freestyle”. (Well, **Mrs. FtG** calls it “swimming”.)
While I have the experts looking in, I’d like to know if there are common terms for two forms of back swimming. Both use frog kicks, both arms are in synch. In one the arms stay in the water (very slow propulsion) and in the other both are raised out at the same time (good, low energy propulsion). In each case, the arms generally push thru the water from the side rather than digging deep into the water.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/15 "2013-06-07T17:32:24Z")
Freestyle or Australian crawl.
Her recent passing reminded me of an Esther Williams movie where she was portaying an Australian swimmer resulting (fictionally) in the coining of the word.
Looking this up I see it was based on a real person [Annette Kellerman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Kellerman), who on top of being credited with the invention of synchronized swimming was the first major actress to do a nude scene in a movie.
ETA: I see there is confusion over the term ‘freestyle’, this has always confused me also because of the freestyle races involving any of the four major strokes, crawl, backstroke, butterfly, and breaststroke. I assume there is variance in this kind of event also.
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### Author:  [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/16 "2013-06-07T20:00:59Z")
> [@ftg](#):
>
> While I have the experts looking in, I’d like to know if there are common terms for two forms of back swimming. Both use frog kicks, both arms are in synch. In one the arms stay in the water (very slow propulsion) and in the other both are raised out at the same time (good, low energy propulsion). In each case, the arms generally push thru the water from the side rather than digging deep into the water.
I learned the former as “elementary backstroke” in the US.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/17 "2013-06-07T20:08:19Z")
Front crawl as long as I can remember. 30. Northern California.
I didn’t even know they were the same thing until recently, and _wasn’t 100% sure_ until this thread.
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### Author:  [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/18 "2013-06-07T20:11:43Z")
In Spanish, unless you’re being really technical, we say “estilo libre” or simply “libre” to mean front crawl. The word “crol” exists, but it’s very technical.
Back = Espalda
Breast = Pecho
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### Author:  [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/19 "2013-06-07T20:12:54Z")
> [@Reply](#):
>
> I learned the former as “elementary backstroke” in the US.
Yes. When I learned it, it was called the elementary backstroke as well, and no name was further from the truth. It wasn’t elementary for me at least. I never could do it.
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### Author:  [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asking-all-armchair-aqualinguists-freestyle-vs-front-crawl-in-your-language/660364/20 "2013-06-07T21:50:00Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#):
>
> In Spanish, unless you’re being really technical, we say “estilo libre” or simply “libre” to mean front crawl. The word “crol” exists, but it’s very technical.
>
> Back = Espalda
> Breast = Pecho
You call the breaststroke “pecho” over there? Interesting – In Spain we call it “Braza”.
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