The new world champion of French-language Scrabble has been crowned, and he doesn't even speak French.

It took New Zealand’s Nigel Richards 17 rounds to come out on top of the 73 competitors vying for the crown at a tournament this week.

He won after beating Schélick Ilagou Rewake of Gabon, two sets to one, in the final round of the tournament held in Louvain, Belgium.

Richards, who is also a three-time English-language Scrabble champion, is said to have memorized the entire French dictionary earlier this year.

According to the event's organizers, when Richards was asked how long he had been studying the language, he told them since late May, implying that he picked it up in little more than two months.