Is Melania Trump really fluent in five languages?

[gyroscope]

According to the White House Melania Trump is fluent in five languages, but I can't seem to find any video or audio of her speaking a language other than English and her native Slovenian. Saying hello in Italian or how are you in French doesn't count.

According to her Wikipedia page, Melania Trump attended the University of Ljubljana for one year but didn't graduate, though it is listed as her alma mater. If she only went to college for one year how did she become fluent in five languages? If I'm not mistaken, she has not lived in any country other than her native country and the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melania_Trump

[guillaumeb]

1. Does lying count as a language?

If so, she and her husband can add that to their joint list.

[gyroscope]

2. She has learned from the master himself

...the author of the The Art of the Con

[Laura PourMeADrink]

24. Hilarious

[not fooled]

29. No wonder

dump hates CNN.

[ATL Ebony]

38. Too funny . . . and she thought nobody would notice, LOL. Er, you were saying what are morals?

That was so uncool. Shame on you Melania, I'm embarrassed for you.

[SergeStorms]

33. The language of lying.....

is inherent in every Republican. They have an extra pair of chromosomes, making 48 in total, and that extra pair of chromosomes is the "seat of deceit". Only Republicans are born with it. Others may attempt to pretend they have the pair of chromosomes, but under close scrutiny the are found lacking.

That extra pair of chromosomes means the Republican's other chromosomes lose some of their potency. In Trump's case his hair and midriff paid the price for his lying. In Mitch McConnell, he lost his chin and other parts of his face, making him closely resemble a Green Sea Turtle. In John McCain, it was his brain that made the sacrifice of his lying. And so on, and so forth. They all paid a price with decreasing power of their other chromosomes to claim the dubious power of lying.

So yes, Malaria sacrificed her integrity, her dignity, her looks, and her pride to possess the power of lying. Has anyone - beside myself - wondered what Malaria looks like without her daily three hour regimen of make-up application? Would we even recognize her? I'm guessing......NO!

[guillaumeb]

39. Trump himself certainly has a sizable "seat of deceit".

Explaining why lying is so easy for him.

[SergeStorms]

40. He certainly does....

have an enormous "seat of deceit", doesn't he?

[guillaumeb]

41. Almost big enough....

to be a sea of deceit.

[Control-Z]

3. I don't believe it.

Never have.

[Soxfan58]

4. One of them

Is Michelle Obama.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Keep in mind that in most of Europe they don't wait until high school

or worse yet college, to start learning other languages. They generally start in elementary school. It's more than possible she learned several languages, other than her native Slovenian, before she graduated high school. Oh, and you're wrong about her not having lived in any other country besides Slovenia and the U.S.

The Wiki article you linked to says she worked as a model in Paris, so she probably got fluent in French then. I wouldn't be surprised if while modelling, she travelled extensively in Europe, hence learning Italian and German if she hadn't already studied those languages.

You're showing your own ignorance about what life and learning languages is all about in much of the rest of the world.

[bettyellen]

14. She didn't ever do the international runway shows, mostly "lad magazine" nudies and shitty

Ads where she's acting like she has the hots for Joe Camel. Ivanka boasted fake covers like her dad, and the reamcovers she got weren't from rags that paid for shoots- it was people using her stock photos, because Trump... runs ads.

[rickford66]

20. I've traveled to Paris for business. I got along fine without knowing French.

Several trips totaling over 9 months. You only need a few words because they all speak English. They do appreciate you trying.

[Rhiannon12866]

32. That's the thing, people in other countries do learn other languages from an early age

So chances are good that people you meet will know English. I went to the USSR in 1986 with my grandmother as part of a peace group and it seemed like everyone we met from the post WWII generation spoke English - even an 11-year-old girl who went on an amusement park ride with me (my grandmother's group was mostly senior citizens ). We went to an opera and during the intermission I chatted with a girl about my age who was sitting next to me. She obviously spoke Russian, said she was fluent in French and Italian, but kept apologizing because she "didn't finish" her English. I relied on my HS French, but it was tough!

[fierywoman]

6. There's a video from when she was in Paris, at the children's school,

where she walks in and says, in French, "Hello, how are you?" Then she says, in French, "My name is Melania," and then it was English only.
There's the ability to say a couple of things in a language, and from there it's a long way to "near native fluency".

[unc70]

7. She apparently speaks multiple languages

As I understand, Melania speaks Slovenian, of course, and learned Serbo-Croatian, German, and English in school. She then learned Italian and French while living in Milan and Paris. Her French and Italian seemed pretty good from the brief examples I’ve heard.

[gyroscope]

9. Got any links?

I'll believe it when I see it.

I have learned not to trust anything that comes from the mouth of Don the Con and his crooked family.

I'll need to see some hard proof.

[unc70]

19. Not sure how good the links are

Many of the fawning articles about Melania are in somewhat suspect publications — Daily Mail, Washington Examiner, etc. or just repeat the basic claims. I saw a fairly decent article somewhere this summer that discussed the languages spoken by all the Trump family members. (Ivana speaks a bunch of languages — Czech, Russian, French...) Can’t find that article at the moment.

My guess is that she is functional but less than fluent in several of the languages.

[GeoWilliam750]

27. She speaks passable English

Slovenian is her native language, and most Slovenians seem also to speak Serbo-Croatian. There is a significant Italian minority in Slovenia, and Italian is one of the official languages of the country, so it would be hardly strange if she is comfortably conversant in Italian, which would raise some interesting questions about her visit with the Pope. Living 25 miles from the border of Austria means that she probably also heard a great deal of German (and probably Italian) language radio and television growing up.

Heaven knows about her French, but it is very easy to believe that she speaks at least five languages rather comfortably, but so do a large percentage of other people in that region.

From Wiki:

"Regarding the knowledge of foreign languages, Slovenia ranks among the top European countries. The most taught foreign languages are English, German, Italian, French and Spanish. As of 2007, 92% of the population between the age of 25 and 64 spoke at least one foreign language and around 71.8% of them spoke at least two foreign languages, which was the highest percentage in the European Union.[231] According to the Eurobarometer survey, as of 2005 the majority of Slovenes could speak Croatian (61%) and English (56%).[232]:21

A reported 42% of Slovenes could speak German, which was one of the highest percentages outside German-speaking countries.[232] Italian is widely spoken on the Slovenian Coast and in some other areas of the Slovene Littoral. Around 15% of Slovenians can speak Italian, which is (according to the Eurobarometer pool) the third-highest percentage in the European Union, after Italy and Malta."

[George II]

16. Years ago I had a girlfriend who was from the then Yugoslavia. Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian....

....and German for her were pretty much interchangeable.

[fierywoman]

8. Having grown up in Slovenia before the Berlin wall came down, it's likely she studied Russian

and is fairly fluent in it -- which adds an intriguing twist to the state of the world at the moment.

[madaboutharry]

10. She can't speak those languages.

You would also think there would be video of her speaking French to the Macrons during the trip to France.

[gyroscope]

11. Very doubtful she can speak French

just by the way she talks its pretty obvious she is not very intelligent. people who are fluent in several languages tend to be highly educated and intelligent which is reflected in their speech and mannerisms, but Melania Trump just sounds like a total airhead bimbo with not much going on upstairs.

[Scarsdale]

36. Just tRump's kind of "lady"!!

They do not need to have anything "going on upstairs" as long as they have lots going on "downstairs"!!

[Turbineguy]

12. In the Netherlands

we had Latin, French and English in the first year with German and Greek added in the second year of preparatory school.

[BHDem53]

13. Her tubby hubby

can probably order a bucket of chicken in six languages.

[stonecutter357]

15. NO ! BUT I got a semi from the frosted tips .

[George II]

17. When she's with the donald, I understand she'll never "communicate" without a translator....

...if you catch my drift.

[3catwoman3]

18. I can say...

...yes, no, please and thank you in Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Italian and Russian.

That hardly makes me a polyglot.

[Mr.Bill]

21. I'm sure she can tell you how much

a blow job is in five languages.

[left-of-center2012]

22. Maybe she can say "Hi sailor" in 5 languages?

[stonecutter357]

23. Привет, моряк !

[left-of-center2012]

26. Zdravo mornar

[Laura PourMeADrink]

25. Remember Trump had her lie on her website

Saying she got a degree in architecture? I saw it on there and then poof it was gone. He probably made up the languages too

[Scarsdale]

37. tRump lies

about the gold diggers he marries.. He claimed that Ivana was an Olympic skier!! Yeah, right.

[Skittles]

28. everything about her is phony

except her love of gold-digging

[Doreen]

30. Yeah, if she has practiced someone elses speech.

She can plagiarize with the best of them in any language she wants.

Doesn't fluent in a language mean read and write also?

I had a friend in high school who was fluent in 6 languages that she taught herself. Yes, she could read and write them also. I think two of them were Slovenian and Farsi. They were mostly middle east and European languages. They were languages usually not offered were I live. We are offered Spanish, a little ( very little ) French, and a little German. French and German are only offered in the community college ( yes, we actually have one of those ) and not very often.

The difference probably is that my friend is a genius where as I would never think that Melania comes even close.

Oh yeah, Russian. It has been years ( a lot of them ) so I do not remember all of the ones she knew. Truth be told some of them I had never heard of until she said what she knew.

[Warpy]

31. I find it likely she also took Russian in school and possibly English

with French and Italian added later because those are languages you need in the fashion industry.

Europeans aren't stupid about language the way the US is. They start in primary school, when kids learn them quickly. We wait until high school, when the barn door has largely closed if the kid doesn't already speak a couple of languages.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

34. Does gibberish count as a language?

[chelsea0011]

35. She may speak 5 languages but it is clear from the time she has been seen

with trump, the two almost never communicate. It is quite creepy.