Language expert says Melania Trump's claim she speaks 6 languages is not true

[DFW]

21. Fluency is a relative term.

Almost anyone from Slovenia will understand Serbian and Croatian, just like native speakers of Norwegian and Swedish converse with each other in their native languages because they are so similar.

Any Slovene will know a few phrases of Italian and German, since Slovenia has been under Hapsburg and Italian influence at various times over the last few centuries. I haven't been there in many years, but when I was there, I found Italian got me understood everywhere I went. I imagine in parts closer to the Austrian border, German would have been more widely spoken.

By the same token, total fluency means to me that a native will never know you're not one of them. I am not totally fluent in any language but English, but I am fully conversational in eight others. By Melania's standards, I am also fluent in Turkish, Portuguese, Japanese, Hungarian and Romanian, i.e. I can say good morning, say "thank you" and order tea for breakfast.