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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEffieBlack
(14,249 posts)I speak enough of several languages to get by and it really impresses the hell out of my friends who dont speak those langauges and dont know that Im really just talking baby talk - but I would never claim to be fluent in four languages.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,096 posts)MineralMan
(146,189 posts)If you're conversationally competent in some language, you can say you speak that language.
To say you are fluent in a language, you have to be able to express yourself in that language clearly and without significant errors of grammar and vocabulary usage.
I speak several languages at different levels of competence. I am fluent only in English. I can be polite and hold everyday conversations in French, Spanish, Russian and English. I can be polite in several others. But, I can think, write, and converse freely only in my native language, which is English.
Few people are truly fluent in more than a couple of languages. True fluency is very difficult to attain in a language not learned from birth.
CatMor
(6,212 posts)like she's a college graduate in architecture, no and no.
Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)We're supposed to believe she has a degree in architecture, of all things?
I just Googled it. You aren't shitting me.
Dios mio.
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)A degree in architecture. Remembering that impressed me at the time. But the site disappeared and people think trump set that up to make his wife look smarter.
Greybnk48
(10,147 posts)I saw the old webpage too. I think they got rid of that lie. Too easy to expose.
Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)Or whatever the Slovenian equivalent is.
Laura PourMeADrink
(42,770 posts)redstatebluegirl
(12,264 posts)Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)Apparently some idiot with the Trump campaign thought that architecture is just the study of pretty buildings.
redstatebluegirl
(12,264 posts)Delphinus
(11,808 posts)And welcome to DU!
Bluesaph
(694 posts)cyclonefence
(4,483 posts)if you limit the vocabulary to menus. Chicken Kung Pao, spaghetti marinara, creme brulee, smorgasbord, and tapas. There you go.
Demovictory9
(32,320 posts)mitch96
(13,816 posts)besides the other obvious things is to be able to understand and create a subtle joke or word play...
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mitch96
(13,816 posts)Would be a perfect casting for Dracula's wife. I hear her speak and I think Vlad the Impaler!
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smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)She has been in this country over 20 years and can still barely speak the language. It's not like she hasn't had every opportunity to take advantage of various resources to improve her skills. Like her idiot husband, she is lazy and it shows. She does nothing but shop and pamper herself. She's a completely useless waste of space.
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,481 posts)she wasn't raised here by her accent. But she knows how the fuck to use articles in sentences and I'm pretty sure she knows the word is resiliency and not "re-silence". It's not her accent that people should give a shit about. It's the fact that with all the resources she's benefited from. She just can't seem to find the time to learn the most basic grammar.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)free time and money and she does absolutely nothing to improve herself. She is just as intellectually lazy and incurious as her husband. Their only cares in life are about looking and acting rich. They are both repulsive.
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,481 posts)Rorey
(8,445 posts)The reason she hasn't learned to speak English any better than she has is likely because she spends most of her time with her Slovenian family.
I HATE that she's the FLOTUS. I have absolutely no respect for her, and I have absolutely no sympathy for her.
And I don't consider her attractive either because of the attitude she conveys with her expressions.
TeamPooka
(24,155 posts)Can do
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)tourist conversation book and not even that well. That is hardly what I would call being fluent. She has been in the US for over twenty years and can barely speak English. I think her skills as a polyglot are highly over-rated.
TeamPooka
(24,155 posts)proximity thing.
the nations in Europe are small and close to each other so if you learn the basics at a young age you have a chance to use that language skill the rest of your life and keep up the skill, unlike Americans who's multilingualism potential is restricted by the lack of opportunity to use the skills daily/weekly.
struggle4progress
(118,032 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)Pocho. It means mixing the words in all the languages you know, so that only another person who knows those languages understands what you said. It can be a source of much humor when done for fun.
fierywoman
(7,641 posts)(my orch had just played the Schumann concerto with her) and she was speaking pocho with someone -- it was hysterical! Pocho: I love it!
lunatica
(53,410 posts)pochismo in Spanish. There are probably descriptive words in other languages for this but I dont know the.
kskiska
(27,040 posts)I found that I can speak French as well as she. All she did say hello and ask their names. I can do that.
Tipperary
(6,930 posts)Ever.
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)doesn't practices it too often, which is strange considering she married an American man.
I wonders if she surrounds herself with Slovenian servants assistants and nannies. I've even heard that Barron speaks with a slovenian accent
lunasun
(21,646 posts)in school,and may have lost it. And there is nothing wrong with a family speaking another language at home or amongst themselves .
What is wrong is how she stands with trump to demonize others who speak Spanish because they are brown arousing violence among thier own hateful voters to demand speak English only of other citizens ,
or how she questioned Obama's birth and faith on national TV
If she was kind and honest her broken English would not be ridiculed as much imo but she comes off a lyinahole
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)but she has never said how she obtained her visa, or if she had a work permit.
But then again, I think she's nothing but a puppet with a script.
TygrBright
(20,733 posts)oasis
(49,150 posts)Ciao baby Be best y'all.
kskiska
(27,040 posts)and even her son is fluent in Slovakian.
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,481 posts)onecaliberal
(32,471 posts)LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,536 posts)So that's two languages.
oasis
(49,150 posts)Make that ....six languages
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Just saying