Melania Trump, first lady and wife of US President Donald Trump, commonly claims that she speaks six languages: English, German, French, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Slovenian, her native tongue.
According to a report by the Irish Star, this claim has been widely passed along, to be sure, since Trump entered public life, but there is little evidence she is fluent in any but English and Slovenian. Her son, Barron Trump, knows all these languages too, but he has never spoken in them publicly.
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Linguistic expert raises doubts
In 2017, Linguist and AMERICAblog founder John Aravosis did a thorough YouTube analysis of Melania's language skills. Comparing her use of French and Italian, both languages he speaks - Aravosis said his findings were "disturbing though perhaps not surprising."
He discussed Melania's visit to a Paris school, during which she introduced herself to children in French. According to Aravosis, if someone is really fluent, they'd do much more than an introductory self-description - and in a classroom setting, of all places, that's where you'd want to see it. Aravosis said, “Wouldn't she want to show sort of how classy she is, how she's the first First Lady in a long time to be fluent in all these languages”. The Irish Star reported. He also said that Melania’s French has not even reached “French 101" level but was more akin to "the first day of French class.”
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Public appearances reveal minimal language use
The report further said that criticism also arose when Melania used a translator during the address of French President Emmanuel Macron at the G7 summit. This was almost repeated during her visit to an Italian children's hospital when she greeted the children in Italian before quickly switching to English.
The language experts pointed out that her Italian greeting contained a basic grammatical error - addressing an individual, instead of the group and called her phrasing "fake Italian," stating, “It's not what somebody who knows Italian would do.”
More suspicions arose following Melania's visit to the Vatican, where she and her husband met with Pope Francis, and during which Melania appeared to use a translator while listening to the Pope. Aravosis stated that he similarly could find no video of Melania speaking in German.
