I'm sorry but I never believed for a second that Ivana Trump was "fluent in five languages" and I'm not buying that Buttegieg is "proficient in eight." Learning to say, "Where is the toilet" in Norwegian doesn't count as proficiency, and neither does "Stop or I'll shoot" in Dari. Proficiency in even a few related languages requires many years of intensive study and use (not a lot of use for Arabic in South Bend).
6
Why do I feel Trump speaks Russian? What better way to communicate and continue his love-fest with Putin!
4
Another example of how the US is changing, and for the better. Younger people are actually becoming more proficient in more than one language. Heck, I've picked up more Spanish from the local immigrants than I ever learned in school, and I like it. Times are changing and Trump is championing a vanishing culture he likes to think is "real America," but cultures grow and change or they die. The younger USA is different from old man Trump's. They will make their own USA.
8
Right here in the US, trump has TWO translators for his Wronglish--Kellyanne Conway and Sarah H. Sanders are both swift to tell us what trump actually said, as opposed to what we out here in the world, actually heard. They even argue with interviewers, on TV, that the president doesn't mean what he said, but they completely understand that. It's normal, trumpishly normal. We're the ones out of whack, see?
12
A U.S. President may be multi-lingual as a *bonus, but I love a President like Lincoln who may have restricted himself to ONE
language, but he became a *SUPERLATIVE USER *OF that one chosen language.
People who know how to order a beer in Eight Different Languages now sometimes consider themselves to be "multi-lingual". Clearly, these people are also sadly self-deceived.
Mayor Pete's Norwegian is no substitute in value for the U.S.
from what was Lincoln's almost homespun American English.
So, give me a man who, like Obama, could SOAR with his native
tongue, or a man like Lincoln who has *still to be "outdone" in
his own native language, and I will be pleased with a U.S. Leader of whom I can be personally proud on the world stage.
Our Present POTUS is a Global Embarrassment to me, every time he opens his mouth in public, whether or NOT his audience
has the *slightest comprehension of American English.
And, of course, the *less English they know, the better. ;-D
9
"Maybe it’s easier to be around him if you can always mentally switch into Slovenian."
That made me LOL.
10
I'm what was once known as a baby boomer, now an obvious misnomer since we seniors can no longer boom like we once did.
My plea regarding my generation's place in world history? Guilty, guilty, guilty. Star witness? Present occupant of White House.
At least we can help turn it over to the younger generation. Perhaps the Mayor Petes of this world can fix what we helped break.
5
One of the most challenging jobs in the world has to be that of trying to tranlslate Trump's infantile gibberish and disconnected thoughts and sentences into another language.
All to often, not even people conversant in English have a clue as to what he is saying.
10
As long as Buttigieg doesn't speak in tongues. But I expect that any day now.
2
Recall Le Monde (newspaper francais) headline after 9/11: "we are all Americans." How I hoped trump could have had his team work up something like that for him to deliver with something akin to warmth perhaps. Alas, I was dreaming. Instead he told the firefighters to hurry and advised them on technique. Back to the nightmare!
10
If speaking a foreign language or languages mean the candidates are sissies, then Mayor Pete has this down pat!
Most gay men are familiar with being labeled as sissies so I expect Mayor Pete to embrace this moniker and use it in a positive way!
7
You are asking Trump to read kind words to the French from a teleprompter? He couldn't get them right if they were written in English with phonetic spelling. The only think he knows about France is that they invented his favorite way of cooking the only vegetable he eats (potatoes). Besides, he might ad lib and invite their football team to meet with him the next time he is in Indiana.
By the way, I am announcing my plans to run for President soon. I speak many languages besides English: C, Fortran, Lisp, Pascal, Algol, PL/1, SNOBOL, Java, Swift, just to name a few that come to mind.
6
Of course, unless Congress subpoenas the translator for the Trump-Putin talks, no Americans will know what they talked about. Trump needs a translator, but most of the leaders he meets with do not.
4
According to a biography on the Young Teddy Roosevelt, his family spoke Dutch at the dinner table.
15
The Swiss gave us cheese holes. Let's give them Donald Trump.
4
To speak anything but English is "elitist" and smells suspiciously of intelligence and character--for the Trump crowd this is like sunlight to vampires. Can these people forgo the circus clown in exchange for repairing our allegiance with allies, getting back to stalling climate change, growing the middle class, educating our children, and ensuring health care for all? We already know the answer.
14
Great article until she gets to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. It is significant faux-pas to assume that Bernie's parents spoke Polish as their first language, when most likely it was Yiddish. No doubt Bernie does in fact speak several words of Yiddish. The mirror question is why didn't Bernie take the opportunity to educate? Was his "no" supposed to mean "no - don't you know that the Jews of Poland spoke Yiddish at home?" or "no, what a totally ridiculous question that I do not even want to engage in discussion?" Did she even ask him if he spoke Yiddish?
A few years ago I may have laughed at this, but now I increasingly am aware of the fact that only Jews know Jewish history. Gail Collins was born in 1945; there is no excuse. On the other hand, Bernie needs to own up to his Jewish heritage and be quicker on his feet to correct and educate. Speaking as a progressive, I believe we all need to take opportunities to educate each other about forgotten history-- our world view depends on it.
11
What a waste of time. We get a list of the languages our politicians speak, which somehow devolves into the inevitable bashing of Trump. I’m no Trump supporter, but this is well below NYT oped material.
4
Hearing Buttigieg speak in English -- entire sentences, coherent, and filled with knowledge has convinced me that we need this articulate, decent, educated young man to be our next president. The fact that he speaks multiple languages is a tribute to his intelligence and curiosity and connection to the fact that we live in a global society not in isolation. Trump on the other hand does not possess intelligence, a need to know, decency or sanity.
18
@Amanda Bonner
Oy. I like Mayor Pete, but the ability to speak English coherently, in a country that is considered English-speaking, is an awfully low bar. Even being intellectually curious should be a starting point for any potential president. But here we are, hoping for someone who's just not a criminally inclined, linguistically-challenged creep.
10
This week of all weeks, I'd have liked The Times's Op-Eds to be powerful heartening insights instead of observational stand-up.
1
I continue to be impressed with Mr. B.
4
When you learn a second language you learn about a second culture. Surprisingly many Americans don't want to know about other cultures.
9
@James Griffin My dad was a career soldier and I followed in his footsteps. We, as a family, and me, on when on my own, experienced living all over the world. Living on the economy exposed me to cultures that have enriched my own life. You are correct when you state that most Americans don't want to know much less understand those cultures outside their own circle.
5
Sorry. I meant to post that Van Buren was the first president to be born in the USA - not the first person.
3
I'm sure most of the leaders Trump interacts with speak fluent English.
2
So, those other leaders speak multiple languages and, most likely, speak English better than trump. Is that supposed to make me feel better about the current WH occupant?
19
I really only require the US president to speak one language: the truth. I would even settle for “most of the time.”
21
"Coldhearted observers noted that there is no such language as Swiss." I was one of them! I think Cory get's a little excited at times.
3
How about reading books? Or even passing a literacy test?
14
Van Buren was also the first person to be born in the United States of America
Big problem is Trump lies freely and often and it is impossible to keep up with his lies as they number in the thousands. How do you run vs a liar with the bully pulpit and Fox News as a megaphone for his lies and spin. If a booming stock market is enough for voters to overlook a corrupt president then we get the leader we deserve.
6
I am just about willing to vote for anyone who is not an idiot and can get to the end of a sentence without stumbling over his own words and/or insulting someone.
I miss smart people.
21
Give the man a break. At least Trump shares an English dialect with Sarah Palin: Gibberish.
21
I lived in Switzerland for 10 years, and can tell you: There most certainly is a Swiss language. Actually, many of them. At least in the regions that don't speak French or Italian, Swiss people read and write in German, but they speak local dialects that are incomprehensible to a native German-speaker. It is said that every valley has its own dialect, though I think that's an exaggeration. The first goal on entering primary school is to learn a foreign language: German.
8
It's not a translator sitting between Trump and the rest of the world's leaders, it's an interpreter. Translators work with written text, interpreters with speech. Why can't people get that right?
10
At a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel a while back, each had brought along his/her own interpreter.
Putin is native-speaker fluent in German, and Merkel having grown up in East Germany probably speaks at least some Russian.
This is how careful world leaders make sure there is no misunderstanding.
11
Mayor Pete vs Trump would be interesting linguistically, someone who is multi lingual against someone who can barely speak English, his native language. The really sad part is Trump, despite going to an elite college and having educational opportunities few have, is not someone you would call well spoken, has a lot of support, not in spite of this shortcoming, but because, a large part of those who support Trump see proper language skills as some sort of negative, rather than a positive. Then again, nothing new in that, a candidate once lost an election when his opponent accused his wife of being a thespian, of matriculating before marriage and other innocuous things, so what else is new, Trump appeals to the ignorant the way that someone with an education repels them.
7
Two words: identity politics.
Both Netanyahu and his best friend in DC have perfected it. And the Republican Party (as a whole) for that matter.
Sadly for the 45th, Netanyahu at least knows two additional languages (Yiddish, Hebrew), besides English.
5
Here is a solid dose of clever levity to mitigate the analysis of the Muller document today. Sometimes there is nothing left to us but to have a good laugh. Thank you, Gail
9
My wife and I both were in high school in different states when 2 years of a foreign language were required, she Spanish and me German. The texts used the same base for the English used to be translated. We are still able to have pleasant conversations in two different languages. "Where is the bathroom? the library? the airport? the police?" "Excellent." "Look at the dancer in cafe." Call that travel ready.
3
@RAW When trump was in school, students of NYC public schools also were required to learn a second language. I guess trump got out of that by going to military school, where he learned how not to get into the military.
6
I wish you -- and others -- would not link to articles that are behind paywalls, at least without fair warning.
3
I bet that Trump can say "You're fired!" in at least one other language. And perhaps he can understand the word money in every language.
4
It would be nice if Trump could speak decent English.
9
Dear Gail, when the linguist uses his/her mouth, it's called an 'interpreter', not a 'translator', and since the person is 'sitting' between Trump and the world leader, I strongly assume you meant an 'interpreter'.
www.atanet.org
6
Trump, the self-proclaimed "stable genius," has the vocabulary of a ten-year-old. His buddy Netanyahu speaks better English than he does.
9
Some corrections, Gail. Obama speaks Indonesian fluently. Recall that he lived in Indonesia several years as a kid. Bernie Sanders father would have spoken Yiddish, not Polish in their home. Many Jewish mothers spoke only Yiddish because of the lack of social intercourse with the outside non-Yiddish speaking world of the Slavic countries where Jews were compelled to live in separate sectors such as villages and ghettos.
6
Since you mentioned Sanders, it occurred to me today that he reminds me of Albert Shanker: a grizzled grouch who probably spent too many summers at Workman’s Circle camps.
Can Mitt say “put my dog on top of the car” in French?
7
I don't care if the next president speaks only pig Latin, as long as he or she is moral, ethical, honest, and interested in something beyond himself.
16
Most likely, Bernie Sanders first language would have been Yiddish and his second Polish.
4
@Carl Zeitz
Not sure why Mr. Sanders didn’t make that correction himself when asked about his ability to communicate in Polish (or the language of his father)? Not sure where the exchange took place but can’t imagine that he would have faced any backlash in Brooklyn (of all places) or even VT.
@Truther
Since Bernie's father was only 17 when he came to the US, it's likely that he acquired some English as fast he he could, much the way teenagers do today, from all countries. The children of that generation, in NYC, usually learned snippets of Yiddish, but not the structure of Yiddish as the veritable language it was. That's a major reason why the Yiddish language is dying.
2
Well, all of the past and presidential candidates and presidents have our present president beaten by a long shot. This one can't even speak or read English.
5
No mention of JFK announcing to the Germans, "Ich bin ein Berliner" aka, "a jelly donut"?
2
@Miss Anne Thrope: That's a mis-translation by detractors of JFK.
5
He'll be a disastrous presidential candidate. Middle America will dismiss him for not being cornpone enough and he will lose the Midwest and South handily, and probably much of the Mountain West.
Americans hate candidates that are too "intellectual". Look what happened to Adlai Stevenson. Didn't help that he ran against an incredibly popular war hero, but the number one criticism of him was that he was an "egghead".
4
Not that we'll ever find out what that translator heard.
2
You forgot Bloomberg's brave attempts into Spanish.
@ Vic Losick - Bloomberg speaks Spanish with a funny strong gringo accent but frankly his Spanish is OK. He will probably never fully master the “subjontivo” but most English speakers have the same issue.
1
Who was the father of the modern two party system? Whoops, sorry, I broke the rule. It was MVB!
Gail, if he has to debate Major Pete, Mr. T will not resist going after him being part of the LGBTQ community, just to please his base. And since Buttigieg seems to be one of those people that prepare his response like chess players, looking at 5 or 10 moves down the road, it would be a priceless moment. In whichever language!
8
Does the Donald really speak English? Doesn't sound like it to me.
8
When I was political counselor at our embassy in Helsinki, when President Reagan gave a speech on May 27, 1988 before the Paasikivi Society, I succeeded in adding a few greetings in Finnish at the end of his remarks in place of the usual "God bless," which to Finnish sounded like they were proper for a funeral. My Finnish-born wife suggested the following instead: Thank you, and God bless you. And bear with me now -- Onnea ja menestysta koko Suomen kansalle [Good luck and success to the entire Finnish people]. It as badly mangled, but the Finns appreciated the effort, and this segment was used in Finnish news after Reagan passed away: start on 32:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8S-UEsDeRE
5
Pop quiz: What American president was nicknamed "the red fox"?
1
@Andrea
Martin van Buren! The Red Fox from Old Kinderhook!
O.K.!
@Andrea
Martin van Buren!
Okay, but how many of these Democratic elites can TWEET in a foreign language? Case closed.
comment submitted on 9/17 at 9:43 PM
4
Hmm, a gay, Maltese-speaking working class hero? Let's see what his reception is like in Hammond, East Chicago and Gary. South Bend and Notre Dame are more than just a time-zone away.
1
@carl bumba: You don't seem to know South Bend well. It's as much of a Rust Belt place as the cities you listed, save Gary, which is much worse off than Hammond or East Chicago. South Bend was gutted with the demise of Studebaker in the early 1960s. And it's not a bunch of WASPs...27% African American, 13% Hispanic, and the whites are "ethnic whites" of Polish, German, and Irish ancestry.
8
JFK's line "Ich bin ein Berliner" is one of the classics. Oddly, it was designed to win over Germans during the cold war, but the effect was to increase his popularity among Americans
5
Gail allow me to ask you this, what language does Trump speak?
4
Another article pointing out how dumb Donald Trump is. It's not true! Donald is actually a genius when it comes to conning people and riling them up. He is what is known as an idiot savant--he may be good at only one thing but he is very good at it!
7
@Rob Kneller Idiot-savant? I think you are half-right.
6
Like Mayor Pete, Donald Trump also learned another language so he could read a book in its native tongue. Unfortunately, the language was German and the book was Mein Kampf.
7
How about a president who could speak proper English?
3
Our president doesn't have to speak French or Spanish he actually invents his own words like...Covfefe! Oranges for origins.
Used in a sentence...The oranges of Russian covfefe are being covered up by Bill Barr.
5
" ... that there is no such language as Swiss".
Perhaps these are not only US Presidents who do not know any foreign language, but some in the Editorial Offices of the NYT as well.
The language spoken in "German Switzerland" is a Germanic dialect "Schweizer Deutsch" that is pronounced "schwytzer tüütsch". The written language is ordinary German, called "High German" or Hochdeutsch.
1
Well, he's super talented at making up playground names. I'll bet he said 'you're mom is ugly' a few times.
4
Trump is well versed in Russian, nyet?
2
In fairness, George W. Bush speaks much better than "fumbling" Spanish, although with something of a Texas Drawl.
1
Just as a cosmopolitan person in Germany in the late 30s and 40s was considered to be an enemy of the state, so will Buttigieg be deemed by Trump and his disciples. Kinda makes ya wanta become a Buttigieg supporter.
4
One of your best, Gail! Har de har har! (Do you suppose we could REDACT Donald?)
2
Trump speaks fluent gibberish, that we all know.
7
All Democrats speak more languages than President Donald Trump himself even if that number of languages is limited to one. Please come back when President Trump learns to speak English. Meanwhile, I'll lead the rest of my life to the end and maybe two or three lives more.
3
Gail Collins omitted mention of the most famous attempt of a US president to speak a foreign language. That would of course be John F. Kennedy's immortal words to a rapt Berlin audience standing outside the Berlin Wall: "ICH BIN EIN BERLINER." He should have said "ICH BIN BERLINER," without the indefinite article "ein". As spoken, JFK was telling his puzzled German audience that "I AM A JELLY DONUT."
Also, although there is no such language as "Swiss," there IS a recognized dialect of German called "Schweitzer-Deutsch," or "Swiss-German." It's an extreme form of the dialect spoken in Bavaria and other parts of southern Germany. It's difficult for speakers of Hochdeutsch (High German - spoken in Hannover and taught in the schools) to understand, like some Southern dialects of US English to speakers of Standard English.
1
@Robert Crosman Schweitzer-deutsch is the name of a number of German-language dialects, all different from each other. Zuri-deutch is a lot different to Berner-deutch and the German spoken in Solothurn is a lot different from either of these two. The German from the Haut-Vallais is not understood by anyone else. Not even a bitzali ...
1
Decades ago I read an article in a political science journal that reported a pattern in presidential succession:
The successor president is very likely to have the opposite characteristics of his predecessor (maybe someday we can say "of his or her predecessor").
So the smart, witty, intelligent, curious, civilized, and careful President Obama was replaced by his total opposite, Donald J. Trump.
Therefore, the question for 2020 for the Democrats is which of their candidates is the most unlike Trump?
Right now, I would say Mayor Pete, especially his amazing intelligence, respect for the truth, and open, upbeat, optimistic, welcoming attitude and record of accomplishment in his 37 years.
One of our daughters lives in IN. She never has liked or been interested in politics, and she had nothing pleasant to say about Mike Pence and his governorship--except she was glad when he became VP because he would no longer be such a total incompetent embarrassment to the state of IN.
She is truly excited about Buttigieg, raves about what a great mayor he was, and how well he managed the improvement of South Bend. She is even posting articles about him on her Facebook page.
7
Like Mayor Pete, Donald Trump also learned a new language so that he could read a book. Unfortunately, the language was German and the book was Mein Kampf.
1
And?
Trump is neither literate nor fluid in English.
1
This is really beneath the New York Times.
Sincerely,
Someone who speaks 3 languages, and has at least a little bit of class
Really people, pretty lame article. If it really doesn't matter how many languages a president speaks, then why write an article lauding a guy who has an obvious innate ability to learn languages.
He'd be great as a junior member of the United Nations team staffed by the United States.
This is where you want your policy wonks, not as President.
Big deal he won Mayor South Bend.
That's like being Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.
13
@Erica Smythe
you have a point about Pete's limited experience. But South Bend is a real place with a major university, a diverse population, within shouting distance of Chicago ..... whereas Wasilla has, umm ... not sure. And this mayor is intelligent. The other one? Not so much.
54
@Nancy B and it's three times Burlington Vermont whose population wouldn't fill a football stadium. I don't know how many post offices he named. Many senators have very limited experience.
15
@Erica Smythe. So what? You can't see Russia from South Bend either.
27
Gail, we’ve tried Stupid. An abject failure, except for the very Rich. And isn’t that the point, for the GOP/NRA Party.
Let’s try smart, once again. Mayor Pete is absolutely my choice for the VP slot. Imagine the impression, attending meetings and conferences in Foreign Countries. As for the Presidential slot, I’ll go with Warren or Harris. It’s past time, and this 60 year old is damn tired of waiting.
Seriously.
5
President Franklin Roosevelt spent summers as a youth visiting France and Germany and so acquired knowledge of their languages and cultures. When Hitler's speeches in German were playing on the radio, he would provide a running translation for his monolingual White House staff. In addition, when France fell to the Germans, FDR made an hour long address to the French nation--in French! We were fortunate to have a such a leader then.
7
The translator may be between him and other leaders, but we’ll never see the transcripts.
It would be nice to have a president that spoke the truth and who respected facts and science and the rule of law. I know Mayor Pete does all of these things. One of Mayor Pete's most
admired traits by myself is that he LISTENS and thinks logically and answers questions which might be touchy to him personally. Trump does not demonstrate any of these characteristics!
3
I spoke French more fluently than English as the preschool son of an Army officer stationed in Paris in the mid 1950's, took Russian as a foreign language elective in college, and had classmates that were fluent in Mandarin. (The old joke was optimists learned Russian, pessimists learned Chinese.) My wife speaks Spanish as a second language. While it may seem quaint now, minimal fluency in at least one foreign language was once considered an essential skill for those seeking a career in public office.
We now have intelligence staff who need interpreters to understand the language of the people they are studying, AI in our phones for on-the-spot translations while traveling, and a President who has trouble with basic English words and grammar.
It appears times have changed. Not for the better.
3
In a country as big as the United States, where most people will probably never set foot abroad, why is it that high-school teachers keep trying to teach students how to speak a foreign language. Wouldn't it make more sense to teach them to read the foreign language of their choice? That would enable them, among other things, to read foreign newspapers and magazines, and thus know about what is going on beyond our borders.
Gail, have you forgotten?: The current president orders the translator out of the room when he has a tête-a-tête with his bro, Vladimir Putin.
2
JFK proclaimed, "Ich bin ein Berliner!" With the article "ein," one translation: "I am a jelly donut!" Others say the article made clear he wasn't born in Berlin but was a Berliner in spirit.
Bernie Sanders’ Ashkenazi Jewish Polish/Galician father probably spoke Yiddish, not Polish, when not speaking English at home after emigrating to the United States.
3
Yes, it is nice to know there is a translator between Trump and Putin. But what if the translator is Russian and there is no equivalent translator from any other country? Still feel reassured? NO......even after Republican AG Barr's reassurances there was no collusion!!! Picky, picky, picky...
Thanks, Ms. Collins. That was fascinating.
May I go off on a little riff of my own?--
--and point out the one Roman Emperor whom scholars would probably give gold to get back.
Claudius.
Derided by many as a half-wit. So much so that when his successor, the Emperor Nero, was delivering his eulogy and touched upon his "wisdom and prudence"--
--the entire audience burst out laughing.
Oh dear.
BUT--
--Claudius may well have been the last human being on Planet Earth to understand the Etruscan language. Which we sort of understand. But only--sort of. Huge parts of it remain unintelligible.
Oh to get Claudius back! So he could give us all lessons in Etruscan.
That leaves Augustus. Who (we are told) worked on spoken Greek all his life. But he was never fluent.
Well now! To get back to 21st century America--
--Ms. Collins, you are on the money when you suggest: the linguistic attainments of these men may prove an embarrassment.
I am imagining right now some burly worker from Detroit or Chicago or Atlanta--scowling at your derisive remarks about Mr. Donald J. Trump. And responding:
"The Donald speaks only ONE language, Ms. Know-it--all Collins.
"He speaks MY language."
And that, in all seriousness, may propel Mr. Trump back into the White House.
For another four years.
Four unspeakable years.
Di immortales! Mon Dieu! Donnerwetter!
God help us all!
2
Multilingualism may not be the defining criterion for a good president, but it sure would be nice to have a smart one instead of a narcissistic buffoon who can't spell in one language, tweets in bumper stickers and lies his head off.
9
Foreign languages? Big deal! God wrote the Bible in English, didn't he.
4
A second language is the portal into the forma mentis of your interlocutor. Such a skill is fundamental in a globalized world: if we want to peacefully co-exist, we need to be able to negotiate with others. And to do that, we need to understand how they think (what they want, what they are willing to give). Currently we have a president who, if he "knows a lot of [English] words, he never uses them (did Shakespeare ever use the term "whack job?"). Or how about calling Ilhan Omar an anti-Semite? I (and Merriam Webster) alway thought Arabs were Semites?
Anyway, to Mayor Pete's credit he has begun asking Republicans "what would Jesus do?" And the answer is: "He wouldn't act the way Dirty Don, Pence, and Mitch McConnell do." If you read the Gospels, that trio brings to mind the Pharisees.
2
Why does Ms. Collins think it would be unfair for one to say "it would be nice to have a president who could speak one" language?
Works for me.
P.S. Please indulge me ... whereas I couldn't find a more appropriate 'place' to offer this comment: Compared to bill barr, Gerry Nadler ... not a particularly handsome man ... looks like Brad Pitt.
2
@Thomas Murray
P.S. I hope that Mr. Nadler has my prior comment in a personal trove of self-awareness, and that the fact that bill barr 'makes him look like' Brad Pitt gives him some small, schadenfreudian comfort as he battles the trump-sycophant beast.
1
Bernie Sanders is likely fluent in Yiddish, a language from no country, but spoken among Jews who immigrated into the United States around the turn of the 20th century.
1
Very funny :) Thank goodness for Gail Collins.
3
Trump speaks Muppet. Cant wait til he gets his pink slip with the only 2 words he can speak or understand in English:
"You're Fired!".
Gail, you can’t compare apples to origins.
2
It's pretty rich when then the man of many languages is heckled with 'Sodom and Gomorah'. You would think the bible readers could come up with something better than that.
Trump's English sounds much more lucid in it's original German.
Yeah, betting on the appeal of elite intellect sure did well for Democrats. Oh, you guys.
Elite??
oh my gosh, our current president not only can't speak english, he doesn't understand American!
3
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln could only speak one language. 11 of the last 12 Presidents could only speak English. These days you don't need to speak another language as you have software to translate for you.
"Who is one of the many illegitimate children of Aaron Burr?" Cue in "Jeapordy" theme song.....
Trump speaks the language of hate. The entire world understands his insults and sheer bully, stupidity.
No need for a translation of his ugliness. His staff also is talented in the just plain double talk.
In 20/20 candidates need to be able to communicate in English and understand that it would be a wonderful asset if they could speak the language of winning every time they were on the debate stage. Every time they spoke to constituents we are winners.
At the victory party they can say the Democratic Party won in multiple languages and it will be music to our ears.
If indeed Melania Trump speaks many languages, I'm yet to hear her speak any but English. I'm sure she speaks Slovenian and perhaps Russian. But has anyone ever heard her speak French...even when she visited France or when the Macrons visited USA.
2
You say, "In college I took Russian because I wanted to read “War and Peace” in the original." I thought you were going to add, "But I never learned enough to get through the first sentence."
2
One mistake- Gillebrand understands nothing.
1
Vladimir - Donald, is it ok with you if Russia invades Ukraine? I lent you a lot of rubles, so say Dah for me!
Donald - Dah, of course.
Translator - I’ll take that Dah as a Nah for the Americans.
Donald - Good girl! No collusion! Miss translator, What does collusion mean?
Translator - it means ahhh hairspray.
Donald - most excellent translator ever, extremely talented!! Speaks many, many languages. Very talented.
1
Why on earth would this headline put, side by side, Pete Buttigieg and Donald Trump's wives? Are you serious?
Please actually look at Buttigieg's resume and compare his accomplishments and brilliance in every area of life with those pathetic souls who not only were dumb, but dumb enough to marry Donald Trump. Their ethics and soullessness didn't even extend to leaving him when he cheated on them.
1
And having been in the military, he knows how to handle a gun. Next thing you'll be telling us he's so good at golf, he doesn't have to cheat.
His Russian benefactors, Oligarchs all speak English as well as the FSB, GRU handlers. Could learning the North Korean dialect be on the horizon?
I believe I can identify the man in the photo: Bill Murray. Right?
We’re not going to subtract any points for this one, since there should be a rule against quizzes to which the answer is “Martin Van Buren.”
Gail, hilarious as usual.
1
Viva Buddha Judge!
Trump isn’t even fluent in English. In other words, he only speaks gibberish.
2
Too bad he’s illiterate about business & economics.
1
Trump speaks English with the fluency of a six-grader, and one who is struggling with it.
2
We don’t need a multi linguist President. We just need one who defends and protects the constitution of the United States of America.
My two mini Schnauzers are bi-lingual (English/Spanish). I'm not certain T.rump speaks English.
1
I would like a president who could read.
8
Another fun fact about Martin Van Buren. Some say the phrase "OK" emanated from his re-election campaign slogan in 1840, "Old Kinderhook."
Gail once again attempts to regale us...... without much success. I’d be more impressed with Pete if he spoke Klingon and in three more presidential election cycle he’ll be all of 49 years old. Ancient.
I love reading Gail Collins.. very funny & witty!!
3
To learn another language is to learn humility and what it means to struggle. It is to feel dumb and yet know that you're inteligente and capable in your first language. To learn another language is to be willing to take a risk and look a fool, to ask for help, and to learn to see the world and your own culture from another perspective.
In short, it requires and strengthens cognitive flexibility and adaptability, characteristics some of our current leaders sorely lack, n'est ce pas?
5
In the United States of America, we have a culture; part of that culture is our LANGUE, which is English. In all official business, speak it !
@Mack- And spell it, too!
1
The last time I looked, England was a country in Europe. If you were the real American you claim to be you would certainly learn Algonquin or other American language . . .
2
Someone should tell Bernie that "no" is a word in Polish and that it means "uh huh" or "yeah" (like a nod when you're in a conversation with someone.)
1
I wish trump spoke a language.
3
Trump's linguistic skill and knowledge of history remind me of a joke about American tourists in Germany.
Their guide pointed out that the Friedrich Schiller Memorial in Frankfurt was honoring one of the greatest writers in the world.
Tourist 1: "Oh yeah, I hear of him. He is called Johnny Goethe [goose] in America.
Tourist 2: "Oh yeah, the one who wrote the Little Night Music".
Tourist 3: "Oh, yea, I heard it. Bum, bum, bum, baaaam.
2
When Trump meets with Putin, there is a translator there -- Putin's.
2
How do you not include JFK's "I am a jelly doughnut"in his Berlin speech.
Always the ironic intellectual, JFK, when asked what he was thinking, when all the Berliners were cheering his "I am a Berliner" speech, replied that he was wondering how many people in the crowd had previously cheered Hitler . . .
I am betting Bernie Sanders family spoke a lot of Yiddish.
One of my life's regrets is not learning Spanish. It would really come in handy I am finding, daily.
Trump speaks another language called Mangelli. It’s an English related language with no actual grammatical rules and requires the speaker to totally mangle whatever he or she is trying to say and when in written form must be composed of frequently misspelled words and sentences that make no sense whatsoever.
3
Even a cold cheeseburger could do better than the fat clown king.
Come to think of it, maybe that is what djt actually is. Big, fat, round, orange/yellow with a smooth top.
Alternative facts sound pretty good. djt's BF and phenotypic twin, Barr, may well agree.
Tant pis that you only focused on presidents and current candidates - because how could you forget that Mitt Romney speaks, gasp, pretty good français?!
My dog is smarter than Donald Trump.
2
Did the NYT fact check Buttigieg on being proficient in these languages? I'm sure he can say some phrases, but it takes far more than the seven months he was in Afghanistan to become proficient in any strain of Persian- Dari, Farsi, or Tajiki.
How long did he study Arabic for? Some people study Arabic for four years and don't reach proficiency.
It seems safe to say he is talented in multiple foreign languages, but let's not give him credit if it's not due, especially in Persian and Arabic, which are highly relevant to US foreign policy.
3
When Trump had a dialogue with Putin the interpreter was told to keep mum to the media. Why?
Sanders and “Polish-American.” I have never been able to figure that one out.
Sanders is ostensibly Jewish. I have never heard anyone of Jewish descent, especially from the World War II era and all its implications, describe themselves as Polish.
My grandfather was a Jew who escaped from Poland. He would’ve sooner labeled himself as “Antarctican” before he ever identified with Poland.
Is Sanders afraid or ashamed to say he’s a Jewish American?
1
@David G., nope. His dad was from what is now Poland. And his mom Dorothy Glassberg "Dorothy Glassberg Sanders was the daughter of immigrants; her Jewish parents — Benjamin Glassberg and Bessie Glassberg — were from Poland and Russia. Dorothy was born in New York. Dorothy had six siblings". Bernie could not have been prouder of his heritage. He has never been ashamed. His only regret is his mother could not fulfill her dream of owning a house. "They lived in a rent-controlled apartment, but she always dreamed of owning a private home. Sadly, she died before that dream could come true."
I want a president who can spell hamburger, but prefers veggies.
Sometimes I wonder whether Trump's ineptitude with English is intentional. When he utters a bunch of bigoted dog whistle phrases in a middle of a jumbled, non-grammatical, run-on sentence, it makes it easy for his apologists to claim "that's not what he said" or "that's not what he meant." It's easy to argue about what Donald Trump said when what comes out of his mouth is often indecipherable non-sequitur.
As pointed out by Collins, it'd be nice if Trump spoke English.
Yeah, get Pete on the teleprompter and see if he could read as well as Donald Trump. Origins, oranges...
Every other world leader speaks English, even Putin. Trump sends the message that knowing another language is irrelevant, since, of course, the United States is the dominant power in his Imperial Court.
Actually, I think that expecting him to even say Hola! is too much. In fact, if he did say Hola! half of his "base" would desert him on the spot for pandering to the little brown people from south of the border. I would be content if he could speak for five minutes without insulting someone in English.
He would make a fantastic Secretary of State.
1
Learning foreign languages opens minds. Some are afraid to have their mind cracked.
1
Good column, Ms. Collins. Funny, but tragic.
1
Bernie Sanders' father may have spoken Polish but his native language was almost certainly Yiddish. It's pathetic that Sanders doesn't know that.
I like to tell people that English is my second language. Whatever comes out of my mouth is my first! What language does Trump speak?
Individual-1 does does not do extremely well with either spoken or written English. I doubt if his abilities here get beyond a middle school level. Reading abilities are not even that advanced.
I don't know about that translator part. Remember the closed meetings with Putin?
No mention of Melania Trump, who speaks English, Slovenian, French, German, Italian and Serbo-Croatian? I’m pretty sure she can say “Want a dance, honey?” in even more languages.
1
I'm surprised Ms. Collins neglected to mention the famous moment when President Kennedy spoke to the German people in German.
Noting that Mr. Castro's mother made a point to only speak English to her sons - that is something he should hammer home to conservatives (hammer being the necessary approach since it seems difficult to get any rational thought into the heads of many within the rabble-crowd)...that is something they whine continually about when confronting innocent people in grocery stores or on the street. How could they not support someone whose mother was such a patriot? Ms. Castro was much more so than little donnie's mother, who never taught English to her failed son.
We don't need a President who is able to speak more than one language. We need a Wizard of Oz President- someone with a brain, a heart and a modicum of courage.
1
Unless the President's interpreter is the same one from the 1971 Woody Allen film, Bananas. Who is chased off the tarmac with guys in white coats.
https://youtu.be/oF-AcR14Km8
Is it even possible to translate Trumplish into any language, including American (as distinguished from British) English. The man thinks syntax is paying $150K to hush up a ten-minute stand.
I just returned from my weekly German lesson. On this week's vocabulary list was the German word doof. As regards Mr. Trump, yea, it pretty much means what you think it does....
It always warms my heart when I see clearly non-French speaking American visitors in Paris in restaurants or elsewhere, bravely and sheepishly offering up what is perhaps the sum total of their French (maybe gleaned only from advertising, cartoons etc.) “bonjour,” “merci beaucoup,” “s’il vous plaît,” or “au revoir” to the French they are dealing with, and watching the warm(er) atmosphere it helps create.
On the other hand, I always grit my teeth when I see Americans march into shops or restaurants or museums and without a please or thank you or “excusez-moi” and loudly address the people they are dealing with as if they were the foreigners in their own country!
Even if you have never had the desire,or opportunity to study a foreign language, if you have any curiosity to explore “the global village” we now inhabit, at least Google how to say “hello,” “please,” and “thank you,” in your destination and I guarantee your experience will be exponentially better.
This advice does not of course apply to the current president, who was clearly brought up to believe that “please” and “thank you” are only for the little people in whatever language.
4
We're just a few minutes from the political translation of our time. Should I tune in to Fox Entertainment to understand Barr's version of the English language?
1
It would be beautifully poetic justice if President Buttigieg called MBS to tell him -- in Arabic -- that we no longer needed Saudi oil, that we were done with supporting the war in Yemen, and that Bin Salman was persona non grata in the United States for directing the murder of Jamal Kashoggi.
1
Trump definitely needs a translator, also a buzzer that goes off whenever he lies.
Yes, yes, but let's get down to what's really important - which candidates speak Klingon?
2
Bernie Sanders speaks the language of ordinary Americans.
Pete Buttigieg speaks McKinsey.
This is a mean soundbite and we can't fully gauge a politician's true intentions. I love to hear Pete speak actually, but I've learned politicians do a lot of sweet talk to cover for the bitter reality that nothing really changes the continuous expansion of the dire and ugly inequality abyss, and I just fear he'd be the next one to go about ironing the fringes and edges of the whole cloth that our politics and economics are made of, whereas Sanders already moved the goalposts, set the agenda, and would move both further with gusto.
Consultants are glibphosate become flesh. Consultants are the Executive Lives Can Always Grab More of activism. Post Financial Crisis, it was a consultant, Mark Foley, who was quoted in the NYT on bonuses: "The horse is out of the barn and over the hills." He failed to point out horses can be caught and reigned in. Now it is a consultant who woos and makes America swoon for his pretty talk: McKinsey Pete. His signature achievement as a mayor was fining struggling home owners into foreclosure so he could speed up gentrification and he sells that as 1000 new buildings replacing decrepit ones in a record time. Good luck gifting him with your trust.
So-called being data-driven is the consultant's knack, yet the glib data-speak always ends up supporting outsourcing, downsizing, and profit and clown hyping. Now what steers the data redaction and interpretation?
1
Foreign languages are dangerous.
When you speak more than one, you are more likely to understand different people. When you understand different people, you are less likely to want to kill them.
Bad for foreign policy.
4
Slight correction: in his early years in Springfield, Lincoln and some friends hired a German immigrant to give them language instruction, but apparently Abe cracked so many jokes that the class did not make much progress. Still, one of his NY electors, Sigismund Kauffman, was delighted to learn that Lincoln knew his name meant merchant. See Jason Silverman, Lincoln and the Immigrant (2015).
It doesn't matter what language you speak if you only speak falsehoods and distortions. Matters more what you say than the language you use. How is it a disadvantage if you speak other languages than English? I speak and understand Italian, and I wish I knew more.
My Hungarian mother refused to teach me Hungarian as would never be used. We were in the Permian Basin. Things would change, but I would never be able to learn her language, nor Turkish which she and my father spoke. Nor German or French, even tho both spoke some of that. Spanish it would be and I am delighted that I understand and can speak some of it having spent my life next to Mexico and in a state that speaks, well, lots of Spanglish as well as Spanish, tho not like the language is spoken in, well, Spain. Ersatz Spanish shows the ingenuity of those who live in both worlds, US/Texas and Mexico, por ejemplo. Altho we know now that Trump's father born in the Bronx, not Germany, wouldn't some German be familiar to him? Not much in his record indicates any interest in other countries other than his fascination with women from other countries such as two of his wives. Did he learn Czech from Ivanka? Slovenian from Melania? I doubt it.
1
We’re thinking about the Democratic candidates now. Pete Buttigieg seems to be the name of the moment, and you can’t help noticing his linguistic talent. The Buttigieg folk say that besides English, he’s proficient in Spanish, French, Italian, Maltese, Norwegian, Arabic and Dari, a variation of Persian.
http://www.translation.pk/french-translation.html
We have a president whose base completely rejects any desire for critical thought about his competence as a president or his countless lies to them. He speaks only to them, as he has freely admitted, but on a infantile, extremely limited vocabulary and that they find both persuasive and reassuring that someone is protecting them from the bogeyman whether it's the press (fake news), the Democrats or anyone else out to get Trump who they mistakenly think is on their side. Trump will go down in American History as the "Great Con".
Donald Trump is completely fluent in reading a crowd and finding the lowest common denominator of hateful attitudes to stir up. Hard to believe that he has the job held by JFK.
1
Here’s a favorite line from PG Wodehouse that reminds me of many Americans who actually do try to attempt a phrase or two of their high school French or Spanish. It’s from “The Luck of the Bodkins.”
“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.”
2
At this point, a president expert in even one language would be yuge.
2
As it turns out Bernie speaks "Fox" pretty well.
@StuartM, yup he is a regular guy who speaks to Americans of all stripes.
1
I’m calling #FakeNews on Melania’ s supposed 5 languages. Just like her claim of a college degree. As FLOTUS she has travelled to both France and Italy, an aside from some pleasantries in Italian with kindergarten aged kids, she has not spoken any of these. Slovenian and broken English....that’s it.
1
Trump has a gut, what use would a man with such an incredibly intelligent gut have for foreign languages? Lets face it folks the only language Trump has ever know is mob talk and it has served him well at least up until the point that he decided to pursue a job in which intellect is considered a virtue. Mob language doesn't exactly create visions of complex thought.
1
I'm kinda doubting that Bernie Sanders' father -- a Jewish immigrant from Poland -- actually spoke Polish as his native tongue.
"Coldhearted observers noted that there is no such language as Swiss."
.
Really?
There always used to be four:
.
Schwyzer Deutsch
French
Italian
Romansch.
.
All of these languages are "Swiss".
It just depends on your definition.
I would guess that the native tongue of the father of Bernie Sanders was Yiddish, and that Polish was his second language. Sanders was probably trying to avoid mentioning that he almost certainly could say something in his father's native tongue. I would bet he could say "Oy vey."
As for "no" in Polish, it is spelled "nie" and pronounced "nyeh."
1
I don't care about Pete's or Donald's knowledge or lack of knowledge of other languages.
Pete now does not have the experience to be president.
I care about the nonsense and hate Donald spews out in English.
One of the most famous foreign language utterances by a presidents was in JFK's speech at West Berlin.
Trump has evidently learned at least enough Russian to respond 'da' when Putin asks for yet another favour.
Thanks again Gail. Sign me up for Slovenian.
I woke up this morning thinking: “ here we go again— another day of trump news as the A.G. is about to hold a news conference”—- thanks for this moment of comic relief! Your comment on reading War and Peace reminds me of the old Peanuts cartoon strip where Snoopy decides to read that novel “ one word a day”.
Dear god!, he’s bad enough with English. One can only imagine how much trouble he could get into trying to mangle the syntax of a foreign language. Come to think of it, he really only needs to learn a few words in each. You know, “great, tremendous, huge, we’ll see what happens, no collusion, under audit, etc., etc. “ Oops!, I forgot - “sad”. . . .
1
At this point, I will settle for a president who is actually capable of speaking English. The weird gibberish that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth and Twitter account bears a loose and superficial resemblance to standard American English, but that's about it. Covfefe, anyone? How about a nice hamberder? Or how About THAT weird and Seemingly random Capitalization? It is ironic but no surprise that the biggest xenophobes who yell at immigrants to "speak English" often have a very poor command of the only language they know.
Slovenian? According to Rick Reilly’s recent book, Trump prefers Austrian as her native language.... ya know sounds better.
Bernie Sanders speaks the language of ordinary Americans.
Pete Buttigieg speaks McKinsey.
1
Besides English, Donald Trump is especially fluent in "mendaciousness" and "banality". His verbal command of "crudeness" is unmatched by any recent American president.
It's nice to speak other languages, but in our two party system, it's more important to be adept at code switching among your party's major constituencies. Both Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama were good at code switching between the white and African-American blocks of the Democratic party. I recall Obama switching effortlessly between Wall Street types and his "black preacher lilt".
The fact is that Trump is a master at code switching. With just the right mix of plain speaking and vulgarity, he can rev up his base at a rally in Middle America; and then hop on Air Force One to Mar-a-lago and hob nob with billionaire Republican donors. By contrast, of the many candidates in the Democratic field, I have yet to see a master code switcher - and that includes Buttigieg.
I went on Youtube to see him speaking the other languages. He's speaking, some better (Spanish), some worse (Italian), but he's not really code switching. Tim Kaine had the same problem and his robotic "missionary" Spanish didn't really help his ticket with the latin vote. By contrast, Jeb Bush could not only switch to Spanish on the fly during a news conference, he was able to code switch into latino mode of speaking - no doubt useful in winning elections in Florida.
1
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks only one language? American
"Coldhearted observers noted that there is no such language as Swiss."
Too funny! I guess this doesn't disqualify him from being president of the United States though, and it raises an important question: what do the Swiss call Swiss cheese?
"Wouldn't it be nice to have a president who could speak another language?" It would be better if we had another president who doesn't speak nonsense.
1
Lol, Kamala Harris' aides ought to know better, if Kamala spend summers in Chennai with her grandparents, cannot speak Tamil, that would be a huge surprise/disappointment! Yes, most people in America do not know there is a language called Tamil, but if they were to travel to Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka, outside South India, they will run into Tamil speaking diaspora.
"There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Mauritius, South Africa, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, and Vietnam. A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi, Pakistan, which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka. Many in Réunion, Guyana, Fiji, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but only a small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults. It is also used by groups of migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada (especially Toronto), United States (especially New Jersey and New York City), Australia, many Middle Eastern countries, and some European countries."
1
And then there's John Kennedy, who said "Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I'm a hole-less, German jelly doughnut") rather than "Ich bin Berliner." But he gets points for effort and sentiment.
As for Trump, I bet when he heard Notre Dame was destroyed he thought that meant at sports.
2
Picking on poor Hoover again , a brilliant man who should have been President during Coolidge's time. And Bernie Sander's still has trouble with his past. Can't spit out that his parents' were Yiddish speakers say a lot.
One might guess that the "native tongue" of Bernie Sanders' father was not Polish but Yiddish. Also, in defense of Cory Booker: Schwitzerdeutsch is indeed a language! well, okay--it's a dialect of German.
60
@David Mikics
Well, it's a pretty extreme dialect (though most German dialects are). Romansch would be a better candidate for "Swiss"—you could call it a dialect of Italian, but by that measure French would be a "dialect of Italian".
5
@David Mikics
But Switzerland has several official languages: French, Italian, German and Romansch. Schwitzerdeutsch is not used in all of Switzerland.
6
@David Mikics
The Swiss must have a language.
Whatever they speak isn't recognizable to me as German or French. ;-)
"Schwitzerdeutsch" must be what the waitress was speaking to us. A nearby diner offered that he couldn't understand her either, and he was a local.
2
It would be terrific if we had a president that spoke from the heart. And a human heart would be preferable.
It would be terrific to have an A.G. who spoke the truth.
It would be terrific to have something called Fox news that spoke the news.
It would be terrific to have voters who could understand the difference.
6
...HAD a heart...
People who learn other languages enjoy words, grammar and connecting with people from different cultures. Trump has trouble producing grammatical sentences, doesn't read voluntarily, and is skeptical about others. So he's sticking with his adolescent version of English.
1
Most Americans (including politicians) only speak English because our educational system doesn't require learning a foreign language. However, there are millions of Americans who studied Spanish or French in high school and college and while we learned to read and pass tests, very few of us can speak because of our mediocre teaching methods. Shamefully, many of the Founding Fathers were multilingual.
1
Interesting article.
First of all, it is great to see this just because the president is such a role-model, children need to see this and aspire to it.
However, I think the US is in a special position in which nobody expects the president to speak any foreign language other than maybe Spanish. It is good when, like Obama, they at least speak and write English with great eloquence, because they are the global role-model for communication in English.
[That said, to be fair, Trump's communication skills on Twitter are also excellent. I'm not being ironic - his ability to get his message across in few words, to express emotions, sarcasm, passion, excitement, etc. is truly impressive, and we discount that at our peril. It is a different type of fluency, not necessarily "presidential", but powerful.]
I always tell Americans who come to Europe that they should never fear speaking in foreign languages - people are very impressed, very tolerant, and appreciate the effort even if the result isn't great. But maybe presidents are an exception.
Of course it would be great if the president were truly fluent in a foreign language, but otherwise, he/she might actually lose credibility by trying to speak a language they didn't really master. They would probably be best advised to stick to English except for chit-chat with local people where an attempt to speak the local language would be well perceived.
1
A welcome reminder. We consistently denigrate his language skills, but he is expert at communicating attitudes and points of view to people who are primed for that kind of thing.
@Denis
first of all; that man is no role model in any sense of the word.
Secondly; I'd be happy with a President with more than a grade school playground command of English. You may find his rants on twitter to be fluent in some alien way but I find them absolutely cringe worthy. The same holds true with just about everything else he tries to communicate.
The President should represent the best among us. Instead we have someone who couldn't order off the McDonald's menu without butchering the mother tongue.
1
Do we know for sure that the First Lady is multilingual? There are consistent reports that in addition to her native Slovene, she speaks another Slavic language, Serbo-Croatian--but also Italian, German and French. But has anyone recorded a conversation or even a brief interaction in Italian, German, or French?
5
@Lev Raphaelj
She speaks other languages the way I do .... hello, goodbye, thank you.
Although she came to the US as a young woman, her English is not what it should be. Not talking about the accent. It is the mangled syntax and limited vocabulary.
What difference would it make if trump could speak other languages? He so rarely tells the truth anyway.
15
@Jill, he speaks English at 5th grade or below vocabulary. Unlikely he can speak a full sentence in any other language.
1
Learning foreign languages, and a desire to learn foreign languages, is a strong sign that one wants to understand the wider world, how things might look different through the lens of other cultures, and how to deal with other cultures with genuine respect for their concerns and for their peoples. If this is the case for Pete Buttigieg, it says much that is praiseworthy about him.
9
“And for our part, be honest — it’s nice to know there’s at least a translator sitting between Trump and the rest of the world’s leaders.”
It would be even nicer to know what that translator witnessed between Trump and Putin.
8
Fluency in Spanish didn't do much for Mike Dukakis, even though he switched into it for parts of his nomination acceptance speech.
1
My fear is that Buttigieg will be painted as too Harvard, too smart, too worldly by his opponents and/or people who are jealous or resentful of elites.
Yes, Trump will somehow use Pete’s language prowess against him. And the Rhodes. And his military service.
10
I caught Gail’s dig at Herbert Hoover. Of course, everybody who is compared to Abraham Lincoln loses.
1
Showing interest in foreign languages is perhaps a first step to diplomacy. Bragging high IQ is the most alien to it.
8
"It would have been nice, this week, to have had a president who could say a few words in French about the Cathedral of Notre-Dame." Oh heck no! He would undoubtedly have botched it so badly that it would have been an insult or he would have had an interpreter deliberately throw in an insult aimed at Macron. The less Trump says about anything the better.
Remember when we had a President who actually spoke in intelligible sentences, and was articulate? It has been only two plus years, but seems like eons ago. Remember when we didn't break out in a sweat when our President was called upon to offer words of consolation to another world leader? Remember when we didn't cringe every time our President opened his mouth? Oh the things we take for granted.
Listening to Pete Buttigieg being interviewed the other night on television transported me back to listening to President Obama speak. His cool intelligence shined through just as it did with Obama. Then I was brought back to reality with the report of the latest Tweet from a man who finds it challenging to put three words together in a sentence that is coherent.
14
There is the old joke that the French loved to tell.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual
What do you call someone who speaks one language?
An American.
170
@James Bracken Sad but true.
6
@James Bracken
The French are a bit offended that the second language is most often English.
4
Knowing foreign languages is helps build mental dexterity. And the nuances and idiomatic expressions of another language help us stretch our interpretations of life and the world.
Incidentally, George W had very passable basic Spanish. Let’s not knock him for his willingness to reach out to Latinos with genuine respect.
7
It would be nice to have a president that can speak Truth.
496
I assume Bernie Sanders's father spoke Yiddish, not Polish, and surely Sanders knows at least a few words of Yiddish, nu? I hail from that part of Brooklyn, and 50 or 60 years ago there were still 2 daily newspapers in Yiddish, some radio shows, and quite a few people who spoke it!
7
Somehow I doubt that Bernie's father's native language was Polish. Yiddish more likely.
And he probably did not identify himself as a "Polish immigrant". He was a Jewish immigrant from Poland. A big difference....
4
@Susan, I'm sorry, what? Jewish immigrants can't be Polish? Can't Jewish citizens here be called Americans? There's not a big difference, and I'm interested in why you think so!
and just what languages is Melania fluent in ?
3
There is a good chance that Bernie's father's first language was Yiddish, rather than Polish, since Yiddish was the first language of many Polish Jews at the time - especially if they came from small towns rather than large cities. My hunch is that Bernie also knows a few words of Yiddish , fwiw.
2
Showing my age, but how could Gail possibly leave out: Ich bin ein Berliner?
6
@Martha. Wondering how many young 'uns will recognize that quote.
"O.K., no fair saying it would be nice to have a president who could speak one."
He speaks in "tongues" which is perfect for his base.
I'm amazed he has never used a snake which would a perfect metaphor for his entire life.
7
>>But sometimes nothing really works out. Cory Booker once addressed a radio reporter in Spanish, only to discover that the man was Swiss. “I do not speak Swiss. I cannot even say ‘Swiss cheese’ in Swiss,” the senator responded genially. Coldhearted observers noted that there is no such language as Swiss.
Didn’t this man go to Princeton and wasn’t he a Rhodes Scholar???
1
Was there actually a point to this column other than Gail's demeaning Trump for not being multilingual?
By her own standards and admission, she falls in the same category as Trump, limited to English in her communication skills.
Sadly, she'll never read War and Peace in Russian.
Unfortunately, when the only translator in the room is Russian, it's not so comforting.
150
I thought the only languages Trump and his wives share were English, French, and Greek.
There is so a Swiss language. It is a dialect, but called Swiss, and difficult even for those who speak German, which it most resembles, to understand.
3
@Eve Vaterlaus
Actually, it's even worse than that. There is a language called Swiss-German. Except not one, but many. And each very different from the other, even if strictly speaking each of them is a "dialect" of German. Basel-Deutsch is different from Bern-Deutsch which is very different from Zuerich-Deutsch, etc.... And they all think that the other dialects sound stupid.
So the typical 17-year-old Swiss from the German region of Switzerland speaks their native dialect fluently, speaks Hoch-Deutsch (standard German) fluently, and speaks French (the second language of Switzerland) and English essentially perfectly - if you don't notice the slight accent, they could pass for native speakers. Then, the ones who are interested in languages often also speak Italian (the language in another part of Switzerland) and/or other languages.
The Flemish in Belgium are more or less the same. Travelling in these regions is very humbling ... :)
4
@Eve Vaterlaus
Actually, isn't it called "Swiss-German"?
1
Gail's wonderful piece reminds me of how proud we kids were of a president who was snappy and smart and of a first lady could actually speak French and brought Pablo Casals to the White House. I am aware that these were folks from privileged backgrounds, but so is the boorish Mr. Trump. I know the Kennedys were very far from perfect, but they didn't disparage other cultures and didn't talk about "globalism" as though it were a disease. After all, didn't Kennedy say he was a Berliner? He mangled the German language in so doing, but the Berliners (and everyone I knew) admired his effort. Mr. Trump denigrates all other cultures but his, and that's a close-minded point of view and a dangerously isolating one.
10
@Martha Yes, Kennedy did say he was a Berliner, but in the nuance of the German language and grammar, he said both that he was a figurative resident of Berlin (standing with the people of Berlin in their resolve against the USSR-occupied East Germany) and a jelly doughnut.
1
@Martha
" Mr. Trump denigrates all other cultures but his"
It would be more accurate to say that he denigrates all cultures; he has none. He is like the illiterate barbarians who conquered Rome.
1
Does anyone else remember the hilarious “translator” scene in Woody Allen’s “Bananas?”
That seems to be where we are now.
3
@crowdancer. For those who don't know it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF-AcR14Km8
@Andy
Thanks Andy!
It's cool that he can speak multiple languages but at a time when 5 million American's, mostly in the Trump voting areas, have killed themselves via suicide, overdoses and liver damage, it's not as important as the stuff Andrew Yang is talking about. Mayor Pete seems like a great guy but being president means more than appealing to the media class.
If anyone ever wonders why the people feel the elites are disconnected - Brexit, Yellow Vest, Trump - use this as an example.
2
Melania Trump needs a translator once she gets past "Bonjour!" or "Ciao!" You can bet that she'll be busy elsewhere if there's a chance she might run into Pete Buttigieg. But he's not only a brilliant man, he's the kind of guy who doesn't embarrass people for fun. Not even malicious types like the Trumps.
Anyway, my father was fluent in five languages. I speak one. He suffered so much discrimination as an immigrant that he wanted his kids to fit in completely. It's a terrible loss, and I envy those who had the opportunity and ability to increase their skills. Our world is getting smaller.
14
Trump speaks a different language. The problem is that it doesn't have syntax and diction and can't be translated into one spoken by humans.
9
The stdies show that if you speak two or more languages fluently, you also have a better ability to think about more than one solution for a problem you face.
Let's elect a candidate that can speak two or more languages fluently to help our country recover from the huge problems this president has created.
1
There are indicators that hint some in Team Trump are fluent in Newspeak. Regardless, the guy in the Oval Office has mastered the vernacular found in Jimmy Breslin's classic, "The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight."
1
" ... it’s nice to know there’s at least a translator sitting between Trump and the rest of the world’s leaders."
I never thought of it that way, but you're right. Remember Honey Huan, the Chinese translator for Uncle Duke in the Doonesbury cartoons? She turned Duke's raving speech at a banquet hosted by Mao into praise for the annual output of the Chinese ball bearing industry.
This is what grasping at straws looks like, isn't it?
4
All the automatically triggered responses are already in print here, but I add this twist on the "Trump does not speak English comments."
I read 400 comments at an Ilhan Omar article yesterday 4/17 and was struck by the asymmetry of thoughts on her grasp of the English language and speaking ability.
Her many detractors including the top 25 Reader Picks all wanted her to speak like a Harvard professor even though most of them seemed to fully support a man who is still learning English at the grade school level. No interest in being fair there.
As for Harvard, here is what President Lawrence Summers wrote in the Times in 2012.
"English’s emergence as the global language, along with the rapid progress in machine translation and the fragmentation of languages spoken around the world, make it less clear that the substantial investment necessary to speak a foreign tongue is universally worthwhile. "
@ https://nyti.ms/2jAzSgP
Well the freshman class at the University of Rochester heard me say in my talk in the Palestra in 1981 that thanks to my learning Swedish I had a new wife. The next day in the local newspaper, D&C, it was reported that Swedish is the language of love.
You never know where that second language will take you. Learn one and find out.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
5
@Larry Lundgren - Correction. An expert on the statement that appeared in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reminds me that the exact phrasing by that reporter was much better:
Swedish is a Romance Language
As always Gail, your column is a great start to my day.
Two things tho'...I don't think there is a Slovenian language. Before the civil war in the former Yugoslavia in the 90s, the national language was Serbo-Croat. Heaven knows what it's called now.
And a translator works with the written word...an interpreter works with spoken word.
2
Gail, you’ve got it wrong - Trump is very talented - he can speaks a foreign language called Xeno-Opprobrium Americanism and whistles too. Only Fox News, Republicans, and Americans-who vote-against-their-own-interests understand him.
9
Seems like Mayor Pete truly has a really good brain ... and all the best words ... in 8 languages.
5
Mayor Pete appears to be a man of rare intellect who cares about the welfare of others. I hope the voters don't blow it again like they did with Trump.
8
@Clark Landrum
You should give Pete's book a read.
It's written by Pete.
It's all about Pete.
Constituents welfare...?
Not so much.
1
Mr. Trump certainly needs a translator even when he is speaking in his mother tongue . How many times have we heard his defenders say “ No,No what the president meant was...” ? Lack of articulation, vocabulary, and nuance in speech is no signs of being a “straight-talker” . It is a sign of intellectual laziness.
4
Sorry, Gail, but your last sentence is, unfortunately, wrong: Putin speaks better English than Trump does. As do most other world leaders, to be fair.
5
But, this is where we are in America: the Dems deal in facts and intellect and the GOP simply does not.
3
It’s apparently not a prerequisite to speak a second language to become President in the country; being a man, however, still seems to be.
5
You know how people either love or hate cilantro? I think cilantro is the perfect metaphor for the Trump-Buttigieg linguistic dynamic.
I don't know about you but I physically cannot listen to Trump speak. If you tied me down in a chair at one of his rallies, you'd need to call an ambulance before the night was over. It's very Clockwork Orange. I even get physically ill when late night comedians play extended clips of Trump's voice. I often have to look away and mute the screen. That's how offensive I find Trump's speech. I can't even listen to him long enough to get the punchline of a joke.
You put Buttigieg on the mic though? Well, he is the cilantro to my Chipolte. I don't even agree with his politics. I have no affinity for religion. I don't identify with the LGBTQ community. I avoid the term "capitalism" when discussing economics. There's absolutely no good reason why I should even hesitate to pass Buttigieg over as a candidate. But the man can speak. You got to give him that.
Maybe I'm just so starved for rational thought and intelligent communication that I'll latch onto any politician with more brain than a scarecrow. I don't know. But you know how you sometimes just really crave cilantro?
363
@Andy
Excellent post!
23
@Andy I am allergic to cilantro. How about a metaphor using chocolate?
9
@Andy
Beautifully said. I, too, feel physically ill when I hear Trump and take the same measures as you do so as not to have to hear that idiotic, narcissistic, whiny man-child.
I am not on the Buttigieg bandwagon yet, but god, just to hear him reminds me of another eloquent president we used to have. Mayor Pete does have a lot going for him. I'd love to see him on the ticket as VP. We shall see. Whatever the outcome of the Democratic primary, we must all vote!
44
I dissent from the belief that speaking a foreign language is the holy grail of intelligence and, even worse, that immigrants making a big deal of maintaining their native tongue is a positive virtue. Simple question: what countries in which the population is sharply divided by linguistic differences are politically stable? Prime example: democratic Belgium has suffered political paralysis for years and has come close to falling apart because of the antagonism between its two language groups. English and French-speaking Canada a few years ago came close to dissolving in a popular referendum. Scotland came close to to voting itself outside of the United Kingdom, and Brexit-fueled nationalism would be magnified without English as the common language.
India would never have become a country at all had British rule not imposed English as a common language and unifying force. And the status of African countries deeply divided by tribes and languages?
You are aboard a plane that is preparing to land. The pilot is French, the co-pilot is German, and the air traffic controller is Polish. Do you want them all speaking English, or showing their love of their native cultures by babbling away in their native tongues? How would you react if a sign in a store window said “only Arabic spoken here”?
Encouraging the use of Spanish among our Hispanic immigrants as virtually equal to English is blindly irresponsible. We will reap what we sow, and America will not be better off.
Switzerland has had 5 centuries of peace and democracy while speaking 4 languages.
Your examples all mask economic disparities. Language happens to coincide. Correlation is not causation.
By the way, while you’re right about India being a construct of England, you’ll also note there’s no major political force to divide the country along linguistic lines. By contrast, Pakistan is also a British creation, is India’s chief enemy, and is culturally Indian as much as as any neighboring Indian state, with whom it shares languages. The division is over identity, not language.
1
Thank you for that pop quiz about Martin Van Buren. When I mentioned that to my cube mates here, we all got a good laugh!
2
It's a shame Sanders's father wasn't a native Czech speaker, because "no" is in fact a word in Czech.
It means "yes."
2
Mr.Trump certainly needs a full-time translator even when speaking in his mother tongue. How many times have we heard his defenders say ”No, No, what the president means is”? Lack of accuracy, vocabulary, and nuance is no sign of ” straight talker ” as some of his supporters claim. It is a sign of intellectual laziness.
7
Our Johnny come largely Attorney General will mansplain his redacted Mueller report to save the country from watching Our President shed tears,as pompous Republicans are wont to do when accused of wrong doing.
2
How does one translate: I heard from people, or some people are saying? I think that is what is suppose to be a period in Trump speak.
2
It's important to speak other languages besides one's mother-tongue. Learning foreign languages and communicating with other people without an interpreter is key to understanding. No need for a third party (a translator) -- viz. Helsinki and Putin, Hanoi and Kim -- between you and your face-to-face foreign partner or adversary. Our president can barely speak (or write) our own language, but as you point out, Gail, at least two of his wives are multi-lingual, which is a good thing (as Martha Stewart preached).
Great that Pete Buttigieg speaks so many foreign languages - he's far more learned than the many other Democratic candidates running against Trump now and next year. A Rhodes scholar, a Naval Intelligence officer, veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and still in his 30s. Old Martin Van Buren (whose photo blazons your column today "Politics Lost in Translation) was born in Kinderhook NY. His mother-tongue was Dutch -- and he was the first president born in the United States (our 8th American president).
Liar, liar, pants on fire, the current resident of the White House. He said his father was born in Germany when he was a native of the Bronx, and he tweeted the world a few days ago that "flying water tankers" would douse the fire in Notre Dame better than the French fire-fighters. If the French had followed Trump's advice, Notre Dame would've collapsed into unrecoverable shards. Like our Democracy these days. So it goes.
9
It is more important the content of what is said rather than the language used to say it.
Trump's tweets would be as disgusting whether in English or French or Russian or Chinese.
8
Sanders speaks Loudly (is that a language?).
Mayor Pete also speaks Honestly--he's Obama, without the pauses.
9
Thanks, Gail (if I may use the informality, you´ve endeared yourself to many of us!), for another great perceptive and enjoyable column, especially, as others have also written, the last relieving thought! Keep up the good work (and pleae don´t be so compromising with your colleague Bret S. !)
4
Martin Van Buren's hair reminded me of Bernie. Bernie speaks two languages - English and Old Grump.
Trump speaks 1 language - hate.
I'll take the guy who speaks Norwegian and Dari, please.
7
@sophia, isn't it awesome kids and our youth love Bernie's language of old grump?
1
If speaking prejudice, hatred, violence, ignorance, greed and corruption (to name just a few of his nastier tongues) would be counted as languages, then our current POTUS would be considered a multilingual genius.
If speaking truth to power would be counted as a language, then Mayor Pete and quite a few other Democratic candidates should be considered more than worthy of holding the highest office in the land.
Vote.
6
I don't hold it against anyone in America who is not proficient in another language. I don't need more than one to travel to other states, or do business, so it atrophied, like an unused limb.
I do hold it against a President to not understand that people who speak another language are not stupid, or ignorant, or lesser, or to be mocked for their lack of comprehension. I do hold it against any President who seems to not know that other countries exist (unless they have a Trump hotel or golf course, which then is *all* he knows about that country.)
I like that Buttigieg, a veteran, learned some of the language of countries he served in, and that he actually served the nation. I like the idea of someone who feels ideas are not aliens that should be pulled screaming from his head.
Go Pete. Go almost anyone else. Show the world that it is safe again to think and understand.
427
@Cathy. Typically those who haven’t learned another language don’t know how much richer they and their experience would be. It even improves your English.
23
@Cathy
"Go almost anyone else" -- perfect.
23
A reminder that we may deserve the political-cultural poverty of our current regime. What other country is so insular that the majority speak only one language? The linguistic empire continues to spread, but the cultural one is shriveling, as are we. If Trump wanted the Mueller report to remain secret, he should have had it translated into Russian.
3
Based on my travels, the attempt to speak basic phrases of the country you are visiting is appreciated. Even if you get it somewhat wrong, you will bring a smile to the native speaker.
It is a sign of a desire to know the country and its citizens. It is a sign of a desire to comunicate. It is a sign of respect. None of which are important to Trump.
11
This is a funny article, so Ms. Collins has risen in my esteem somewhat. Having worked as an interpreter for LS in French, consecutive and simultaneous for 30 years on a freelance basis-- I was Ronald Reagan's interpreter in 1975 when he was interviewed by JP Chevenement in Cal., when RR made his first try for the presidency and interviewed over a 100 gunmen and spooks in the Algerian OAS for my dissertation(See my videos) I am a fairly good judge of others claiming they speak 1 or more foreign languages. To know words and expressions from a foreign language does not mean that u have mastered it, and John Kerry's French, no disrespect intended, is pathetic, painful to listen to.Does Mayor Pete know all those languages fluently?Since French and English r similar--"1066 and all that"--recommend to everyone interview on Youtube given by Anthony Eden which he gave in French to a group of French journos after the confrontation over Suez in which France, G.B. and Israel's plans to go to war with Nasser were thwarted by US and Soviet Union.Eden's French is impeccable, but spoken with a decidedly British, county county accent.Do not know Mayor Pete, but hunch is that he is more of a polyglot than someone who has actually mastered all those idioms he says he knows " a fond!"
3
@Alexander Harrison
In my limited experience (I knew St. Raygun as well) the only sure way to learn a language is to live in the country where it is spoken long enough to fall in love.
Translation and especially simultaneous translation is a minefield. When you layer that difficulty upon the translation of idioms, the results defy belief.
My favorite story occurred in New York at the United Nations when a translator took the American idiom "out of sight, out of mind" into the Twilight Zone as "blind and therefore insane" in Russian. The Russians who attended were seen to tap their headphones as if to check they were still working correctly. Did I really hear that?
Kudos to Mayor Pete. Far better to have a leader who seeks to learn in order to READ, than one who eschews reading in favor of watching televised hagiography.
12
he's smart. he's genuine and likable.
no one can take that away from him, but centrism is literally the last thing the democratic party needs.
with all respect, i'm truly baffled by people who think this is the guy.
3
@david
If you listen, he's no centrist. And I voted for Bernie.
09:05 EDT 4/18
Sen. Sanders may not speak a foreign language; but he does speak for an awful lot of us.
15
Yes, the ability to speak a foreign language is certainly a skill worth having--but more importantly, at least for a world leader, mastering a foreign language also subtly draws an individual into the value systems of other cultures. Among the many intellectual deficits of our current President, the one that is most dangerous is his lack of understanding, respect, and empathy for foreign value systems. Of course one could make the argument that Trump doesn't represent our country's value system very well, but, if you are going to "deal" with other countries, the art of that deal starts with some understanding of the history and value systems of the leaders you are dealing with.
17
"If Trump runs for re-election against a Democrat with some language facility, chances are he’ll simply say anything but English is un-American."
Yes, but it would only be an effective strategy if Trump could actually speak grade-school English. Who would take a bet that he can pass a 7th grade grammar test?
While many of the Democratic candidates are multilingual, we have a president who is barely lingual. Listening to him speak is painful as he stumbles to pronounce simple English words and strings one non sequitur to a dozen others.
And that raises another question, Can Trump write a simple coherent sentence in English, much less a composition? Why did he threaten his former schools with law suits if his grades were ever to become public?
But Trump's supporters are not much interested in his poor verbal skills because he is capable of communicating his anger, vitriol, biases, hatreds, and that is a language they understand.
32
@JABarry Alas, elitists have been using their literacy to put the minimally literate down for ages. :) I saw a film clip of Huey Long a couple of weeks ago and found it strangely mesmerizing and frighteningly appealing. While I think Sanders is too old to be president (I'm old, too), I love that he went to Fox. I'd love to have a smart president, as long as he/she understands that there is a real bias against poor white people in this country, wherever that fits into the pecking order of oppression.
1
Mr. Buttigieg's language proficiency is impressive, for sure. But I'd rather hear (from him as well as the political pundits) about his ideas on healthcare, income inequality, healing racial division, women's rights, economic justice, corporate accountability, a fair tax structure, etc., etc.
4
I'll settle for a president who can put together a coherent sentence, can spell and can read a teleprompter. I don't think that's asking for too much. Oh, and also I'd like a president with a sense of humor, who's able to laugh at himself if he does make some glaring spelling error on Twitter. Which leaves out Trump and Bernie, who seems to be as humor-deficient as Trump is.
8
@Ms. Pea - Agree with you about the current President's complete lack of a sense of humor. But I have seen Bernie chuckle, at himself as well as others. But only after he's passionately made his points first :-)
3
@Ms. Pea
Guess you haven't been paying attention then.
Check our Sen. Sanders many appearance on any of the late night comedy shows including SNL. Look up his quips about Larry David doing his impersonations. Check his twitter feed. Heck even his strident speeches at the pulpit in congress and his massive rally's, Sanders will toss out a quick Bern or two.
Granted, his humor is usually pretty dry, and witty; thus often not accessible to some people.
But deficient? No.
His has always been more satirical than ha ha guffaw.
1
Trump is humorless which goes with cruelty - he only laughs at others misfortune. Bernie I’ve noticed is not completely humorless - I’ve seen him laugh. He is just used to no one listening to him, but now he’s got the stage so he can relax a little and laugh. I think Bernie is too old to be President, but I think his ideas and passion for democracy and social justice are spot on.
1
Good for Peadar! Thing about languages is that they are not just words. Idiom is a tricky part. JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" is a famous example of getting something wrong--he never was a jelly donut, nor was he born in Berlin. To translate a simple phrase like "I am hungry" sounds like "I have hunger" in French and like "Hunger is on me" in Gaelic. Welsh speakers are regaled with signs like "Free Alcohol" in a supermarket that meant to point to the alcohol-free section; or on the road, a motorist was warned that there was entertainment ahead, when it really was an annoying diversion. Trump's mind-set is neither diverting nor entertaining. He is a disaster. But he is also a canary in our sad coal-mine, showing how much toxic mess some can tolerate before falling over.
12
I must say, this is one of the best Comment sections I have read in the Times.
Very few redundant arguments.
Countless examples of how far we have fallen b yaccepting as our leader, the current occupant of the White House.
Also, the danger that we will not rebound from this, as roughly half of the country is not just alright with the less-than-limited skill set of the current occupant, they positively embrace it.
14
The problem with being monolingual is that one must rely on translations to converse with non-English-speakers. That puts all the power into the hands/mouth/brain of the translator and puts the listener at a huge disadvantage. Having at least two languages gives a person broader understanding across the board. Knowing three or more languages opens the world up in ways monolingual can not understand. It is a humbling to know how isolated I am as a monolinguist.
11
They always say Melania speaks five languages but we only know for sure Slovenian and English. We have to my knowledge, never heard a word in any other.
25
@Katela Well, most people that grew up in the Soviet Union know Russian. It's interesting that she's one other person besides the interpreters who has listened into both sides of Trump's conversations with Putin.
Ah that last sentence: "And for our part, be honest — it’s nice to know there’s at least a translator sitting between Trump and the rest of the world’s leaders."
You've gone and reminded me that Trump has been known to let the only translator sitting between him and another world leader be Putin's. Not nice.
34
Imagine how much easier managing relations with other countries would be if our President would extend them the courtesy of speaking their language? I dare say no American President has engaged the Palestinians in Arabic. I would also wager that the French, always concerned about more English words creeping into their native tongue would welcome an American President addressing them in French. Mayor Pete's language skills are a major asset which sets him apart from the field and may be just the thing we need to repair the extensive damage his would-be predecessor has done to our alliances and our relations with the world.
14
I'll be impressed with Mr. Buttigieg when he can say in ANY of his eight languages that he is in favor of Medicare For All. So far--for some odd reason that no hard hitting investigative journalist seems to have been able to sleuth out--he hasn't been able to do that.
If I were a member of the Medical Industrial Complex and/or the Democratic Establishment's donor base, I'd find Mr. Buttigieg's inability to clearly support Medicare For All (in any of his eight languages) a very attractive quality. "Where IS my checkbook, darling?"
3
@Greg Gerner - Pete has stated he supports providing Healthcare For All, but the best way to achieve that is something Democrats don't all agree with. Providing a "public option" to ObamaCare, for instance, is one way that wouldn't upend the entire healthcare industry (and lots of people's jobs), and take away employer-provided insurance that some folks have and want to keep. Medicare For All, however, would likely have to replace those things. I think Pete is wise to keep the goal of Healthcare For All clear, without tying himself to the MFA method Bernie's in favor of (even though it sounds great, in theory).
2
Dutch was spoken in the Hudson Valley of New York State into the 1890s. It was also the first European language the indigenous tribes spoke, later they added English. So it not a surprise Van Buren grew up speaking it.
10
Wouldn't it be nice if someone spoke directly and without being politically correct? We already have someone who does so, whether Ms. Collins wants to admit it or not: Trump.
Wouldn't it be nice if pundits did so as well, and didn't fall in love every four years with whomever is the latest political heartthrob? Nah, that will never happen.
1
@Uysses
Here's directly to the point then. Trump doesn't speak. He rambles: without structure, without purpose, nearly incoherently, including making up words as he goes and misusing words entirely out of context. And his followers believe his near constant non-sequitors denote deep philosophical thought.
85
There is a huge difference between rudeness and directness. We have a president currently who is boorish, crude, unsophisticated, inflammatory, and dishonest. I’d take political correctness, whatever that means, and respect for others any day over the behavior of the current POTUS.
8
@Uysses
I think of “politically correct” as a euphemism for being polite—building bridges rather than hostilities. Do you think encouraging civil discourse in order to discover commonalities is a waste of time? Do you believe it better to shoot first rather than ask questions? In your world, is war better than peace? I won’t apologize for wanting to avoid insults and bullying.
6
In graduate school, I studied German because I had to and Latin because I wanted to. Both taught me a lot about English. I also married my Latin TA which brought the study of dead languages to the level of necessity in my view.
21
Its not the characteristics of a Presidential candidate that seem to matter anymore. There are plenty of well qualified (and at least bilingual) candidates in the Republican Party. Yet Republicans chose and continue to choose the current occupant of the White House. The media is the message, not qualifications. Mayor Pete may be very well qualified in any language, intellectual and moral, but what will the media dig up, and how will they market him? Dems will continue to value the old values: qualifications, morality, a middle class friendly political platform, but will loose without a supportive media. The right uses media to incite fear and misinformation, and without a clear plan of how to market any candidate the Dems will loose (again). Focus on taking back the Senate, removing McConnell from his position and, building strength in the House. Prepare the "farm team" for 2024, and learn how to use the media. Get out the vote. Go on Fox News and speak to the people. I'm not sure Dems are tough enough to win back the WH in any language.
23
@et.al.nyc 1) You have no shot at taking back the Senate in 2020. 2) You stand to lose 1/2 of the moderate D's who won House seats in moderate districts in 2018 by focusing the entire party on the radical left side of the party, who the DNC Chairman has dubbed the New Face of the Democrat Party, 3) Republicans are fearful. You want to put a gun to our head to not just participate in gay weddings with our baked goods, but celebrate it and evangelize the goodness of gay marriage even when our religious convictions are not in doubt, and 4) Mayor Pete..if he really wanted to do something positive for Indiana...would run for Mayor of Gary, IN and turn that city around by plowing under 1000 or so homes of the poor and indigent as he's done in South Bend (many of whom packed up and moved to Gary).
Right now you won't beat Trump with Buttgig or any of the other current candidates. The only way you win back the White House is with someone with more gravitas than Trump and who can go toe to toe with him having actually achieved more in life than Trump.
That person is Howard Schultz, but the same way your Intersectionalist Party has dissed anyone of moderation, Schultz appears only ready to enter the race if Sanders wins the D primary.
As a Republican who reluctantly voted for Trump out of my anti-Hillary convictions, I would support a Howard Schultz. I believe what he's done with his company and how he's done it through Service Oriented Leadership..
@et.al.nyc
Great idea - Bernie just did that (went on Fox News) and garnered the highest ratings of any Democrat anywhere, apparently! Hope more Dems do the same :-)
I have read somewhere that if a person does not learn a second language, at least to some extent, you will never really known your first language. A well rounded education includes a second language.
I can attest to that. I took up the German language and soon found myself taking a second look at English expressions which often make no sense when directly translated. It makes a person take a second look at the language you learned at your mothers knee.
21
Interesting. Through history, language though was never be a barrier in conducting politics and negotiate on the other side of the river or ocean. Simply because, it has to be translated to actions not just words, the safeguard against mistranslated politics. But, it is known for specialists that meanings are lost somewhere in between lines of a translation. Sometimes, it is up to the reader apprehension. In literary it is problematic what the writer depicts in another language. A good reason for learning Russian to read "War and Peace". but no action is required to validate a literary translation.
Politics in linguistics are normally reduced to literals. Former Secretary of State James Baker, asked the Palestinian representative at U.N. not to use metaphors too much, so his words can be translated without confusion. It does not necessitate interpretations. On the other hand, a politician need the other languages to understand culture, habits and people interests whenever it necessitates political implementations, an addendum. On the battle field, it is crucial for effective communication to know your enemy's language, like the Arabic language to combat in Iraq. But it is not a necessity for the politician to negotiate there.
In conclusion, language requirement depends on the field of use. For a president, you have to think in the personality and many attitudes, not language specifically, for language doesn't raise a president, while it can raise a writer.
FDR probably was our last multilingual president. He was proficient — some say, fluent — in French and German. Whether fluency is consistent with his reported accomplishment of speaking both French and German with a New England accent is something I leave for the reader to determine.
Americans need to do better with languages. I wish native speakers of English would work as hard at learning Spanish as immigrants from Latin American and elsewhere work at learning English. A few years ago, I had Russian immigrants who spoke very good English.
Contrary to what our present blessing in the White House, and other politicians may think, English spoken fortissimo is not the only language one needs.
19
@James Conner, everybody living in the Canadian-US shared border in states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, speak French. Not a big deal.
2
Here we are admiring a man, a highly educated Rhodes scholar, a man who is FLUENT in several languages, a man of the world. But you have to recognize that Trump voters HATE those qualities. They view highly educated people as the source of the forces that are holding them back. Americans know very little about what goes on in the rest of the world. They never search for or listen to or watch news programs that provide news and attempt to educate people about what life is like anywhere outside their narrow world. I saw a guy one time who appeared to be Italian, wearing a t- shirt that read "Welcome To America. Now Speak English" He was old enough that my first thought was to ask him " I imagine your mother or grandmother who first came to America never, ever spoke Italian at home, huh?" But then I turned around and he was gone. If his grandmother is still alive, I imagine he yells at her "Speak English". Why do American schools even bother teaching foreign languages anymore? I remember my kids having Diversity Day at school where aspects of other cultures are bought to school like art, dance , and culinary treats. Ah crepes or pierogi or tapas. Don't forget the hot dog and the big mac. The only acceptable cuisine.
16
@Walking Man You are correct in your description of SOME Americans. But it certainly isn't all.
1
@Walking Man
I had to cite the following statistics to someone making similar comments as your T-shirt man a couple of months ago.
I asked, "What's the percentage of first generation Americans who didn't previously speak English who then learn English after coming here?" He didn't know, so I commented that it's really only about 15-20%. I then asked, "What's the percentage of second generation Americans coming from families which didn't speak English who now speak English?" He still didn't know, so I commented that it's 100%.
Immigrants assimilate, just as they've always done. I cannot and never will understand why some people get so bent out of shape over it. However, they bring and retain pieces of their own cultures, further enriching the mix that American culture has become. Don't believe it - just consider food:
* Hamburgers (Trump's favorite food) is a German import.
* Frankfurters (some might call them Hotdogs) are also a German import.
* Pizza is originally Italian.
* Tacos (Taco Bell anyone?) are Mexican.
* The Potato (mashed potatoes) was 'borrowed' from the Native Americans.
* Our favorites pies are from many different countries.
* And on and on and on.
Americans imported every form of what we eat from other countries through immigrants.
A wonderful mentor of mine (a nice old Lakota woman I knew in college) had a perfect saying about immigration: "Even the strongest pure metal is still weaker than its weakest alloy."
1
Babel works exceedingly well as a metaphor for our culture right now. We all need to know more languages--linguistic and cultural.
20
While his linguistic abilities are certainly drawing attention as something setting him apart, notice that Mr. Buttigieg's far greater virtue is a proportionate modesty about those abilities.
In an interview with Chris Hayes, Pete said, " I'm not going to claim to be fluent in these languages especially because it`s been a while since I've had a chance to practice most of them."
That honesty is the far more relevant and impressive distinction between him and Mr. "I'm Like, Really Smart" (who hides his grades).
115
@Doug Keller
Humility is indeed a virtue. People who are truly proficient at anything don't have to bother advertising the fact. Pete just naturally comes across as genuine and exceedingly intelligent simply because he is. Only truly stupid people have any need to try and convince otherwise.
6
The comment at the end of the article that there are translators sitting between DJ Trump and the world reminded me of a fascinating debate I heard in Moscow at a conference at a university which trains diplomats, translators, interpreters, etc. The debate focused around the problem that these people are faced when the original speech or bit of writing is not well expressed or gramatically incorrect. The question was whether to translate as is or somehow 'fix' it. The examples given of poor English were from Trump speeches.
78
Language skills are meaningless when there is virtually no accountability for what is actually said by President Trump. Whatever happened to unrelenting follow up? Why accept, for example, a White House non-response when asked why Mr Trump had said publicly that his father was born in Germany when the actual birthplace was New York? The president should have to explain himself. Why is this not demanded?
90
@Mary Thank you. The lack of follow-up questions by the American press drives me insane. This isn't just as to Trump but as to all politicians. Remember when Dubya was pressed by a British reporter and his Administration claimed that the reporter had been rude to the American president?
35
I have an undergraduate degree in Spanish Language and Literature, and was a Spanish teacher for a period of time in my educational career. I also wrote curriculum for a K-5 Elementary Spanish Program. Here is my favorite joke from the language world: What is a person who speaks three languages called? Trilingual. What's a person called who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do we call a person who only speaks one language? An American! I love Pete and I might vote for him just because he is multilingual!
62
Knowing languages other than your mother tongue is extremely important. Every language you know opens a whole different world to you.
The United States is a country the size of a continent. So I understand why most Americans are aware only on an intellectual level - but not viscerally - that there is actually anything out there beyond the US-of-A.
Full Disclosure: My mother tongue is German. My Fatherland is the United States. I have been fully bilingual since I learned how to talk. (I had it really easy.) I went to American elementary school and then German high school. The only foreign language I ever really learned was Latin, which is more of a science than a language. I do speak and understand a little Italian and a little French. Comes in handy when you can drive from your home to Paris in five hours, or to Milan in about eight hours; one hour by airline.
28
That is so funny-I too have been relieved that there is a translator between Trump and world leaders. I know it is probably not accurate to ascribe so much responsibility to a translator but I do do it in my mind.
19
I'm not sure Dari or Norwegian will come in handy, although knowing the language of a different culture does help to expand one's mind. I'm pretty good with a few languages myself, but my second language (Dutch) only comes in handy in a few countries.
13
@Benjo Was Trump not in favor to have immigrants coming to this country from Norway? But then the woman with the Scandinavian name and roots, who once belonged to his cabinet, did not know if the population of Norway was predominately "white" which may would have changed his mind anyway.
1
With kudos to Mayor Pete for his well-deserved distinction as a linguist of great prowess, Donald Trump at least deserves credit for his facility with Tweetish, even if he is not at all punctilious with his punctuation.
63
@Quoth The Raven Covfefe and hamberders for everyone!
86
@Rob Kneller
Don't forget the "oringes" (Trump's repeated attempt at saying origins ) of those words.
My favorite is still covfefe. Has anyone figured out what that was supposed to mean? LOL
4
Kudos to Pete for speaking multiple languages, but let's take a step back and look at the big picture.
What we are lacking in America today is the ability to talk to one another respectfully, regardless of political affiliation.
Today, during a walk with my family around our nation's Capitol, I was surprised to see so many pre-teen boys wearing Trump hats. Coming from Los Angeles, this was quite an eye-opener for me.
I didn't think it wise to start political discussions with any of them in the middle of a museum, but I wanted to know why they support him. I also looked around at the groups they were in and noticed no other color on their skin except white.
We Americans need to do a better job understanding each other, coming out of our bubbles and reaching out to hear everyone's stories. Sure, it's wonderful to be multilingual, but if we can't even talk to one another in English so that we can have a better understanding of one another, then we are doomed.
80
@PM On the contrary, spend some time listening to Mayor Pete speak at length and you will see someone who can talk respectfully with people that disagree with his politics. It is no coincidence that Trump has not bothered to learn any other languages and so he lacks any ability to modulate his communications. Pete Buttigieg on the other hand demonstrates that when you learn other languages, you get in the head of the person you are speaking with and start to see the world through a different lens and so communication is possible.
35
@PM
You are not sure why so many pre teens wear red hats? Apples and trees. The question isn't what color is the hats they wear or what's written on it. The question is what size are the hats. I would guess small.
17
@Walking Man And maybe it's acorns and trees as in, "The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree..." Oddly, even as a preteen I would deliberately take an opposite stance from my parents no matter what, but then I was a rebellious one.
4
I'd like to know how Pete's aptitude for languages came about. It would be an interesting question to ask and might be helpful for youth and others struggling with a foreign language.
His mother was a linguistics professor. His dad spoke Maltese and Italian it seems, so he probably learned those growing up. Once one learns one Romance language like Italian, French and Spanish come more easily.
But Arabic and Norwegian and Darsi? Come on, you have to be some sort of genius to master those.
52
@JB I don't think it's so much a matter of genius as a strong interest in learning other languages. For some reason I was born with a similar fascination, but without the ability to pick up other languages easily. My theory is that an innate proclivity (possibly inherited) plus a good aural memory, the ability to hear and remember elements of a foreign language, gives rise to polyglots like Mr. Buttigieg.
As for me in the meantime, I find that the more languages I learn, imperfectly or not, the easier it is to learn more: I seem to be building places in my brain to remember sounds, words, grammar, conjugations, etc. This is true even as I grow older.
5
@JB: "Come on, you have to be some sort of genius to master those".
A very stable genius. That would be nice to have in the White House, a truly, really stable genius like Mayor Pete. A calm, decent human who is really stable (genius or not) is what we need.
3
@JB Maltese has a historic influence from Arabic.
"It would have been nice, this week, to have had a president who could say a few words in French about the Cathedral of Notre-Dame."
Nous sommes une famille. We are one family.
With ample practice and coaching, Trump may have been able to pull it off.
The only problem is that he would not be able to bring himself to say the words. They are so antithetical to the fundamental tenor of his presidency.
Why risk breaking from the script now?
92
I am wary of any claims by Americans to be multi-lingual. For almost alll Americans I have met, knowing 500 or a 1000 words of a foreign language qualifies as "fluency." And in fact, real fluency requires a vocabulary of at least 25k words.
19
@Mark Nuckols, Agree 100% that monolinguals in general (and Americans in particular) often have a pretty wobbly idea of what "fluency" is. And journalists are quick to pick up and reel off lists of languages "claimed", insofar as no one is likely to catch the person out.
E.g., given Melania Trump's obvious hiccups with English, despite living in the US for many years, does anyone really think that she masters the other languages claimed (aside from her native Slovene), even at a conversational level?
Re Mayor Pete, it's reassuring that he shows some humility—a bit like a genuine linguist.
E.g., in that video snippet where the Norwegian journalists are urging him to "c'mon, say something in Norwegian!", he appears to respond with a hesitating "Well, I can't remember much".
But he says it in Norwegian.
33
@Mark Nuckols You are correct but we have challenges. I suffer from backsliding due to lack of daily exposure (few foreign language films, big swaths of land with only English speakers). I have to find youtubes to keep my ear/mind connection. I rarely get to practice some languages so have to rely on books and vocabulary "top ups". There is the time commitment to do all this. Aging isn't helping. I am not a gifted linguist but I persevere. Diving in to upgrade my French this summer with an online course followed by one in France to enhance its use in my retirement years.
5
That just isn't true. Fluency in a language isn't based on "how many words you know." What matters is whether you can communicate with people in that language.
9
From middle school through college — both in the midwestern U.S. — I studied Spanish and French. Each has informed my understanding and appreciation of places and cultures previously unknown to me.
My French teachers were from France, Québec and Haiti; through them, I learned not only about France proper, but about French Canada, the French Caribbean, and even such faraway places as Réunion.
I was so proud to be able to communicate with people in Montréal and Marigot (St. Martin) while visiting both places with my family as a teenager.
My Spanish teachers were from Spain, Mexico, and Costa Rica. Through them, I learned not only about Spain proper, but about the cultures of Mexico, the Spanish Caribbean, and South and Central America.
I’ve been married for more than a decade to a wonderful man from Honduras. The melding of our families is a beautiful thing — not in spite of the cultural differences, but largely because of them.
To learn a new language opens a world of possibilities.
96
@oy_gevalt
Try talking to a Parisian gendarme in French Canadian as my boy friend did after his girl friend (me) hit his paddy wagon or whatever they call it in France. Final words: je ne parle pas avec vous, C'est bon I said to myself.
More than anything, attempting to learn a foreign language demonstrates curiosity about the world and an earnest attempt to broaden one's horizon. Saying few words and phrases in a foreign language shows a bit of self-deprecation, humility, and effort to reach out and connect with people who are different from yourself. On a political stage, it can show empathy (as did JFK in Berlin) and pack an emotional punch. Unfortunately, the current occupant in the White House lack all of these instincts, virtues, and abilities.
93
@UC Graduate
"Saying few words and phrases in a foreign language shows a bit of self-deprecation, humility, and effort to reach out and connect with people who are different from yourself. "
My career as an airline pilot offered some opportunities to do just that in my PAs to the passengers. On flights to Mexico, I would welcome the passengers with Welcome Aboard and also Bienvenidos Damas y Caballeros. There was always a Spanish speaking flight attendant on the flight so I picked up some tips on pronunciation etc.
6
Language is often a gateway to a culture. The more languages one has, the more diverse would be the world view, i would think. Many folk see the learning of another's language as an imposition and a threat to their national identity. In a country as culturally diverse as India, many of the 20 states have their own distinct languages. School children are required to study the national language (Hindi), the state language (Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati etc), and a smattering of the international language (English). It is surprising that in a globalized world, so many of the citizens of the leading country, master (?) only one language, even though a significant minority speak also another international language, Spanish. Having to learn this, is seen as an imposition by the non-English speaking minority on the majority! Mayor Pete's multilingualism may not prove to be of much value at the hustings, given this prevailing linguistic insularity.
10
Kudos to Mayor Pete's linguist professor mom and his professor dad from Malta (Maltese and Arabic are mutually intelligible, Moorish conquest and all that) for instilling in him the wonders and beauty of other tongues.
40
'speaks' is a highly imprecise word when it comes to foreign languages. I speak two. The second I learned starting in the U.S. Peace Corps. The highest level of fluency reached matched a standard short of native fluency: able to carry on a technical conversation with a native speaker.
I suspect most of these speakers badly butcher their alleged additional languages and that includes Buttigeig. Speaking a second language without years of careful usage reduces to knowing some phrases and lousy pronunciation.
Let's get a clear description of the alleged languages skills and then assign 'speaks' accordingly. Meantime, assume they are not bilingual or better.
8
I remember when George HW Bush called Pete DuPont, Pierre during a debate to send a message.
9
Remember though that Trump grabbed his translator's notes after a private meeting with Putin. No presidential record of that foreign communication.
One thing you can say with confidence about his communication skills. His epithet is interchangeable with his epitaph:
Donald Trump lies here.
160
@SMB
Perfect!
6
I think it's great to have a Functional-Illiterate-In-Chief who speaks fluent Uh-mer-i-CAN.
Think of all the xenophobes, whited sepulchers, monosyllabic mental giants and good old-fashioned rubes who Donald has brought into the American political mainstream.
Americans who have no idea about the importance of the separation of church and state are now running the country into their religious ground because they like the way Donald talks.
Science denialism is having a major Know-Nothing renaissance thanks to Donald's public contempt for knowledge and deeply disturbed love of 'beautiful', clean, delicious, nutritious coal.
It's as if Donald Made Being Dumb Great Again.
Millions cheer Donald and the Grand Old Phonies as they raid the treasury in broad daylight while gutting healthcare, the EPA and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau ....because "I'm With Stupid" has always been an irresistible Republican political fashion statement.
Donald doesn't need to speak too much English to his impressive voter base....a few "Hillary's"... a few 'incredibles'...a few 'lock her ups !'...a few 'Pelosis'... a few 'we love our 2nd Amendment Derangement Syndromes' and one or two "aren't I the greatest ?" musings are all he has to say before Donald's dedicated voters' start drooling and their brains hit the floor.
These are special people....they all speak a special language of Trumpian spite and ill will....and they are all soon-to-be-graduates of the highly rated Trump University.
274
@Socrates
About right on all counts!
13
@Socrates I don't know about that. Maybe ignorance is bliss.
1
After reading this piece, I now feel a morbid fear the we will soon be seeing DT tweeting in a foreign language (using ALL CAPS, of course) with the use of an app. After all, he is a "genius" with whose parents have foreign "oranges"!
21
Even Donald Duck speaks better English than Donald the Swindler.
A good many of us in California speak some kind of pidgin Spanish, if only to say Feliz Navidad to the gardener, and understand that a burrito is not small burro. Much of our petite knowledge of Spanish comes from the plurality of Mexican style restaurants, many of us would starve if we had to eat Big Macs like our gourmet president imposter does.
The founding fathers read Greek, Latin, French, maybe that is why Don the Dishonest can not understand the Constitution. Children mangle sentences but soon learn better, unfortunately the adults around them are not always the best speakers either. However there is a difference between the inability to use the proper adverb, and misusing the language to capture the attention of those who are unable to understand it anyway.
As it stands, no one can actually say they understand him anyway, since not long after he says something, he say she did not say it. We do not know if he understand himself what he said, and in many cases neither does anyone else, but they like it in Iowa and Alabama.
32
As the mother of a linguist (he didn’t get that from me) I am in awe of people who speak multiple languages. I recently spent 3 months in an intensive Israeli Ulpan studying and struggling with Hebrew. It’s work! My teacher was excellent and our books portrayed all of Israel’s religions and cultures with respect.
As I sit in a Tel Aviv café eating a pre pre Pesach breakfast I just finished a chocolate croissant although I thought that I had requested a plain one! (Of course I ate it anyway) The others in the café are speaking French which is a tale for another time.
When I taught in the Bronx I was envious of my students who spoke Spanish. Learning languages can foster tolerance which is currently in short supply.
41
@Retiree Lady, ironic that you are saying this sitting in a Tel Aviv cafe. Surely Israelis have sadly demonstrated less tolerance for their own neighbors. And if you read today's column by Bret Stephens, it illustrates the opposite of tolerance, and NYT's role in spreading inflammatory retaliation for what he Bret perceives as outrageous.
1
English is the lingua Franca of the world so that should suffice whether in North America or elsewhere in the civilized world.
Don’t get my wrong, I’m all for learning new languages. Francais, j’adore. Espagnol, esta bien. But frankly speaking, in America, knowing a second language too well has always been a bit of a disadvantage than a boon as the writer points out about Romney and Kerry (both people with non-foreign last names).
However, I do believe this will change as the ethnic makeup of the country changes as non-whites begin to outnumber the whites and start to take an interest in teaching their offspring their ethnic languages.
From a globalist perspective, a well-educated and multi-lingual American would be well-liked and well-respected everywhere in the world except within the US.
Usually having a foreign connection of some sort esp. a non-British one always leads to the type of racial profiling that many non-white Americans, lawmakers among them, are quite accustomed to, even in this age of globalism and ‘inclusivity’.
Obama was the exception and might have even been interpreted by some as an Irish name: O’Bama. And who could forget the backlash he faced for his supposedly ‘Muslim-sounding’ middle name.
Certainly wish Mr. Buttigieg best of luck, but carrying the red states would require a less foreign name. It’s not cricket, as the Brits say, but it’s the American way.
English names tend to do better, even Trump is an anglicized version of Trumpf.
7
@truther
Lingu Franca: a mixture of Italian with French, Greek, Arabic, and Spanish, formerly used in the Levant
From the days of sharing cultures rather than assuming one.
3
Is it a hallmark of the civilized world that people speak English? Who knew? I guess we better tell the few billion people in the world who don’t speak English that they can henceforth stop considerably themselves to be civilized.
2
@Truther
Even today people in Western Pennsylvania often refer to
‘Frank O’Harris’
Well, it think THIS is the whistle blowing to end Pretty Pete's election run.
Gail would have normally waited to write her comic treatment of this not-ready-for-primetime-player until there'd been at least a primary; but this dude is so ephemeral a candidate that Gail realized that now-or-never was coming right up.
Pete hasn't even had time to demand all guns be seized NOW! and the arc has just been reached on his trajectory.
Remember to save something from today's coverage to laugh over with your friends after the New Hampshire primary.
Swiss? Well, there's Romansh but not many speakers anymore.
5
@John Roberts And French, Italian and German...
Bernie's parents probably spoke Yiddish as their main language, but probably knew Polish as well.
16
I don’t know if we could handle a cultured person as president at this point. The masses may demand a more “common” man, one with whom we could have a beer, freely share our xenophobia, or harass women.
27
@A.L. GROSSI
Somehow that excludes our current president - who's never had a beer (he says) or could tolerate time with the 'common' man. Maybe his wife ...
I like Wonderboy, but he’s no match for the Donald.
Sorry.
1
@Greg
Respectfully disagree -- I think Pete would mop the floor with Trump! Of all the Democratic candidates -- and there are quite a few really impressive ones -- the two I can envision not just holding their own, but making Trump look small, on a debate stage are Bernie and Pete. Can't wait to see it :-)
1
@Greg: As I look over the 2020 Democratic field, I think Mayor Pete is the only one who can take Trump on. He knows how to handle bullies. And the comparison between his compassion and Trump's hate will be easy to make. And the fact that Pete is very smart and Trump is very stupid. The fact that Pete is youthful and Trump and his orange make-up and hair routine are very, very old. There are many more comparisons I could make, too, but will stop there.
1
Not always good idea to try to speak to people in foreign parts
in their native language.Especially in Europe. Be cause it suggests that they don't understand English which they almost always do. On the other hand, when i asked a sour looking clerk in a bank if he spoke English, he replied, curtly, "pas de tout." Not at all.
Anybody know which American president gave a speech in a foreign language? Not a stump tech but a really important speech. It was FDR announcing that American troops were about to land in North Africa, then held by the Vichy French, and asking them not to shoot at us. They didn't, but people in occupied France heard the speech too and were thrilled to hear him proclaim, in his Harvard accented French, "Vive la France! Eternelle!"
They were thrilled and so were we.
28
I think it was Trent Lott who just a few years ago boasted about not having a passport. Republicans can revive that winning theme again in 2020.
46
Again, there really are some Jobs that Native-born Americans will just NOT do. That’s the central fact, of the several Housewives of Trump Tower.
Seriously.
27
During an interview with Chris Hayes of MSNBC, Mayor Pete Buttigieg candidly admitted that he does not claim to be fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, Maltese, Norwegian, Arabic and Dari.
This is what he said: "Yes. I`m not going to claim to be fluent in these languages especially because it`s been a while since I`ve had a chance to practice most of them... I can read a newspaper article in Italian. I can do in a halting way, I can do interviews in Spanish here in our Spanish-language radio station. A Norwegian news carrier I guess heard that story and came to interview me in South Carolina. We lasted a little while before I kind of ran out of Norwegian because I wasn`t expecting it. But look, I`m not selling myself as a linguistic genius. I do think it`s
not a bad thing for us to have leaders who are curious about other parts of the world, who`ve taken the time to learn other languages and learn about other cultures especially knowing that America is going to have a lot of work to do to reestablish our credibility in the rest of the world."
208
@Z.M.
Notice that the far greater virtue beyond his capacity with language is a proportionate modesty about those abilities.
That, more than his linguistic abilities, is the far more relevant and impressive distinction between him and Mr. "I'm Like, Really Smart" (who hides his grades).
41
@Z.M.
Twenty aircraft carriers is all the credibility you need, to be honest.
During an interview with Chris Hayes of MSNBC, Mayor Pete Buttigieg candidly admitted that he does not claim to be fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, Maltese, Norwegian, Arabic and Dari.
This is what he said: "Yes. I`m not going to claim to be fluent in these languages especially because it`s been a while since I`ve had a chance to practice most of them... I can read a newspaper article in Italian. I can do in a halting way, I can do interviews in Spanish here in our Spanish-language radio station. A Norwegian news carrier I guess heard that story and came to interview me in South Carolina. We lasted a little while before I kind of ran out of Norwegian because I wasn`t expecting it. But look, I`m not selling myself as a linguistic genius. I do think it`s
not a bad thing for us to have leaders who are curious about other parts of the world, who`ve taken the time to learn other languages and learn about other cultures especially knowing that America is going to have a lot of work to do to reestablish our credibility in the rest of the world."
11
I guess we should be glad that Trump doesn't speak Russian. At least there are translators who know what he and Putin talked about, though evidently they're still silent.
22
Putin speaks better English than Trump does
The hardest job in the world is translating the gibberish that comes out of the president's mouth into another language that makes sense. I would think a good shrug would help.
29
Trump does speak another language-the language of hate and bigotry. Pure "murcan" language.
If Trump was to run against, say an Italian-American from Brooklyn, I'm sure that person would have two words in Italian for him, and those words are not "hi there".
I have the same words, and, they are not a term of endearment.
And I would believe the candidates that are multilingual are much better educated than the grifter.
However, education is not a badge of honor among the adoring fans of Trump and a multilingual opponent will be painted by Trump as some type of elite that should be ignored-and it shall be so.
Indeed Trump needs a translator so the rest of us can understand the dog whistles and gas lighting.
Or, we just whisper to ourselves those not so endearing Italian words when Trump does speak.
18
Never mind how many languages the Democrat candidates speak. I want to know if they're as alarmed as I am that Trump has created ideal conditions for a coup, and what, if anything, they propose to do about it.
The Defense and Homeland Security departments don't have permanent heads and Trump says he prefers it that way. The Supreme Court is stacked in his favour. Republican legislators are scared stiff of his infantile tweets. The Justice Department is run by a shameless toady. And a major cable channel can be relied upon to be his personal megaphone.
51
The proper term is the “Democratic” candidate, not “Democrat”.
2
I'm guessing this guy won't get many votes as he'll be seen as one of the chardonnay set and not working class as that's the voter the Democrats aim themselves at. If Trumps popularity is anything to go by with border control then I'm guessing Trump with only American English will be more popular than someone who speaks many language who'll be seen as a threat to border control and immigration.
1
If Democrats want working class votes they'll need to have a beer with the locals. Speaking many languages won't impress them.
4
Gail, I think this was your most entertaining and funniest piece. Laughed out loud. Throughout. Many thanks.
5
Mayor Pete's facility with languages not only shows his vastly superior intellect over the current president's, his hospital bedside translation for a Sudanese family shows his vastly superior sense of compassion and morality far over and above the man soiling the Oval Office today.
Speaking multiple languages is just another way Mayor Pete connects with people to serve the public good, and make politics truly local.
70
@common sense advocate
Intellect! Compassion! Morality!
Three strikes, and you're out.
(Now about that lobotomy...)
2
Multi-lingual people are just smarter overall, especially when more than one language is learned as a child. This is because when the child's brain is growing, additional languages make for a richer and more complex neuronal network.
There are numerous cognitive advantages to being bilingual or multilingual, including a better understanding of language structures, less mental decline in old age, more efficient and better executive function of the brain, greater cognitive flexibility and creativity, more rational decision-making skills, etc.
The man occupying the Oval Office is barely even monolingual and can barely articulate a complete sentence in his native language.
61
“My bet is if Trump ran against Buttigieg, he’d try to use it against him,” predicted presidential historian Michael Beschloss.
My bet is Trump will attempt to use -everything- against anybody who runs against him. Trump is all about attacking and insulting, so it's to be expected that anything Trump thinks will be seen as 'other' will be thrown out into the fray. Trump seems very enamored of "throw it out there and see if it sticks..." as a way to run government policy; why wouldn't he use the same technique for campaigns. Attack, early, attack often, and attack endlessly... that's the entire Trump strategy in a nutshell. Running his campaign this way means he doesn't actually have to have any bothersome policy positions, except "I'm against whatever the Democrats are for, and everything Obama ever did." Policy positions that make sense are -hard-. Attacking is easy... guess which is Trump's way?
57
@Jim Brokaw
Inother words, Trump is a great campaigner NOT to have come from the world of politics? We get that. That's how he clearly outworked Hillary, like 5-to-1 or 8-to-1 in appearances during the campaign.
(And maybe 60-to-1 in attendance.)
1
@Jim Brokaw
I have to agree with you. Remember that Mitt Romney was once criticized for speaking French.
3
@Jim Brokaw
Do you guys remember the scene in The Simpsons where Homer says "The boxes are in the garage."
Mo goes: "Oooooo, lah dee dah, the GA-RAGE."
Homer: "Well, what do you call it?"
Mo: "Car hole."
(Later in the episode, Homer is heard saying "Marge, I'm in the car hole.")
3
Speaking a foreign language is not just about talking - it is also about listening and understanding others, both linguistically and culturally. I think it has been very beneficial to Germany that their Chancellor is fluent in Russian. She clearly knows and understands their culture and how it influences their relations with other countries. I believe it has also helped that she is a scientist, and knows the value of, among other things, thinking and speaking with precision.
Speaking of Germany, I am fluent in German and have lived there on several occasions. The Germans, as I know them, would not tolerate having a Trump at the helm of their country for many reasons, among which is the fact that he is so inarticulate and incomprehensible in his native language. This is, of course, a reasonable and appropriate line for any civilized society to draw.
Finally, anyone who thinks that we don’t need to learn foreign languages because translation can be outsourced to a computer, as a previous commenter mentioned, clearly and unsurprisingly misses the point of why studying foreign languages is so necessary.
68
@BC
My parents insisted that I learn Hebrew, French, Spanish and Latin as I grew up and though I resisted at the beginning I was well served by those forays into languages as my career unfolded.
Learning a language teaches you how to learn.
56
Gail,
This essay is a keeper. Brought a smile early on and capped with a gifted last line.
I was sort of hoping that you would bring up William Weld, but his candidacy may be better discussed after the Mueller report.
22
If only I could mentally switch to Slovenian....
4
As a professor of Spanish, I truly appreciate the sentiments (and humor) Collins expresses here. Indeed, foreign languages receive short shrift in the academy these days. English speakers are paying dearly for the lack of cultural understanding that learning a foreign language brings. In the words of David Bellows, "a world in which all intercultural communication was carried out in a single idiom would not diminish the variety of human tongues. It would just make native speakers of the international medium less sophisticated users of language than all others, since they alone would have only one language with which to think." I cannot think of a better example than the current president.
60
Trumps grand daughter speaks Chinese and impressed the leader of China enough to get the daughter many patents approved in China.
You don't need to be able to speak other languages as software can translate any language these days. I don't think the Chinese leader can speak English and lots of other great leaders could only speak one language. Winston Churchill only spoke English. George Washington and Abe Lincoln only spoke English. Eleven of the last twelve Presidents only spoke English.
2
@CK
Trust me, many of the translation apps are not that accurate. They get many of the primary words correct, but often miss on secondary and tertiary meanings. A native speaker often has a hard time understanding what a foreigner meant using a translation app.
38
@CK Christchurch is a beautiful city which has experienced two recent tragedies. Many visitors from around the world including the US send hopeful messages of support that the earthquake(s) and the mass murder will not overcome the spirit of the people of New Zealand.
Congratulations to New Zealand's government on taking action against future mass murders by restricting weapons of war. The people of New Zealand spoke clearly and eloquently against allowing military weapons to be widely distributed among civilians.
2
@sthomas1957
You are absolutely correct. I find that people whose native language is Spanish rarely understand what the translations I access mean. I am trying to brush up on my Spanish because I know folks who say they understand my English better than my Spanish. I feel like an ignoramus.
big issues are the environment, global warming, gun violence, medical system, etc.
whether a president knows foreign languages is relatively speaking a triviality.
who was the greatest president?
Lincoln.
he knew no foreign languages.
and had little formal education.
3
@David
In Lincoln's early 19th century America, the speech of learned Easterners was sufficiently different from the rustic Scotch-Irish argot of the frontier that it counts about as much as a foreign tongue.
7
@David
Of course Lincoln would not be electable today, unfortunately.
5
@David
To solve all these big problems you mention will take operation. World wide operation. Being able to relate to others, communicate with others is an essential skill going forward.
7
Speaking a foreign language is only part of it. People who are multi-lingual also tend to be more worldly. They understand something more about the spirit of the countries where the foreign language is spoken. Language lessons include incites into the foreign culture. The way people greet each other, the way they treat each other. In many foreign countries, especially in Western Europe, there is a concept of the "ugly American." A tourist, even an American leader, who has no sensitivity about how to act in such foreign surroundings. Think Trump. The foreign culture is supposed to adjust to him rather than the other way around.
64
@Jeff So true! When I taught Spanish in an elementary setting, I and my fellow Spanish teachers in the district, viewed our job more as teaching cultural competency through the medium of language rather than just teaching endless, disconnected lists of vocabulary words or verb conjugations. It was a truly wonderful experience to see young students so excited and genuinely interested in how fellow human beings lived and thought and behaved in other cultures like Mexico, Chile, Spain and even Equatorial Guinea, a country in Africa where Spanish is the official language. We pointed out cultural similarities and celebrated unique differences. It was my very favorite job in my career as an educator!
5
@Jeff
Think the ugly American manspreading on public transportation with arms spread out across the seat backs taking up two or three spaces.
In today's America, I truly hate to say this but I feel that Pete Buttigieg is almost TOO GOOD to become president of this country. The last election, together with events that have transpired since then (not to mention the splintering of the Democratic Party and the assent of a radical fringe that I repudiate) all leads me to believe that an intelligent, non-confrontational politician who's terrifically issues-driven AND a white male (sexuality notwithstanding) will be somehow torn down by the political establishment and ignorant electorate that makes up today's American voting base. If I sound pessimistic it's because I am. I very much like and so far support Buttigieg and that very fact leads me to worry about him because it seems that when I find a candidate that represents what should be applauded, ends up being attacked by ignorant people across the political and geographic spectrum in this country. In other words, excellence doesn't often sell in the world of American politics.
237
@ManhattanWilliam: You wrote "not to mention the splintering of the Democratic Party and the assent of a radical fringe that I repudiate".
Where is this "radical fringe" of which you write? Do you mean those "radicals" trying to drag the party back from it's corporate, neoliberal detour that it started out on a little more than 30 years ago?
4
@ManhattanWilliam
You are right. We certainly know that he will be "torn down" and "attacked by ignorant people" if he runs, because that is Trump's style.
4
@ManhattanWilliam
Mr Bill, the "radical fringe" you excoriate were once considered the moderate center of the party. Too bad your preferred party has pulled political discourse so far to the right that they make you uncomfortable as you dwell among that "ignorant" electorate, unkmndful of your own history.
6
It's not what languages Buttigieg speaks that matters, it's how he uses language that he speaks.
Republicans are past masters at mobilizing and misusing the language to further their usually nefarious ends, while Democrats flounder to explain themselves in terms that resonate even with their own supporters.
Voters are influenced first by visions and values, and only then by actual programs. For example, I have waited in vain for years for the Dems to reclaim the word "freedom" from the Republicans, until now Buttigieg comes along and effortlessly weaves it into the threads of his politcal arguments.
Way to go, Mayor Pete.
22:45 EDT, 4/17
184
One of my students told me:
When you speak three languages, you’re called multilingual.
When you speak two languages, you’re called bilingual.
When you speak one language, you’re called American.
140
@David S. Or "Australian", or "English". I've heard several versions of the joke. I wonder if there's something about being a native English speaker that makes it difficult to learn another language. Or is it just that English is so ubiquitous that we don't really need to (which is entirely different from saying that we shouldn't).
1
@David S. I guess this depends on where in the US you live. Here in California, many people, who are "American," speak more than one language. It's cool you are open to learning from your students, though.
4
@David S.
Indeed, yet another pearl is that the US and and Brits have a lot in common, with the exception of a common language.
As someone who learned British English as one of three foreign languages, it irritates me when I spell words the British way since childhood, e.g. colour, defence, honour, centre, etc. etc., a stupid gadget in a computer I write on underlines far to many of my words with a read line.
3
We should get points that OK or okay became common because that days' folks were referring to Martin Van Buren. It stood for Old Kinderhook, which was an Buren's home town.
1
@Joan In California
False etymology. OK was NYC insiders' cant. The bright young Knickerbockers used to say "all correct" insteas of "all right," and then abbreviated it as though the words were Dutch: "Oll Korrect" becomes O.K.
1
@Joan In California
"Children's corner"
Yes, and we need to subpoena that translator.
47
I’d vote for Mayor Pete, if I got the chance; he looks better all the time.
Sadly, the main objective for the Democrats in 2020 is to put up a candidate—any candidate—who can beat Trump; like maybe some semi-boring white male who is just progressive enough to bring out the millennials but not so liberal that he scares the white suburban voters. And of course a candidate with something to offer the deindustrialized regions of the heartland. And not a woman; many men (and some women) simply will not vote for a woman for high office—or for a person of color, for that matter.
So it would be nice to vote for Mayor Pete, and if he’s still in the running when my state has its primary, I can register my preference. But in November 2020, I’ll vote for anything with a D after its name.
Victory is everything.
123
@Constance Warner
I think that mayor Pete could beat Trump. Mayor Pete can play the patriot card. After all, he severed our country in Afghanistan, while our current leader, when his country called on him, went for five deferments and effectively dodge his service. If I was a veteran, I would have never considered voting of him.
3
@Constance Warner
NOT TRUMP 2020
2
@Constance Warner I'd vote for Mayor Pete in a heartbeat. But the Democrats are so stupid they'll probably put up Biden. Great, an old fogie. Just we need. I'm 75.
1
I'm totally awed by people with this talent. Their brains are different than mine. I learned some Spanish in high school, then some Italian in college. As a result, I can't remember which is which most of the time. To be fair they have some crossover.
23
@Aaron Hey, keep at it. I had four years of college French, have kept up and can banter with Parisians. I am now studying Spanish in my retirement community. It's fun!
5
As an aside...I will always remember when our former president and statesman Barack Obama sang, in plain English, in a crowded church in SC after a horrific and senseless shooting - the glorious Amazing Grace. To me, that gesture alone made up for all the foreign languages he didn't know.
315
@PKT - That was a wonderful goosebump moment. It brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for making that point.
15
One of the first matters of interest to this voter, noted and remembered, was the skill, ability and talent President Obama demonstrated in being proficient in 'Universal' language, rare in the times we are living, and at the turn of this century. Naturally it was an obstacle for his Republican and other detractors, and in an effort to conceal their lack of understanding, they started droning as crickets lost in complex spider webs.
Perhaps we could use some kindly Charlottes for 'Wilbur', along the international words of decency and dignity among others, but bacon will always be at the top of the list for his base.
Ms. Collins, it is singular, but ever since we elected our president, I have taken to speaking Racine to the cat, who shows a preference for Huxley's 'After Many a Summer Dies the Swan'. Now, there is a portrayal of America, not for the faint of heart, where there are children's cemetaries throughout the Land of the Beautiful and Free.
War and Peace in English is just fine. A knowledge of English for French students was mandatory in my time, and Spanish is our second language, although some of us are having trouble getting a handle on this matter, and leaving you here on this note of Esse Quam Videri.
8
Unless I missed it what point is Gail Collins trying to make? Trump may be unilingual but he seems to be easily understood by his loyal supporters.
4
@Milton Lewis
That was exactly her point! And I didn't think the irony too subtle either...
7
@AMilton Lewis And therein lies the tragedy.....by appealing to the lowest common denominator he taps into all of the latent prejudice, hatred and xenophobia which we saw rear its ugly head during the Obama years. Not to mention the anti-intellectualism which is also lying under the surface in our country. As he tells his followers....he don't have to read....he just trusts his gut.
2020.....do not neglect to vote!
@Milton Lewis Yeah, because they barely speak English, too, and it's not because they're multi-lingual.
Gail, I think your implied criticism of the lack of language skills of Individual 1, is a little unfair.
The Presidential election of 2016, was the first time the US elected a President and his First Lady, who had English as their second language.
30
@Barry of Nambucca
I trust you’re only referring to the First Lady (with ‘their’ First Language) unless it’s a jab at the 45th’s inability to communicate in English with the electorate (beyond his base)?
Touché.
9
@Barry: Trump only sounds as though English is his second language! As for Melania, she speaks far better English than he does and we know she is not a native English speaker!
1
"Bernie Sanders, whose staff didn’t return a query about his linguistic skills, doesn’t seem to have a whole lot. He has described himself as “the son of a Polish immigrant who came to this country speaking no English,” but Sanders failed to rise to the occasion when he was asked to say something in his father’s native tongue. (“Unless ‘no’ is a Polish word, I can’t.”)"
My guess is that his father, Eli Sanders, native tongue was Yiddish and not Polish.
"although, of course, Fred Trump was actually born in the Bronx."
So was I. I have been told that the Bronx was considered a foreign entity with a language of its own. Of course Mr. Trump junior would speak Queens and not Bronx.
10
If Mayor Pete is so voluble, maybe he can articulate some actual policy objectives. Because someone has an impressive academic pedigree signifies nothing beyond that, but we tend to use it as a shorthand for all sorts of assumptions about their character and competence. People with similar resumes have given us Vietnam, the Iraq War, Enron, and the 2008 crash. It's like looking at all the fruit salad on a general's chest and assuming they're courageous and not just a pencil-pusher.
7
@stan continople He does and has.
Watch/listen to his CNN Town Hall, his appearances on the View, his appearance on Morning Joe (especially the "rapid fire" section and the 90-min podcast with Ezra Klein. Note his policies on promoting HR-1, the Supreme Court and how to make an easy, glide path to Medicare for All. And note what he proposes as his Day One in office agenda.
I recognize the threat he poses to Bernie and Bernie's supporters are going all out with this angle on line. The strategy is not working.
In terms of policy proposals, Elizabeth Warren is by far #1. Yet she is stuck at around 7% in the polls. Pete Buttigieg is beating her by 1 or 2 points in New Hampshire and Iowa. Her strategy is not working,
#2 in terms of policy specifics is Andrew Yang. (See his web site) And he is stuck at 1% in the polls. His CNN Town Hall was very good and I think he came off well. And he has done some higher profile media interviews. And he has gotten no bump whatsoever in the polls. His strategy is not working.
Pete Buttigieg is adopting a more winning political strategy: campaign on values, show Americans an openness and integrity that is outstanding and while being a progressive, use an inclusive approach that is even winning Republican admirers who have been saying they'll vote for him.
27
@stan continople
Where have you been? Mayor Pete has given us policy objectives on every major subject of the the day, from climate change to health care to Afghanistan. Do your homework.
1
@stan continople
People with similar resumes...like working at McKinsey Consulting, being in military intelligence resumes?
Agreed.
Buttigieg’s thesis was in part about Vietnam, which he says was a “doomed errand into the jungle.”
He called it “...a lethal blunder” that “collapsed into chaos,” to quote Buttigieg.
I think your comment nailed it Stan.
We have a stalking horse.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/all-about-pete
1
Thank you again, Ms. Collins; your columns always make my day.
Aside from not being able to speak another language, I think we would be grateful if the president of our great country could string two coherent thoughts together in his mother tongue.
2020.....Do not neglect to vote. Our future depends on that election.
46
We need a new president and desperately - period. Almost anyone will do.
23
@sammy zoso. Really, don’t people learn? That attitude is how we got Trump.
1
It is reassuring to know that our next president will speak ANY language properly.
31
"Ich bin ein Berliner." So spoke President John Kennedy back in 1963 when he visited West Berlin. I was a senior in high school and in love with this brilliant man and orator. Now over 50 years later we have another brilliant man, a Rhodes' scholar, aspiring to be president of these not-so-United States. When I listen to Mayor Pete I feel that same charge of enthusiasm I experienced with JFK so long ago and then President Obama. Although admittedly, any one of our Democratic candidates would get my eager - actually anxious - support.
So, yes, our other candidates may not be as proficient in speaking another language, but...they know how to speak well, intelligently, and articulately. And as far as George W goes, he was Cicero in comparison with his Republican - or whatever - counterpart, Mr. Trump. Trump may be able to put a sentence together, but as yet I haven't heard it. For that matter, he can't put a thought together. That's when you really worry about both our national and foreign policies, not that there are any number of concerns already. Now, he can tweet well, with sort of, kind of, sentences. However, do the many misspellings and more ominously, the hate and insults to all things decent hunted and pecked by his stubby fingers, count? Not by me. But then again I am not part of the MAGA group.
67
Trump has State Department interpreters with him when conversing with other world leaders, not translators. Sorry, my pet peeve. Interpreters deal with spoken word, translators with written word.
There is no excuse not to learn some foreign language when you're an elected official. [Hint: consider Spanish]
Money is no object. A free app such as Duolingo can help out with basics. I have dabbled with French and Italian out of curiosity, and used Duolingo to brush up my German I learned in school. It's fun.
26
Aren’t you talented. But some of us are linguistically challenged.
There may not be "Swiss" as a language, but there is "Romansh," the smallest of Switzerland's four languages, which unless I'm mistaken is unique. There's also Swiss German....
I also think Obama speaks a fair amount of Indonesian due to his several years living there in childhood.
13
Less than 10% of the US population traveled outside North America in 2016. Why should we care about foreign languages or foreigners at all?
One answer is rarely discussed today but should be in light of the southern border "crisis". The peso devaluation crisis of 1994 brought the Mexico economy to a halt. I witnessed once humming assembly lines in Mexico totally covered in dust in 1995.
But NAFTA brought Mexico back to life and saved the North American auto industry from inroads by low cost Asian competitors. US jobs were lost but not nearly as many if NAFTA hadn't happened. Since NAFTA was signed, European and Asian assembly operations were built in the US to take advantage of the cost effective North American supply chain, of which Mexico was a critical part.
Something like 75% of the current Central American migrants are from Honduras, with a population of 9 million, because of climate related failures of coffee farming. Imagine the real crisis on our southern border if Mexico, with a population of 130 million, had collapsed back in the 1990s.
Having failing neighboring countries is something that many countries might face in the future.
Building walls is not the answer. Regional development is.
107
It’s time we appreciated between “need to have” and “nice to have”.
We need to have a president who can read more than one page.
We need to have a president who can understand complexity and not offer simplistic solutions that don’t work (like bombing Notre Dame with water that would have collapsed its structure)
We need to have a president who knows more than slogans (“drain the swamp”)
We need to have a president who knows what’s in the Bill being circulated around Congress (not ask people later what’s in it)
We need to have a president who can talk to real experts and not pretend to be a know-it-all.
We need to have a president who can integrate multiple perspectives - not simply go with the last person in the room.
We need to have a president who has policies to help all Americans. Policies that experts approve as wel thought out.
We need to have a president who has experience getting things done through Congress and not treat the Presidency as if it were a starter job.
We need to have a president who has an agenda for the structural change that this country desperately needs.
We all know her name.
98
@Patrician Sadly (but clearly), the Electoral College does not seem to agree to those 'needs' in a president and/or presidency. It would be 'nice' if they did or, more precisely, if they had in 2016.
As to the 'her' ... Hmm, Harris, Klobuchar, Warren ... ?? I have yet to see any sweeping structural changes in a clear plan of action from ANY of the candidates and, yes, that includes Bernie. Yes, sweeping goals, big changes there, but how to actually, effectively arrive at the end? A goal is great, show me the game plan to achieve it.
And, last, if by 'her' you meant Hillary ... well. I have to wonder how that presidency would have played out. I whole-heartedly supported her, voted for her, but ... she lost in part due to poor campaign choices. And, the House and Senate were strongly Republican
so ... Let's work for and look forward to a better result in 2020 :)
12
@George Campbell
Warren.
You’ve got to be kidding me if you don’t see that the myriad of well thought out policies she’s proposed don’t fundamentally restructure America: lobbying, anti-corruption, childcare, breaking up tech monopolies, public lands ... the list goes on. She has a plan to pay for her proposals (taxing the mega rich and corporates who don’t ) and making it happen (filibuster reform).
Thank you for voting for Hillary. Yes, I’m not a fan of how she ran her campaign. And, yes: let’s work for a better result in 2020.
17
@Patrician
Sorry, Pete Buttigieg!
1
I have come to the searing conclusion that democratic pluralism has fully yielded to a governance which readily sets aside equity for a system of tax codes, regulatory laissez faire and laws which are tailored for the donors, lobbyists and corporate behemoths. All the while this system calls for reductions in opportunity for those outside the small club that runs things. Boogeymen are created to compel feelings of insecurity among the middle class and the need for police crackdowns. This type of plutocracy has taken hold and will be hard to crack open and replace.
10
Since Gail mentioned the Trump's current wife, widely believed to be Melania Trump, what IS she up to these days?
Just how is that Be Best project coming along?
If the Trump considers resigning at some point, people would certainly understand his need to "spend more time with the family".
66
@Jim Remington, Melania's idea of "Be Best" is to follow her husband's habit of making demeaning comments about those who oppose the Trump administration.
15
@Jim Remington
"Be Best" is not even Melania's idea. It was a concept created by someone on Michelle Obama's staff. Melania did not even bother to change the graphics. She just takes credit for it wholesale, as if she could do anything about bullying. Her husband is making worse.
1
"And for our part, be honest — it’s nice to know there’s at least a translator sitting between Trump and the rest of the world’s leaders."
Is it? What good's a translator if said professional is forced to give her notes to one half of the conversation (I bet you can't guess which half).
Actually world leaders don't need translators because the president is a totally open book, as well as a lousy poker player.
Add to that, his vocabulary is limited. So, assuming the world leader understands "I," "MAGA," "greatest," "better than" and "best of all", that's all he or she needs to know.
53
Sorry! I was a numbers man, employed as an engineer.
Our next president should have excellent numerical skills with the ability to apply his/her aptitude to economics and other things when necessary.
The root cause of many domestic and worldly issues is economics. Of course other involvements are also prominent.
Too, I would want our next president to comprehend technology beyond tweeting. We are always in a tech war, from IT to missiles, to power methodologies and distribution.
But, having the ability to explain our national concerns, and executive decisions in a cogent manner, is mandatory.
45
@Texan
I was looking for comments about numerical literacy. In addition to economics, a basic understanding of statistics would help anyone understand the state of the world and make/propose better policy. The president doesn't need calculus or differential equations, but some flexibility with numbers would help. The thing is most humans are not very good with numbers.
7
@Texan I believe Mayor Pete's undergraduate degrees are in economics and political science.
9
@Enough Humans True. But those who are good with numbers are generally not good communicators, or so I've found.
2
Trump is incoherent in English.
He once said about President Xi of China and trade, "I think we had a very good chemistry together. I think he wants to help us with North Korea. We talked trade. We talked a lot of things. And I said, the way you’re going to make a good trade deal is to help us with North Korea; otherwise we’re just going to go it alone. That will be all right, too. But going it alone means going it with lots of other nations.
The last sentence was a beauty. His incoherent and misspelled Tweets are in a category all its own.
So, while it is commendable that some candidates who are multilingual, let's settle for one who speaks and writes English well.
229
@sarah You've nailed it. You've given an incomplete sentence, just like Trump does, thereby leaving its interpretation free to the reader's imagination. Trump speaks, and listeners hear whatever they want to hear because everything Trump says is ambiguous.
32
@RK
Trump talks at the level of his target audience.
But it's not intentional.
25
@sarah have you ever READ the transcript of his interviews? Totally incoherent flights of ideas. I agree we understand he is a self serving egotist but when it comes to speaking off script he can not do it
24
Of course, it's not the number of languages Buttigieg speaks, or how well he speaks them that matters. It just shows that he has an omnivorous intellect that is interested in learning as much as possible about the world. The contrast with Donald Trump is almost too great for the imagination to grasp.
1062
His knowledge & views on business & economics are myopic & juvenile. His multilingualism is of little economic value.
2
@Once From Rome
Even at juvenile and myopic his knowledge & views on business & economics are better than Trump’s. Trump has no views other than what the crowd at his latest rally cheers loudest for.
48
@Once From Rome You're right; he's not acknowledging that unabated capitalism has destroyed our nation.
18
Mayor Pete will get my vote, in any language. I'm just hoping he'll be the nominee.
401
@AMM
Buttigieg is articulate, smart and refreshing. I’ve watched some of his interviews and, particularly with Rachel Maddox, I was impressed. But he’s too young and inexperienced in the things that a president needs to have experience in. I admire his military service but that doesn’t qualify him to sit across the table from Putin, Kim, Erdogen, et al, and negotiate the complexities of geopolitics. I would love to see him as a senator and possibly vp. Of course if he is the candidate he gets my vote.
20
I appreciate your thoughts, but Pete would be bored to tears in Congress or as VP. I hope he gets the nomination, but if he doesn't I doubt he'd waste his time as VP or in Congress. He's too smart for that. His time is now, or we'll lose him to something else he finds meaningful.
13
@Fenchurch
Given that Trump is the current president and the world hasn't imploded I don't see why lack of experience would be an issue.
28
There may at times be a translator but Trumps primary language skill is obfuscation. We the American people never received the transcripts if Donny’s conversations with Putin from the “translator” now have we. If lying where a language Trump would be a world class professor of it.
333
Good point. Not only do Americans need to see his tax returns, we need to see those transcripts of his prime meetings with Putin.
54
@Col Andes Dufranez USA Ret
I wonder if Mueller ever got to see these transcripts. If he hasn’t, why not?
5
@Col Andes Dufranez USA Ret
Trump is really a very incompetent liar. He consistently contradicts himself by forgetting his own previous lies.
5
If you listen to his speeches or read his tweets you can note that in addition to all the other languages, Trump does not speak English either.
866
@Barry F.
Have you ever read Harry Truman's notes? The guy couldn't spell or keep a proper sentence. What are the odds this new Dem flavor of the month would be as great as Harry Truman?
1
@Barry F. He is truly painful to listen to or read. I thougtht W. was challenging, but Trump wins this one hands down. The worst by far.
22
@Barry F. Best laugh of the day!
18
The problems which faced both the 2016 and upcoming 2020 Democratic voter base were/are largely based in appeal to everyday Americans. Sanders is a wannabe-demagogue in a Left-Trump mould whose platform was want for details, whereas Clinton was the complete opposite. Studies are showing trends in the American electorate toward general liberalism, and the only candidate thus far who is able to bridge the wide Sanders (Warren) - Clinton (every other mainstream candidate) gap is Pete. In the public sphere, Democrats haven't had a high-powered, well-liked representative in the presidential field for some time. Pete is singularly able to make progressivism palatable to Democrats wary of the avowedly "socialist" (lol socialism in Chavez; at best, Sanders socialism is Rhine capitalism) as well as the party progressives constantly searching for their next golden progressive calf. The liberals get the well-rounded, devoutly Christian, highly-educated, heady, veteran, and married non-activist force for change in the party, and the progressives get the first gay, same-sex married, 2nd-gen immigrant, multi-lingual representation of what 'could be.'
38
@Joshua Tucker I have no problem with Buttigieg, but "well-liked" or "likeable" is one of the most dishonest labels in politics. It pretends to be an objective evaluation. However, to call candidate "well-liked" "likeable" really just means "I like that candidate." Likewise, when a candidate is called "unlikeable," it really just means "I don't like that candidate."
Actual polling data is objective. But "likeable" is a media weasel word. The label "likeable" lets people pretend, often without justification or evidence, that their own personal preferences is somehow an objective measure of a candidate's worth.
7
@citybumpkin I mean in this case, 'likable' means he's in general turning the heads of both sides of the spectrum. I'm fully aware of the intra-party debate on likability, but there's something to be said about a guy who can easily relay progressive policies in a way that attracts moderates.
22
@Joshua Tucker
Campaigning has barely started. At this point in the 2008 primaries, Obama was barely on the radar. We haven't gotten a good look at everyone yet.
4
Speaking another language or at least respecting the language and thinking of others indicates some desire to understand and step into the shoes of another, something Trump just does not care to do. If you know everything why seek the ideas of anyone else?
We often satirize the inept speech of our leaders such as Bush 2, Joe Biden and now Donald Trump most of whom laugh such humor off and let it go, But Trump takes everything as an attack and a smile is just not something he does well. By the way did you see Trump repeatedly try to say origins which coming out as oranges? Hilarious.
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Here are the language competencies I want to see: Ethical, Competent, Honest, Forthright, Committed to a fair, democratic republic once well-regarded as the United States of America.
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@Rocky I think that spells 'Buttigieg'
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That was one of your best, funniest columns Ms. Collins! In my native French, félicitations!
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@sarah Deservedly!
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If I'm not mistaken, Donald Trump's mother was a native Gaelic speaker from the Hebrides. Now a Gaelic-speaking president would be, to my mind, almost worth voting for. But in this case, not quite.
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The average American's disdain for other languages, and the people who speak them, is all part and parcel of the generalized American anti-intellectual ethos.
Remember, even LBJ's administration used to disparage the Ivy educated "eggheads" in the Democratic advisory committees.
You would think by now we'd have figured out we can't bomb or wall our way out of our various challenges, and we might try communicating our way out of them. But then again, you would be thinking by thinking that. Most Americans don't.
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Well, not that speaking a second (and third) language doesn't widen our ability to express ourselves, and be understood better; the problem with our current totally incurious brutus ignoramus, one that does not read, is that his speaking abilities leave a lot to be desired; otherwise, how do you explain he repeats himself all the time, uses superlatives in between insults while lying to his audience...and not say anything of substance at the end?
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Go a little easier on poor Herbert Hoover. No, he did not singlehandedly cause the Depression, but he was uber-competent as an administrator, as many very grateful Poles and Belgians can tell you. Not mister personality maybe, but he saved a lot of people from starving. Not so bad.
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I’m in my fifties. I remember when Presidents of the United States could be considered well read people, knowledge, at least curious about their surroundings and interested about their duties to our country. JFK reassuring our allies with “Ich bin ein Berliner” was a proud moment. Language skills were regarded as desirable, a valuable asset.
We have become a nation that denigrates experts, professors, scientists, and educators.
The USA is at a crossroads. If we cannot value our own domestic intelligence and creativity, we will not get far this century.
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@Mark Of course, what JFK said was "I am a jelly donut." That's what, to a German-speaker, "Ich bin ein Berliner" actually means: "a Berliner" is the local delicacy. "Ich bin Berliner" would have been correct.
But the West Berliners knew what he was trying to say, and they roared their approval. This was just after the Wall went up, and Kennedy went to West Berlin to express his--and our--solidarity. The gesture and symbolism were pitch-perfect, even if the president's idiomatic German wasn't (and even if his pronunciation was atrocious).
And Kennedy remembered his high-school Latin, and pronounced it correctly: "Civus Romanus sum" ("I am a Roman citizen"), which he said was as proud a boast for its time as being a Berliner in 1961.
It was, as you say, a proud moment. I'm in my seventies, and I still remember seeing the TV broadcast, probably on Huntley-Brinkley.
And we are, certainly, at a cross-road now. We are in danger of losing so, so much...
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@Mark - Unfortunately, "Ich bin ein Berliner." was a mistake on his handler's part; Kennedy unknowingly called himself the equivalent of a doughnut that day. But the effort was there, so that's something.
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@James Miller
Thanks for bringing back a great memory from a 1966 choir tour to Germany. In several instances locals offered us Berlinerpfankuchen and called them Kennedys. Also Kennedy 1/2 dollars were highly prized as tips.
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Politics in the era of Trump always comes back to this:
"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" - Isaac Asimov
The only thing Asimov was wrong about is that many Americans actually think ignorance is BETTER than knowledge. The product of this thinking is president who, within 6 months of being elected to office, said "nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated."
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@citybumpkin
Yeah, Larry "The Cable Guy" for Federal Reserve Governor.
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As much as the multi-lingual fluency of Mayor Pete is to be admired, it is his intellect and understanding of problems that is to be admired. That is in direct contrast to the current occupant, who couldn't care less about anyone else but himself. His understanding of problems is self-evident (that means nonexistent), particularly those which he has created by his own actions.
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@BigFootMN
The cargo of high hopes Mayor Pete is attracting seems to grow exponentially. I suspect he can handle the weight.
Moments of grace in our civic life have gone missing. Watching video of Mayor Pete speaking French to a French television station was unreasonably exciting. More please.
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Speaking other languages would be just the icing on the cake.
Right now I would give anything to have a president who read good books in English, was intellectually curious, and who believed in science. If he watched Masterpiece Theater, PBS documentaries, and was a movie buff, I'd be content.
As it is, he rarely reads the daily briefings that have been surgically dumbed down for him.
Let's not even discuss his food choices or knowledge of nutrition and fitness.
And, if I recall, our current president was having trouble pronouncing the word "origins" just a few weeks ago.
All of the smart, articulate, polite and thoughtful candidates look pretty good right now, even without knowing another language besides English.
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@furnmtz
"Origins" has three syllables. Trump mostly avoids trisyllabic words. When I try to think of a three-syllable word I hear him use regularly, "terrible" is the first one that comes to mind, usually followed by "person" in the predicate of a sentence disparaging someone.
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I’m multilingual, or rather should say, am a polyglot ( you got to have B2-C1 level proficiency) but lack of languages amongst Americans vs. the rest of the world—is, at least I feel, a problem actually.
You can truly perceive people and their cultures so much better in their native tongues. Makes a world of a difference.
There’s a level of empathy and communication which a translator can never achieve- ever.
Makes for a more adaptive brain as well, when you cross over into 6+ language range.
Would being multilingual made a difference to DT.... hmm, I don’t think he has the attention span and dedication required to do it.
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@Ash. He doesn’t have the attention span to even think about one language let alone two or more. And as for dedication unless it makes him a ton of money it’s a waste of time. He can pay people to tell him what them furiners said
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And to be fair, there are people out there who can tell you correctly what day a particular date falls on in any year you give them -- even thousands of years from now. Then you discover they still are unable to tie their shoe laces.
So what's your point? A person's ability to make the decisions necessary to be a successful president are in direct proportion to how many languages they speak? Or how well they did on the SAT's?
If so, why do we need elections? Just have a panel of experts (presumably the editorial boards of the NY Times, WaPo and maybe throw in the producers of MSNBC) sift through resumes and pick the best polyglots with the highest SAT scores and use that to rate them as to level of judgement and wisdom and prediction factors.
Just out of curiosity, how many languages did Abraham Lincoln speak? Or George Washington? Or FDR?
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@JW -- FDR spoke both German and French.
Teddy Roosevelt spoke clearly and quickly in French and German, but he had a German accent while speaking in French. He read both German and French very well and kept a good number of books written in these languages in his personal library.
John Quincy Adams went to school in both France and the Netherlands, and spoke fluent French and conversational Dutch. Adams strove to improve his abilities in Dutch throughout his life, and at times translated a page of Dutch a day to help improve his mastery of the language.
Thomas Jefferson spoke and read multiple languages, which included French. After his death, a number of other books, dictionaries, and grammar manuals in various languages were found in Jefferson's library, suggesting that he studied additional languages beyond those he spoke and wrote well. Among these were books in Italian, Arabic, Irish, Welsh and Dutch.
John Adams, the second president of the United States, learned to read Latin at a young age. Adams attended a school for improving his Latin skills. While posted in France, Adams became fluent in French.
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@Mark Thomason I think you just proved that the language skills are not correlated to being a good POTUS. JQA and JA are generally ranked as failed presidents and TR and TJ as successful ones - yet all did well with foreign languages - so I guess this is not an important predictor of presidential success.
@Rex Nemorensis -- I have a much better opinion of the Presidents Adams, father and son. No, they were not failed Presidents, nor are they "generally ranked" as such.
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Speaking several languages is a great quality, but having the best policies to help America's languishing middle and lower classes is even better. Bernie Sanders is right on the issues and once we no longer have to worry about cost of our prescriptions or whether our loved ones can receive the medical care they need then is the time for languages.
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@T. Paine I mean I've done quite a bit of wonk-ish policy platform digging, and Sanders' policies are generally... lacking any sort of detail. Medicare-for-all would be great, but the Devil really is in the details here. Let's start talking once the tax and revenue aspects (the stuff that matters) are actually being discussed as vocally as Sanders is yelling about 'milio...' oh wait.
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@Joshua Tucker I agree.
I love Bernie and am supporting Pete.
Pete's proposal for how to get to Medicare for All is brilliant and practical. And it won't be as disruptive as Bernie's plan will be for the first couple of years which will cost more than what we've got for a couple of years, cause Republicans to gain ground (as in 2010) before it then begins to save money and become praised.
A similar trajectory to the ACA; vilified at first causing us to lose the House and Senate, then praised - although we still lose the Senate AND the presidency.
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@T. Paine I suspect Ms. Collins is showing a bit of her own provincialism. Yes, Bernie's father was from Poland, but surely the language other than English spoken around the house was Yiddish, not Polish.
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Gail, I'm put to shame! My first language was not English, though at this point in my life (official senior citizen), English is the only language in which I'm fluent. I studied French in grade school, and Japanese in college, but I'm sorry to say I haven't kept up with any of them, including my first language, Armenian.
I admire Mayor Pete, who is somehow fluent in several languages. I always told myself that when I retired, I'd work on my three other languages. There never seems to be enough time, though!
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@D. Gable
While Dems will continue to emphasize a debunked conspiracy theory as if it is real, unassailable truth beyond question.
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Gail - since you bring up resumes/qualifications - when picking a candidate, Dems should keep in mind that GOP'ers will try to emphasize Individual_1/No Collusion 45*'s "foreign policy experience", newly-acquired and deeply flawed as it may be.
They will tout his faux-summits with N. Korea, Russia, China, etc. to the voters of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where Dems need to swing 100,000 voters our way who voted GOP in '16.
Dems shouldn't hand over this talking point to His Unhinged Unraveling Unfitness 45*.
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At a B&B in Biggen Hall, England a number of years ago, sitting around the parlor with a number of Brits. At some point in the conversation the subject of languages came up. One of the Brits shrugged, look over at another Brit and said, we're not very good at foreign languages.
Maybe that's why most Presidents don't have a second language, their from English heritage, as many Americans are. Not all though, thank God.
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@cherrylog754
And to make things worse for English speakers the built in auto-correct doesn't know the difference between there, their and they're. And try to write about a botanical subject as I often do as a horticulturist and auto correct doesn't want to let me use Latin or Greek derived plant names and I have to type them over usually three times before it leaves them alone. Even in this comment it underlined the word their both times i typed it!
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@Julie Carter
YES!!!! I speak and write both in Portuguese and English daily and the errors that come out of the autocorrect are hilarious!
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Multilingualism is not high up on the list of necessary skills for a President but I do miss the days when the person in charge of the world's largest nuclear arsenal could speak in front of a camera without generating headlines like this:
"Is Something Neurologically Wrong With Donald Trump?"
"Trump’s incoherence is too much — and it’s getting worse"
"Trump’s Bizarre, Rambling Announcement of a National Emergency"
I just hope if Trump, in a fit of pique, ever tries to launch a first strike, the military aide who carries the "football" has no idea what he's shouting about.
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@LT: No, being multilingual isn't really a requirement. But it is a sign of intelligence, curiosity, and diligence, which most certainly are requirements.
If you doubt that, I give you the current occupant, who lacks them, as an example.
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The best thing about speaking different languages is being able to relate to the world and other humans from multiple perspectives. I think that alone says a lot about our current state of affairs.
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@illinoisgirlgeek
I learned Russian and was told that I spoke it with a Boston accent. I hope I communicated that I was trying but I fear that I was just incomprehensible.
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“People almost always appreciate candidates who at least seem to be trying.”
At least, in our better days, knowledge of another language was a good thing. It demonstrated worldliness and intellect. Yet, Trump reflects an utter disregard not only for outside cultures, but even for any eloquence with his native tongue. He has a very limited vocabulary and is inarticulate. He doesn’t try.
So, impressive as some Democrats’ foreign language skills is, it would be better for the candidates not to emphasize that much and just stick with expressing themselves well in English. Sadly, some voters are going to find that too exotic and elite. The important thing is that a Democrat win the White House in 2020; then they can converse with foreign leaders in any language they know.
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@NM:You miss the good humor and good writing that Ms. Collins displays in this article.Like a return to her old self when she was writing for Newsday.ABH asks why it's important that a Democrat win the WH in 2020. What do you have against a booming economy, a silver tongued orator, and a can do president who keeps his promises?Trump is the best public speaker since that blue dog Democrat from Tenn., Frank Clement, whose keynote speech at the convention in 1956 was outstanding for its wit and spirituality. He could really hold a crowd spellbound, like Trump moreover!
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@Alexander Harrison,
This is a show of clemency on your part, and while not all of us wish to join a crowd, some of us are hardly in a spellbound state over the tweets and squeaks of our president but wondering why somebody does not call 911.
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@Alexander Harrison
I hope this is satire.
The economy trump inherited from Obama was doing well 2 years ago. I hope it continues. Trump is so inarticulate that he is just difficult to listen to and understand. Journalists are losing count of the number of lies he has told since his inauguration. And besides the tax cut for the (primarily) wealthy- what promise has he kept? In 2 years that the Republicans controlled Congress and the WH he did not see immigration as a problem. Now it is.
He has no health care plan. He has no foreign policy.
But, I bet Mayor Pete could tell us what Dufus translates to in 7 languages.
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Though it would indeed be nice, do we deserve a linguistically talented president after electing one who makes a mockery of his native one on an all too regular basis??? I used to think intellectual talent was an attribute presidents should be expected to have, but Republicans have made being an intellectual tantamount to being an active KGB operative in Democratic nominee clothing. I don't know if this country deserves better than what we already got.
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@sarah There are no great things to acknowledge. All Trump has done is to lower the level of decency in this country and diminish our stature abroad. We are, quite appropriately, a laughingstock among people who value truth, thought and science.
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@sarah
1. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
2. What he promised to do was to make America a Fascist nation.
3. Even if you benefit in the short run from a tax cut, it balloons the deficit and is bad for the country in the long run.
4. He has made this country a laughingstock and an embarrassment among all our allies.
5. I could go on.
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@sarah Really? Where is the new health care plan he promised? You know, the one that would cover everybody way better than the ACA and for a lot less money? Where's the xenophobic wall? Which, is it ever does get built, will be taken down one way or another as those of us who actually live on the southern border have a very different perspective on immigration and the humanitarian crisis manufactured by your barbarian president. Do you really think ISIS has been defeated? According to top military brass, they've just relocated and do most of their recruiting online now anyway. Kim just tested a nuclear device recently because he is totally playing with Trumpie who is too ignorant to realize it. What about the opioid crisis in America? Hmmm? Where's his solution to that? New infrastructure legislation? He has done nothing for most Americans, nada, zip, zilch, zero. It would be really patriotic of Trump's cult members to acknowledge that fact and just admit that they love him because they are just like him: completely lacking in character, missing a moral compass and probably racist, misogynistic and xenophobic, too.
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Love this piece! I love learning languages. Can't say the same for my American-born children :-( Oops ... American-raised children (one is adopted from "a foreign land")
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