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Chelsea Handler has claimed that Melania Trump can barely speak English. From The Sun

Handler, 41, was asked in a filmed interview if she would have Mrs Trump on her Netflix show Chelsea.

"Melania? What's to talk about what, she can barely even speak English", she replied.

Handler's made other statements that Melania can't speak English well:

On 28 October, after then-candidate Donald Trump said his wife would give more speeches in support of him, Handler tweeted: "Hopefully an interpreter will be present".

Days later in another tweet posted at 1:12am, she spouted: "Tim Kaine delivered a speech entirely in Spanish. Still easier to understand than Melania."

If Handler claimed that Donald Trump is a non-native speaker of English who speaks English badly, I'd take that as a joke, but her comments about Melania don't seem to be a joke as far as I can tell.

While Melania is a non-native speaker, I'd assume someone who speaks five languages including English would be fairly good at English.

The Sun cites an article from Page Six but it doesn't have much detail.

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    Isn't she a comedian? I don't think she meant it as a statement of fact, just a cheap shot at FLOTUS's accent.
    – ff524
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 11:30
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    Is the Sun really a credible source? Or someone called "Chelsea" (might as well claim Chelsea is actually Chelsea Clinton under a false name, would be as credible as anything you read in the Sun).
    – jwenting
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 13:15
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    @jwenting, in the video here, at 2:05
    – SIMEL
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 13:22
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    I downvoted this question because it doesn't show research effort. It takes a few seconds to find many speeches and interviews in which she is clearly capable of speaking English, understanding questions and responding fluently. A comment made by a comedian in a tabloid has very little credibility in comparison.
    – Ambo100
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 19:48
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    You are confusing being fluent in English with her accent; she has a very pronounced accent, but speaks English quite well. So Chelsea Chandler's critique is unfair. It may sound sexist (it is?) but the eastern-european models are exotic to many americans, accent included and perhaps she never made an attempt to get rid of the accent - I guess she was perfectly marketable as a model with her accent. Or even more desired.
    – xmp125a
    Commented Feb 3, 2017 at 17:50

2 Answers 2

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Melania Trump can speak English perfectly well, well enough for the American news media.

Here are examples of interviews with her with and without Donald. In all of them she speaks English without any trouble and is perfectly understood:

She does have an accent

It should be noted that according to Melania and various news sources, she speaks 6 languages, from Vox:

English is actually her sixth language, behind not just Slovenian (her native language) and Serbo-Croatian (the main language of Yugoslavia when she was a kid) but also Italian, French, and German, all of which she learned over the course of her career as a model.

from Fox News:

The First Lady speaks at least five languages, including English, French, Italian, German, and Slovene.

In the interview with Mika Brzezinski Melania says :

I speak [a] few languages [...] English, Italian, French, German

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    Native born Americans have accents too, often stronger ones as compared to foreigners who learned the language outside the USA :)
    – jwenting
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 13:14
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    @jwenting, obviously the meaning is a "foreign" accent, or a non "General American" accent
    – SIMEL
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 13:18
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    "It should be noted that Melania speaks at least 6 languages". That is another claim that could be challenged. It should read "Melania says she speaks 6 languages." You don't know if she speaks German for example. I haven't found any recording of her speaking it.
    – daraos
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 14:38
  • @daraos, it has been reported by many sources, FOX, VOX and Melania herself above, also international business times, CBS and others.
    – SIMEL
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 14:51
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    @IlyaMelamed I doubt that anyone there has talked with Mrs Trump in German. We can all see and hear her talking English though. I've just met too many people claiming they speak language X, Y and Z, and then learned that they can hardly do small talk.
    – daraos
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 18:44
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjx_ysYHJNo

Melania Trump has clear but accented speech.

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    I don't know why this is downvoted. The link shows her speaking in English, and beyond the threshold of "barely". She obviously has a strong accent, but unless we're supposing that she has memorized the whole speech phonetically, it's pretty strong evidence that she is in fact able to speak the language. It's not a great answer, but it does answer the (pretty poor) question
    – Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard
    Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 16:21

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