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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.

Oddthinking
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Andrew Grimm
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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 Jan 25 '17 at 11:30
  • @ff524, actually it's not the first time that Handler claims that, see her tweets on the FOX news source in my answer. – SIMEL Jan 25 '17 at 11:41
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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 Jan 25 '17 at 13:15
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    @jwenting, in the video [here](http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/chelsea-handler-says-melania-trump-barely-speaks-english-w462825), at 2:05 – SIMEL Jan 25 '17 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](https://youtu.be/XbvGxDmD3dY) 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 Jan 25 '17 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 Feb 03 '17 at 17:50
  • I'm just going to make the point that not everyone is comfortable with public speaking (she's a former model, not spokeswoman) and it can be particularly daunting when you're using a second language. – DukeZhou Sep 10 '18 at 21:44

2 Answers2

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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

SIMEL
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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 Jan 25 '17 at 13:14
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    @jwenting, obviously the meaning is a "foreign" accent, or a non "[General American](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American)" accent – SIMEL Jan 25 '17 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 Jan 25 '17 at 14:38
  • @daraos, it has been reported by many sources, FOX, VOX and Melania herself above, also [international business times](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/who-melania-trump-next-first-lady-united-states-1590650), [CBS](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/five-things-to-know-about-melania-trump/) and others. – SIMEL Jan 25 '17 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 Jan 25 '17 at 18:44
  • Spiegel On-Line show an interview with Melania in English. (This may be an excerpt from an interview conducted say by an American news outfit, thought.) We see she can say "hello" and "my name is Melania" in French, but switches to English to ask what is your name, even though talking to a very young child in France. A quick search doesn't show any more French than this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsvhcgJGayc – Swiss Frank Jun 04 '20 at 05:51
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjx_ysYHJNo

Melania Trump has clear but accented speech.

Oddthinking
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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 Jan 25 '17 at 16:21