Angela Merkel speaking Russian, Putin speaking German

Franco   Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:03 pm GMT
Has anybody listened to these politics speaking the said languages? If you have, then do you think they did a good job? Please, tell us everything!

Also, ostensibly, Rice is able to speak the Russian, but I think this is a lie. Can I be disproven?
Linguist   Sun Feb 04, 2007 6:58 pm GMT
Merkel speaks Russian, but from what I saw on TV, her Russian is quite primitive though without mistakes, but she is able to communicate at least on primitive level.
Rice also speaks Russian, but she makes mistakes and she's too shy to speak Russian probably...

Putin speak German quite good, he was working in Germany but as he said his German is getting worse...
Pauline   Sun Feb 04, 2007 7:39 pm GMT
The belgian Prime Minister can speak very well i.e. fluently several languages including dutch, french, english, and spanish. Possibly more (german I think as well) but I don't know him personally so I can't ask him LOL !!!
Franco   Mon Feb 05, 2007 7:03 am GMT
How come then in all reports they say they speak it fluent, this is a cod's swallop!
Guest   Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:47 am GMT
Apparently Angela Merkel was from the Former East Germany and during that time Russian was very popular among the Eastern Bloc.
MetaPhonetician   Wed Feb 07, 2007 2:29 pm GMT
The topic seems to have been relatively miserably entitled.
Why not to mention (the) Prince Michael's & the King's family members Russian?

In Poland and Germany / East, Russian remains a language of demand; however, inofficially, within the real people in the street, who send their children to Russian classes. Sometimes, against the official, public trend.

People do know what are the leading nations in the world. Have you already forgotten the first ever bip-bip?!