President Garfield could write Latin and Greek simultaneously, one with each hand. President Van Buren was raised in a Dutch speaking household, and did not learn English until school age. Herbert Hoover spoke fluent Mandarin.
Was going to mention Hoover. It’s questionable how “fluent” he was and also whether it was Mandarin. Here’s more about that:
http://owenhaacke.com/was-president-herbert-hoover-fluent-in-chinese/
US President John Quincy Adams spoke several languages, including French, German, Dutch (he studied at Leiden) and Russian. Given his classical education, I assume he was versed in Latin and Greek, as well.
President Herbert Hoover spoke Mandarin Chinese, as did his wife Lou.
President Obama apparently speaks some Indonesian from his few years in Indonesia as a child, and has spoken to the Indonesian president, but from my internet searches I can’t find much information on if he is fluent. One cite from an Indonesian woman said he would only use a handful of Indonesian words there and was not fluent, but maybe she knew him before he learned the language well.
Anyone know if he’s still fluent?
During the last years of his life, his British captors attempted - with limited success - to teach Napoleon English during imprisonment on St. Helena. A letter in English written by Napoleon.
Also; thread is from 2003 (!)
That’s difficult to believe considering his command of English
Not a world leader, but I understand that Mrs. Cleaver could speak Jive.
Most, if not all, Canadian prime ministers from Trudeau onwards (i.e., since 1968) have spoken both French and English with varying degrees of fluency. (I say “most” because I can’t find information one way or the other on Kim Campbell.) In these cases, one of those was their native language, and one was not.
Benito Mussolini spoke several languages besides his native Italian. I read once that at the Munich Conference he was the only person who could speak to all of the other leaders present without a translator, which would mean he spoke English, French, and German.
England’s Elizabeth I spoke French, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Spanish fluently (along with her native English) and also knew some Welsh and Portuguese.
I’ve read that FDR liked to say he spoke German. He had toured Europe when he was young and lived in Germany for several months. But I’ve also heard that Roosevelt greatly overestimated his abilities and his German was almost incomprehensible.
David Lloyd-George (British Prime Minister during WWI) spoke Welsh as his first language
Go look at the date of my posting. This thread is a ten year old zombie. At the time, the PM was Jean Chretien. His English was fairly heavily accented although fluent. The current PM is a native English speaker who has apparently put some effort into learning French. The PM between them, Paul Martin, would have been utterly bilingual, as of course, was Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
Decades after WW2 was over, I recall reading a New York Times piece by Elliott Roosevelt, FDR’s son, who had taken part in some diplomatic missions with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.
Roosevelt said that there were always interpreters telling Stalin what Roosevelt was saying and vice versa. But Roosevelt was watching Stalin’s face, and he saw that Stalin regularly smiled or grimaced or gave some kind of reaction BEFORE the interpreters told him anything in Russian. Roosevelt said he then asked Stalin, “You speak English, don’t you?” Stalin then burst out laughing and said, “So, you caught me! Yes, I speak some English. Understand even more.”
Given that Jamie Gillis bolded a sentence about George W. Bush when quoting you, I think it was actually intended as a Dubya joke. But my initial reaction to his post was the same as yours.
And Angela Merkel is fluent in Russian (and in English). I wonder in what language they converse or if they switch from time to time.
Wouldn’t surprise me to learn they speak in their own languages and use interpreters almost all of the time - even if they’re each fluent in the other’s language, their staffers in the room may not be.
In an official conversation, sure, but there must be some more private moments during their meetings when they are talking eye to eye. I meant those.
I had a collection of letters by J.R.R. Tolkien which included his letter of application
for an Oxford teaching post. It included a fluency list of I think well over 10 languages.
Unfortunately I gave the book away to some unappreciative fool who lost it, but Tolkien’s
entry in the Wiki article on polyglotism has an list that looks close:
Old English
Middle English
Medieval Welsh
Welsh
Finnish
Gothic
Greek
Italian
Old Norse
Spanish
I am quite sure the book I owned listed Icelandic.
Having had a turn of the 20th century English education he must surely have mastered Latin as well.
I was unaware J.R.R. Tolkien was a political leader. Ignorance fought! 
Putin and Merkle having a private moment? Brain bleach!