• Apart from English, Obama speaks, 'Indonesian and a little Spanish' as told to The Hill in
2006. He has confided that his 'German is not real good.'

• Barack Obama, the son of a Kenya-born Harvard-educated economist and an American
anthropologist, was brave enough to admit his handicap in not being able to speak a foreign
language.

• "I don't speak a foreign language. It's embarrassing!" were his words at a town hall
meeting in Powder Spring, Georgia on July 11, 2008.

• He is reported to have an average grasp of the Indonesian language as a result of the four
years he spent at local schools in Jakarta.

• However, despite having a multi-national family tree and being brought up in a diverse
cultural climate, Obama lacks a proficient grasp of any foreign languages.

• Though he himself could not be bilingual, this global leader of the free world is of the
firm opinion that in America "we should have every child speaking more than one language" and
emphasized the need for foreign language study in America's classrooms.

• Obama's embarrassment over Americans not knowing more foreign languages prompted a few
outrages from conservative groups who argued that the President?s comments meant Americans should be
forced to learn Spanish.

• Obama's heightened faculty as a writer par excellence in the English language stands him in
good stead among his supporters.

Politcks