• Being a devout missionary, Republican Mitt Romney's
dexterity with foreign languages revolves around French and
Swahili; two languages in which he can express himself quite out
of the ordinary.

• Romney has exceptional fluency in French and is known to
have picked up the language during his 30 month mission in France
for the Mormon Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Mormon missionaries often learned new languages while on their
respective missions. During his two-and-a-half year sojourn
through Paris, Romney excelled in French.  In fact, Romney's
three years of French class at the exclusive Cranbrook school in
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan had made him more fluent than his
peers.

• Voicing his thoughts on Barack Obama's embarrassment
over ignorance of foreign languages and being able to simply say
'Merci beaucoup' while traveling across Europe, Romney smiled,
"Well, I'm proud to say I can say a little bit more than Merci
beaucoup, and I think a lot of other Americans can, too. I know
our kids in many schools across the country go to class and learn
foreign languages."

• Romney is basically of the opinion that America's
concern need not be focused on whether we can speak French or any
other foreign language. On the other hand, America needs to be
able to "keep up with the world in math, computer science and
other sciences."

• There are reports that state Romney also speaks Swahili
though his level of fluency in the language is yet to be
ascertained. The records do not state where and how exactly he
picked up the language. 
		

• 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.