By the way, when it comes to singing in a foreign language, there are opera singers who can sing in four or five different languages, but they can't actually speak the language. Learning the correct pronunciations in languages like French, Italian, and German, is part of an opera singer's training. They don't have to be able to carry on a conversation in the language, just pronounce it correctly.

American soprano Renée Fleming's big break came when, unlike several other sopranos who had been offered the role of Rusalka but refused it, was willing to tackle learning to sing in Czech. As I understand it, she doesn't speak Czech, but she can sing in the language.

Way back, when I was taking some voice lessons, my teacher had me singing a few songs in French and Italian. I took French in high school, but never had much of a chance to use it conversationally, so it pretty well slid into the fog. And I can't speak Italian at all, but if I look at written Italian, I can read it aloud as if I actually knew what it meant. By the way, if I do learn a song in another language, I most assuredly make it a point to learn what the words mean.

After that, wrapping my mouth around a Scots burr or an Irish brogue is duck-soup.

Don Firth