Contrary to Trump assertion, Japan’s first lady speaks English

WASHINGTON — It’s yet another element of mystery concerning President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin — this one centering on the quality of dinnerparty chitchat.

Trump says he went over to speak with the Russian president during a dinner in Germany earlier this month because he was unable to speak to his seat mate, the wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Akie Abe “doesn’t speak English … like, not ‘Hello,’ ” Trump told The New York Times in an interview Wednesday.

Social media swiftly found clips of the 55-year-old Abe making speeches in somewhat accented but perfectly serviceable English.

Mrs. Abe, daughter of a wealthy Japanese family, attended a Roman Catholic international school in Tokyo before she attended college. The elementarythrough-highschool academy, the Sacred Heart School, includes rigorous Englishlanguage instruction as part of its curriculum. Trump’s dinnertime encounter with Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg — against the backdrop of a burgeoning investigation of Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election — has come under scrutiny because the White House did not disclose it for 10 days. Also, no other U.S. official, not even an interpreter, was privy to the conversation.

Putin, who is known to speak English, used his own interpreter during the dinnertime talk, and there is no U.S. record of what was said other than Trump's assertion in the interview that the two leaders discussed adoption.

Some social media users gleefully interpreted Trump’s contention that he and Akie Abe were unable to converse as proof that she would prefer to feign incomprehension of English than to engage in conversation with him.

Even if the Japanese first lady had decided she could express herself better in her native language, there was an interpreter available to assist her. In his interview with the Times, Trump acknowledged the availability of translation assistance, saying that “otherwise, it would have been even tougher.”

Moreover, the two had been dinner companions before. The Japanese first lady accompanied her husband on a trip to the United States in February. In Florida, she and Melania Trump toured Japanese-inspired gardens together while their husbands golfed. And the two couples dined together at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, with photographs showing her seated next to the president.

Abe