Ha, yes: singers are required to pronounce many languages, perhaps recognizing a smattering of words, but when it comes to making up sentences of our own, that is a whole other kettle of fish. My Italian is positively baroque.

And Czech is pretty consistent to pronounce, and I always know the general translation of the line, and the meaning of a few important words, but just ask me what one of those little words means - couldn't tell ya. So I wouldn't say I could SPEAK it...and yet I've sung whole operas in it.

But when someone asks what languages I "speak" I will list off the languages I've studied and add "with greatly varied degrees of facility." That's probably all they're looking for anyway.

And the answer to "Say something in Italian!" should always be "qualcosa".