I managed to return to an exercise class this morning. Always a good energiser to start the day. Today is the third Sunday of Advent and in Sweden, it is the festival of light, to venerate Saint Lucia. Friends of ours in Genarp, Sweden, posted on Facebook a very moving collection of Advent songs, with the girl in the crown of lighted candles singing the solo. Performed to a totally candlelit but empty church. It was so beautiful but at the same time so sad. I cannot give a link to their performance, but here is a taste of something similar. Skip to about 5.30
Yesterday I called on my (grown-up) foster son, to give him a chocolate cake for his birthday. How does one get into these family rituals??! His first language is French and his cousin who I had not met before, was there, so I said, “bon jour, ca va bien?” *Oh, so you speak French?” he said in amazement. So I fell to thinking that if you can string a few words together in any language, with passable pronunciation, you can probably pass as fluent! Or maybe English people are expected never to have any linguistic ability.
A dank and dreary day really, the darkest time of the year. No wonder people are festooning their houses with fairy lights to cheer themselves up.
lockdownblog 
Your comment on the ability of some people to convince others they are fluent in more than one language reminds me of the story that Katya Adler, BBC’s Europe Editor apparently admitted in an interview in 2019 that she had lied about being able to speak Spanish to get the Madrid correspondent job. Adler later learned the language by listening to Spanish political radio and Mexican soap operas. Doesn’t seem to have done her any harm.
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