Did Picard Speak Fluent Klingon?

[Six of Twelve]

There were several episodes where Picard spoke Klingon, rather than rely on the universal translator.

Did he speak the language fluently, or did he simply know some key phrases?

 

[Paradise City]

The strong subtext is that he's an urbane and learned man who knows Klingon in a way that's persuasive given that the Klingons generally commend his efforts with "you must have Klingon blood Picard". Perhaps he was motivated to go the whole nine yards after his experience as arbiter and get fluent with the language.

 

[Triskelion]

When he accepted the role of Cha'DIch in Sins of the Father, he answered using a ritualistic phrase. He might have simply prepared the phrase for that particular contingency, which was not that far off the radar once he sensed a coverup.

But also - 24th century education techniques are also accelerated - so it could be possible that multilingualism is commonplace the way any school child can speak English today....(um, right)??

 

[at Quark's]

Well yeah, Picard is generally pictured as man well developed in different aspects of "highbrow" classical culture. In Darmok, he can recite ancient Sumerian legends without any preparation. At the end of that episode, he's reading ancient Greek (at least, that's how I interpreted it). He lectures Data about Shakespeare. He's shown to be working on his own proof of Fermat's last theorem in another. He paints, he listens to classical music, has a love for archaeology and history-- to name just a few of his pastimes.

So I don't think it would too out-of-character to have him speak Klingon to a rather high standard, too.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I would think that most (if not all) Starfleet officers would be fluent in at least one non-native language--especially those from races that are either allies or hostiles. In the DS9 episode where the "superhumans" first appear, they notice the nuance of the language pattern that wasn't apparent through the universal translator, so it would be a very handy skill to have.

Of course non-human Starfleeters would have their native language as well as Federation Standard, though there would be nothing stopping them from taking on another.