Ok, so in the preview clip for 'Trust Me,' Michael leaves a note on a file in the Pakistani consulate. Can anybody read, or even recognize, the language he writes in? I know he mentions that it is a file containing transactional data on chemical imports, but I can't help but want to understand the entire message. Punjabi is the most spoken language in Pakistan, but they also speak Pashto, Sindhi, and Urdu, among others. Which leads me to my next question-- how many and which languages do you think Michael knows. In the pilot, he speaks to Oleg in Russian. In s2ep2, he recognizes a Kurdish accent in Carla's Arabic, so that's obviously in his repertoire. If he spent as much time in Afghanistan as he alludes to in Season 1, he likely speaks at least one, if not both, of the major languages of that country, Persian and Pashto. Using Arabic in Afghanistan would have been useless since, according to the CIA World Factbook, less than 4% of the country speaks it. Any ideas?

well since I am from the south and Jeffery is from New England,
I can say he does a pretty mean southern accent.
I'd take him as a hillbilly anytime.

Well, from the opening of 'Breaking and Entering' we know Mike speaks at least 5 languages.

The show hasn't given a hard count, but it's safe to assume that Michael is very skilled in other languages and can speak several. He has mentioned that he served in the Special Forces and spent many years as a spy. Both services have their own language schools and both are good. Given his pedigree, he probably was a highly-trained operative sent to hostile areas with very little support. These kinds of folks are very capable in blending into their environments.

Hi! I'm new here at the Burn Notice forum. From what I can tell in that episode, while I don't know any of the spoken languages in Pakistan, I remember him telling the consulate when they first met in the bar that his Urdu is rusty. As for how many and which languages he speak, my guess is that he's probably familiar with most of Central Asia's widely spoken ones. From Russia to what one of my college professors liked to call "the Stans" - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and probably some Arabian countries (like Saudi Arabia and UAE) as well as some European ones, or maybe even all of Europe. Just my guess.

I definitely have heard him speak Russian, though I don't remember which episode...

Jeffrey Donovan's southern accent is overdone, but his Texas accent was credible.

I believe in last night's episode, he made a reference to Urdu when he initially met with the Pakistani "security" guy from the embassy, as in, "My Urdu is a little rusty" or something to that effect.

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