James Bryce 
HE may be the President of Ireland, but Michael Higgins managed to go unnoticed during a three week break in Spain.
The politician spent his time getting to grips with the lingo on a language course in Santander ahead of an institutional trip to Chile, Argentina and Brazil.
According to the International Menendez Pelayo University where he studied, the President now has an A2 level of Spanish and is able to speak and read fluently and understand complex literary texts.
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Badly written article. So the Irish President achieved a A2 level of Spanish in just three weeks? lol.
A2 as designated by the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR) is only basic level.
Either he has A2 level after a three week intensive course and can read basic texts or he had a high level of Spanish before and just went to advance his knowledge on the course. In that case, and if he can read complex texts, his level is more like C1/C2 and he didn’t go to Spain to learn Spanish but to improve his Spanish.
I think he may have spoken Spanish before and went to “brush up”…..
He’s a clever lad is Michael D……:)