Jodie Foster is actually really really impressive. You almost couldn't even guess she's not french. She speaks french better than most native french speakers, she has a very varied, rich and accurate vocabulary.
@@nspector Hi, thanks for asking. I do recognize her excellent command of French but if you compare to a real bilingual person, let's say an English/American citizen born to a French mother/father, you can tell she is not a native French speaker. It is not only about the way she pronounces specific words, its about the rhythm, the intonation, the inflexions, the "music". And she sometimes uses English grammatical forms that don't exist in French.
hhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaa oui exactement! "Je ta floop flee!" hahaaa Btw the late great Robin Williams was also fluent en francais and I believe Brooke Shields is also.
Jodie Foster is just impressive in french. First time I heard her in a french interview, I realized that she was doing her own voice in the french version of her movies. She just speak french with a french accent. I never heard her doing a grammar mistake, her french is very fluid, not hesitant, and the words she use are also quite intellectual. There is nothing more cute than american speaking french with their accent, but she is definitely more attractive with that talent.
It's how most Americans sound in French unfortunately. For some reason, a lot of Americans (and of course some other countries do this as well) do not ever try to take on a foreign accent when they speak a foreign language...they just use their same voice to enunciate a different combination of sounds. I studied in France for a year at a school with Americans, Chinese, Norwegians, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, and other students, and across the board the Americans had the worst accent. Chinese were second (though their vocabulary was stellar), and Norwegians were surprisingly the best. But yeah, it's not an exaggeration. Most Americans sound like that speaking in French. It's very grating on the ears and shows a complete lack of appreciation for the foreign culture. Nothing like hearing "Je suis américain...UM...j'ai dix-huit ans...UM..." Foreign languages also have their own filler sounds/words, which again, Americans never tend to learn.
Paula Costrut I hear so many Asian, African, German, French, and more people speaking English without attempting to take on an English (or American/Canadian) accent, and I've never found it to be an issue. Yet everybody complains when a native English speaker has their accent show through in a different language.
Hannah I agree. I studied at an international university where all the foreign classes were taught in English so the level of English comprehension and speaking had to be fairly high to succeed there. Yet none of the non English speaking foreigners ever attempted to sound English, american, Canadian, etc., they spoke with their natural accent. None of us English speaking foreigners cared about their accent. They also spoke english pretty much how they would speak their native language too (filling in gaps, mannerisms, sentance structures, etc.). It's actually kind of petty to get offended over it. If someone is trying and wants to learn you can politely correct them and show them the right way to fill in gaps and pronounce words. Rolling your eyes and shoving them off just seems like a self fulfilling prophecy. Of course they'll never learn if the people they can learn the best from refuse to speak to them.
French Morning: Mitt Romney can speak french Mitt Romney: je m’appelle Mitt Romney (Avec un accent très fort) Duolingo: you’ve completed lesson one in French
I like his accent. You can hear he’s American because he emphasizes some parts of the words but he makes the effort to pronounce the “r”. It’s quite charming. As for Bradley Cooper, you can heat that he learnt French by speaking with young native speakers at the university. His French (here and in other interviews) is not formal at all, quite colloquial and it’s always surprising to hear foreigners using this type of expressions that you usually don’t learn at school.
speaking a language doesn't mean speaking it perfectly, if it did, there are plenty of native speakers who wouldn't qualify as "speakers". It's not hard to understand why more people, especially adults, don't try and learn another language when the attitude is the way it is in some of these comments.
Its annoying, cause English speakers go easier on foreigners who speak our language. No matter how awful the grammar usually is, or how thick the accent, we usually tell a spanish or french person speaking our language "wow! your english is great!". We're often glad we can understand them at all. When its their turn? Nothing but discouragement. 2 steps forward, 5 back. "You're this enough, you're not that enough".
@Joseph Beausigne Anyone who says things like that is just flat-out rude and ignorant! I try not to hate anyone but I HATE when people disparage others for their language, origins, ethnicity, color, any of that. This is 2021. What is wrong with these people that they want to perpetuate the ugliness and bigotry of past decades, centuries, millennia?? The world is a GLOBAL village! Those idiots need to evolve. I am 100% open to appreciating, learning about and learning from different languages and cultures. Vive la différence!
It's mainly the French who gatekeep like that. Then they love to complain that nobody speaks French. I go to Quebec and try to speak French and you'll generally be flat out ignored or they'll speak English if they can.
For those wondering, Jodie Foster was actually studying in a french high school, and she also kept studying through literature after that. I think her mother had a big influence on it, she was a fan of the french culture and cinema. That's why she sounds like a native french speaker! :)
As a French citizen, Jodie Foster, Bradley Cooper and John Malkovich are quite outstanding in their practice of French. John Kerry is also not bad, but it's less surprising, regarding his diplomatic career.
John Kerry spent lots of time in France, not because of his career, but because his family had (and still has) a house in Saint-Briac-sur-Mer. He is a first cousin of the former French politician Brice Lalonde.
For the U.S. that's actually getting rarer to have people as secretary of state know another language other than English. Plus, there's been a rather sad trend in presidents only being solely anglophones, unlike the first decades of the United States existence! Obama has this far been the only prez to have some fluency in another language (Indonesian) other than English, Bush, Trump, and Biden all only know English. Although, Bush did try to speak in (very broken) Spanish at least.
Jodie Foster is fluent in French. She has a very good accent and you can tell by the quality of her vocabulary she went to a French school (Lycée Français of L.A). The others speak correctly but it is obvious they are not as fluent and they make many mistakes. However, it is pretty charming.
Fun fact: Foster and Levitt went to the same Lycee Francais french school in LA. Claire Danes also went there. Foster was acting since she was little and had a short pop singing career in France when she was 15 with a few singles.
En fait, c'est tres mignon. Moi, je trouve que c'est les Francais qui deteste leur accent quand il parle Anglais mais pour nous, c'est tres tres mignon. Francais est mon troisieme langue et moi je trouve que mon accent est tres mauvais.
John Malkovich obviously speaks French since he lives in south of France (yeepee, so do I)...and Judie Foster had a french education so both have good to legit french, Judie Foster specifically having a Parisian accent. I'm just surprised about Jason Gordon-Levitt...
Certains parlent pas trop mal le francais mais je pense que c'est Jodie Foster qui le parle le mieux à tout point de vue tant au niveau du phrasé qu’au niveau de l’accent car elle n’en a pratiquement pas. En français, son niveau est excellent. 😊
I am French and I can say without the slightest hesitation that Jody Foster is the actress who speaks the French language best. incredible, no accent and speaks impeccable French. Some of my compatriots speak less well than her. it's mindblowind . Chapeau bas madame Foster
Nana Mouskouri speaks no less than six languages, Greek (her mother tongue), French, Spanish, German, English and Italian. She is not an actress or actor but a singer of Greek origin and her French is perfect
I am amazed with Jodie Foster every time I hear her speaking French. She must be naturally gifted for foreign languages: she virtually has no accent at all O.o I know she studied in a French school or so as a kid/teen, but still… I know people who have been living in France for decades and can't speak the way she does.
Jody has perfect french accent because she did all her studies in french since Her childhood,that is normal because it is almost impossible for a no native speaker to learn a foreign language during adolescence or adult age and speak with same accent as a native speaker .
I thought the last person was really french, she was talking EXACTLY like a french person, it looks like she was born in America but grew in France, it's awesome! Nobody would think she's American.
Jodie Foster speaks better French than many of my fellow countrymen ! I am still amazed each time I hear her ^^ You forgot Kristin Scott Thomas - British but she lives in France, was married to a French & makes her carreer almost in our country ! You could also have mentionned Emma Thompson.
Jodie Foster est vraiment impressionnante, elle parle le Français à la perfection ... Même si à peu près tout le monde sait que c'est un génie, sa maitrise de notre langue reste tout de même surprenante.
Oui, J'ai commencé à apprendre le français quand j'avais 13 ans, j'en ai 33 maintenant. Les langues les plus difficiles que j'ai étudiées étaient l'allemand, l'arabe, le russe et le chinois, mais à mon avis, le chinois mandarin n'est pas si difficile.
Jolie Foster est la seule à parler Français sans accent ni hésitation pour moi en tant que Française c'est comme si Jodie était née en France et avait vécu toute sa vie en France et j'adore ça , je préfères quand les étrangers parlent dans leurs langues maternelles que ecorche chaque mot moi je suis nul en Anglais et je ne m'amuse pas à parler Anglais.
Read the comments and you'll have no question as to why people think the French are rude and snooty. As someone living in a very international area, and someone who studies foreign languages, criticizing accents/pronunciation in such a way seems unnecessary.
I agree a lot of these comments are unfair, but I'm not sure if they're all from francophones or English speakers who know some French and are trying to look smart. I agree it's not really cool to bash accents nor people's attempts to speak another language. At least they know something and are trying. Okay, Mitt Romney was kind of funny, I bet he was just reading a random teleprompter. But the rest are trying and do know something, even if are not extremely "advanced." I'm probably just feeling a bit fatigued living in France and feeling like a daily failure, although it seems like people understand me for the most part and I'm able to have two-way interactions fairly easily now so, hey, progress. lol. It's just a very long, arduous process to learn a second language (at least for some), so bashing people's journey or attempts isn't helpful (not just when learning french obvs, but anyone learning any second language...including people learning English, etc...)
As a french, I can tell you the most impressive is Jodie Foster. You can tell she is not French, not because of her american accent because she speaks with close to zero accent. More the way she presents ideas in speaking but otherwise her French is excellent. Bradley Cooper too I must say speak great French.
Merci d’avoir fait ce montage de vidéos...bien fait. A part de la musique qui est peu trop fort pour bien entendre tous les accents, c’est très utile de la montrer à mes élèves au collège.
Les français sont très a cheval sur la langue de Molière. Je suis américain, et je trouve les français sympa. C’est juste qu’ils voudrient nous aider. Je vous aime bien beaucoup, France. Bisous!
Jodi Foster a de loin le meilleur niveau parmi ces huit célébrités. Deuxième place pour Gordon pour la concordance des temps et modes grammaticaux ["que ça arriverait" = "that it would happen], souvent pas facile pour ceux qui aprennent le français.
zizographie it's not really true...Her accent is Perfect because she has learned french under 5 years old...but she makes grammaticals faults and vocabulary errors ...but it has it's charm!!!
wth.. Foster talks perfect French without local region french accent. This is the standard French that all French people strive to speak with high-end words. Great
I’ve always noticed how versatile English speakers are with their accents when speaking other languages considering how heavy foreign accents sound in English like I watched a French film and the English guy spoke French with a really heavy English accent but in reality those with French as a second language sound French.
Emdontplayguitar Most of these actors had an accent, but it's true. English has a lot of hard-to-form sounds that are these weird mixtures of Germanic and Romance sounds, so it's naturally tougher when you have a larger set to deal with.
English is such a jumble of languages already that so many of the phonemes required for other languages are already in the English sounds so it's relatively easy for English speakers to pick up an accent if they try
english speakers are the worst when trying to speak spanish. It's impossible not to notice not only the accent but the hard time they have with conjugations, words genres (non existing in english) and so on... its the same with french.
Carlos Mata Yeah that's also the impression that I had.. We once had an american exchange student in our class and she couldn't pronounce German very well.. She had a really strong (but cute) american accent haha and her Spanish was only decent
Sounds like Cameron did do the hacking and gagging part Bianca 😂 (in 10 things I hate abou you Joseph Gordon Levitts character Cameron was meant to be tutoring Larisa Oleyniks character Bianca in French)
Jodie Foster wtf 😍 !!! I'm so impressed by her french she sounds like a native speaker, almost no accent at all. Par contre sur une version plus à jour on peut ajouter Timothé Chalamet, merci. 😅
Won't be impressed if someone was born in a bilingual family or spent a decent amount of time in France 🇫🇷. The only thing would shock me is someone has never been to a French-speaking country but be fluent and coherent in French with a native-like accent. Anyone knows someone like that?
I see criticisms of accents. I don't think there are any, or many, people in the US who criticize French people for pronouncing English words in a French manner. The same goes for people who have other native languages. I find English pronounced with a different accent charming, frankly. Conveying the intended thoughts is all that's required, really.
