Polyglot Reacts: 8 Celebs Speaking Italian 

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As an Italian I knew Kobe was quite proficient, his pronunciation is indistinguishable from that of a native speaker but I must say Colin Firth is the one that impressed me the most, he has a strong english accent but his mastery over grammar and vocabulary is absolutely good.

Kobe didn't set out to learn Italian. He learnt it naturally, as a child. When you learn it that way, the intonation and accent stays even if you lose some vocabulary through lack of use. I know, because it happens to me occasionally, too. :)

Viggo's first clip was so unexpected, not because he could speak italian, but because he knew "topo gigio" how the hell did Viggo Mortensen knew topo gigio!?

Hearing Kobe talking about his future projects about Italian basketball just makes me sad.

Fun fact: when Viggo did Lord of the Rings, he came to Italy to know his Italian dubber Pino Insegno, a very famous comic actor in Italy. They went for a walk through the streets of Rome when they met a group of fans who acclaimed Pino Insegno asking him to make a photo and ignoring Viggo. Pino felt a little embarrassed to see that they did not recognize a gigantic actor like Viggo but applauded him. So he went to them and say them "Oh, he is Viggo Mortensen... the lord of the rings, you know?" and them reply "We don't care if he's a goldsmith, we want a photo with you."

The one who impressed me the most is Colin Firth. He has an accent, yes, but he speaks very properly.

Kobe's sisters are fluent too. He said once in an interview that after the family came back to the US, he used to speak italian with his sisters as some sort of "secret code", to communicate without being understood by others.

Kobe spoke fast and pronounced everything perfectly. His vocabulary was just a little rusty when that was filmed.

As an Italian native speaker I can tell you Kobe’s Italian is perfect! Beautiful voice and pronunciation. Sounds like from the north of Italy. It shows that getting the right musicality of the language and fluency totally compensates any grammar imperfections or lack of vocabulary which affect native speakers too. He’s the only one in these video-clips that really sounds like a native Italian. He has probably socialised a lot in Italy, apart from having a talent for languages. Penelope has a strong Spanish pronunciation, even when she say a word beginning with ‘s’ I hear ‘es’ instead. The first interviewer to Viggo sounds very fluent in both languages. Viggo’s Italian is very good, minimal foreign accent.

Viggo surprised me. His voice is really close to his italian voice actor’s voice in LotR. This is magic for me

Viggo pronunciation is almost perfect, which for a nordic is a great achievement. Kobe lost some vocabulary but his pronunciation is very Italian, he has also a slight regional accent.

As a native Italian speaker, my jaw hit the floor listening to Kobe. I had absolutely no idea he was so proficient in Italian and honestly I'm really honored that he chose our language to master that way. Edit: I appreciate a lot of you pointing out that he lived in Italy for a while and therefore had a bit of a leg up on this but guys my respect for him stands, I promise you don't need to keep telling me. (Thank you anyway!)

Kobe forever in Italian hearts ♥️ he was one of us. He said on the radio that he kept on speaking our language with his sisters. He also spoke Italian during matches not to be understood

Colin's been living in italy for years. He speaks an extraordinary Italian, even with a British accent.

Kobe was in Italy since 6 until 14 years old, following his father, and he always kept a strong connection with italian culture, speaking frequently in italian with teammates and even with his daughters; everybody in Italy still mourn him and love him.

Melania is from Slovenia and in Slovenia a lot of people knows italian because the radio waves of the italian tv arrive there. Slovenia borders with Friuli and Slovenians born in the 70s/80S practically grew up watching italian tv so i guess the same goes for her.

Colin Firth impressed me most. l’m Italian, and even if one can clearly hear an english accent in his speaking, it’s actually minimal. His grammar sounded perfect to me and he spoke completely naturally, quite evident that he speaks the language maybe daily. Kobe (RIP, champion, and thanks for everything you gave us) had the best pronounciation and also was using the language very naturally, instinctively.

As an Italian I can assure that Colin Firth british accent is very noticeable when he's speaking Italian, but also it's such a delight to hear him speaking the language without doing mistakes with articles, verbs and grammar in general, which is a common mistake with people that learn the language starting from being mother tongue english speakers I was impressed the most by Jodie Foster, I didn't know at all that he knew Italian, she's very fluent and relaxed when talking

Interesting to note how Penelope Cruz says “the spirit” in this clip. She combines the Spanish “el espíritu” with the Italian “lo spirito” and winds up with “el spirito.”

As an Italian Kobe fan, I'll add my five cents on the way he spoke: 1) he used non English languages to communicate with his teammates in ways (Spanish with Pau Gasol, Italian with Sasha Vujacic). He also threw the occasional laughing vaffan** at refs😂😅 2) he used to talk in Spanish with his wife Vanessa at home 3) as you guessed, Kobe's thirst for knowledge and self improvement carried over to most, if not all, aspects of his life. The man was a student of the game of basketball like no other, his work ethic was legendary. Rest in peace 24❤

Colin Firth really impressed me with this interview because of his very good Italian together with deeply articulated arguments which is very british. He has great ability to tell stories and describes situations, I could listen to him for hours without ever losing attention

It's sad to hear someone with an Italian surname, talking 'proudly' about his roots, and not showing that pride by learning the language of 'his roots'. I'm a native Spanish speaker from Puerto Rico, fully bilingual in English, which I learned at an early age. It was my French ancestry (Lassalle = LaSalle) that motivated me to learn French, when someone asked me how come I didn't speak if I had a French last name. Years later I studied and learned Italian. I'm currently learning Portuguese.

Travoltas lack of italian despite his italian roots does not suprise me at all as i see a similar thing here in Wales. Literally 1000s of people claim to be proud Welsh patriots and have so much love of the country they are from/live in, yet can't be bothered and sometimes are even hostile to learning the Welsh language.

The John Travolta clip was hard to watch. I ,too, had a grin on my face Olly. Your reaction to John was priceless.

Love Kobe's use of his hands: VERY Italian

As an italian language learner, I mostly admire Kobe, he is inspirational when learning the italian language, he's got the accent, melodic sound, and fits into the colloquial so fluently, I've watched all his videos when he spoke in Italian, he was brilliant and always at ease .... RIP Kobe

As an italian I want to thank all these celebs for their effort to learn italian. Learning a new language is like paying a tribute to the country. I can still hear that they are foreigners but I have to say that most of them are quite good. The only thing I'd change is the clip from the movie. Speaking in a movie is not like speaking in real time. Worst italian I ever heard: Bradley Cooper in Limitless (great movie) in the restaurant scene. :D

Another great one Olly! 🙌🏾 Kobe’s passing motivated me to become more serious on my language learning journey! I’ve always wanted to speak multiple languages and I noticed I’ve always admired people who do. I can’t waste the opportunity I’ve been given, now that Kobe’s no longer with us 🙏🏾 RIP

Virgo was actually very very good. he took his time but I would say that his phrasing and pronounciation was the best of them all (from an italian girl :-)) Also Jodie Foster and Colin Firth were very good

Kobe is always in my heart he grew up in Italy and he always loved to come back, but the one i am more impressed by are Viggo first and the quality of Penelope's grammar and confidence

The best one is definitely Viggo, his grammar is perfect and the accent is not very noticeable. Only thing are the doubles ‘ss’ which he doesn’t really highlight too much. Except for that, the best for sure!

They all impressed me! Well done to anyone who tries to learn, even a few words, of another language.

Vigo Mortensen speaks seven languages: English, Danish, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, and Arabic.

From a native speaker's point of view, I love how Viggo's Italian sounds like. Is true that he somehow lacks in fluency, but he speaks in a correct grammar and most of all, with clean and very Italian sounding vowels.

What a wonderful work you did in this video! congrats! not only acurate and complete comments, but also clever and with sensitivity.

I’ve always loved studying languages as a hobby and have seem many poly’s on YT. I’m subbing because of your simplicity and love of language study. Thank you for this video!!

Colin Firth Italian and vocabulary is impressive. Kobe was an Italian who moved back to America. He was a legend and his Italian pronunciation was the same of any Italians that grow up in Italy.

I've always loved Kobe's Italian.

Kobe lived for a very long time in Italy. He loved Italy and the italian language so much, he gave all his kids italian names. Italy loved him back, and we still miss him!!!

That was such fun Olly. Italian being my second language, it was fascinating to see these people. Colin Firth really surprised me, as did Viggo and of course Kobe - so relaxed with it. Btw, your French reader was a great help for my French.

I find his analysis of Jodie Foster's Italian spot on. My native language is English, but I've studied French for about 10 years and have lived in France for 2 years, and I'm pretty much fluent at this point. I started learning Italian about a year ago, and because the grammar is so similar between Italian and French, my brain translates from French to Italian, not English to Italian.

Viggo Mortensen's Italian pronunciation in the interview about "the Green book" was actually better than in the film itself, where he had to render the accent of a second generation immigrant (at least), whose Italian was most likely a local dialect (some are practically different languages). I am increasingly impressed by Viggo.

Kobe uno di noi, sempre! It's amazing how good his italian is despite living in the US and, i assume, lacking the conversational practice needed in order to be updated on the vocabulary and how the Italians speak in general. Grazie caro, ci manchi!

Hey Olly! I just recently stumbled across your channel and from all I've watched up till now, its really helped a lot with foreign language learning. Thank you so much! ☺

My POV as italian: Colin Firth; Eccezionale, fluente quasi come un madrelingua, vocabolario più vasto anche di alcuni italiani, grammatica perfetta, leggerissimo accento inglese ma quasi impercettibile. Denota grande orecchio, intelligenza, capacità di riproduzione dei suoni e soprattutto, amore per la lingua e per lo studio. Melania Trump; Non classificabile. Evidentemente non sa assolutamente parlare italiano, si vede benissimo che ha imparato solo due frasi a memoria prima di farsi riprendere e sicuramente le avrà dimenticate due giorni dopo. Penelope Cruz; Molto brava. Italiano semplice ma efficace, molto comunicativa. Nel film l'accento spagnolo scompare ma nell'intervista è molto forte ma non fastidioso, si appoggia alla grammatica spagnola per comporre le frasi ma si vede che potrebbe vivere in italia senza nessun problema comunicativo. Viggo Mortensen; Non è C. Firth ma si avvicina. Il vocabolario è bello, l'accento inglese è un po' più forte (non troppo) perde un po' di fluentezza. E' evidente che gli importa dire le parole giuste per rispondere alle domande sul suo lavoro e quindi, ha bisogno di un po' di tempo per pensare. Ha studiato bene ed è sicuramente molto intelligente, con un po' di pratica sarebbe un altro ottimo. Christof Waltz; Impossibile esprimersi. E' una scena di un film dove interpreta un tedesco che sta imparando a parlare italiano. Prova d'attore 10 con lode, conoscenza dell'italiano: Non ne ho idea. Kobe Bryant R.i.P.; Spigliatissimo. E' l'esempio di un italiano imparato in strada. Non è molto corretto e la grammatica è difettosa ma lui è molto disinvolto, è molto confidente e sa di sapersi far capire. Ha un accento suo personale difficile da connotare, forse è una via di mezzo tra l'accento dialettale regionale del posto in cui ha vissuto è un residuo di inglese americano. Jodie Foster; Troppo corto per giudicare. Però dalle due parole direi che è una persona molto umile e simpatica e qualche base di italiano sicuramente la ha. John Travolta; Omg, It's a shame. ;) It's like somebody ask to me to say hello to an english crow and I go with: "Ehhhh.... Love, and... heee... Love, I'm... I'm... come si dice felice?" -"Happy" - "hemmm, I'm happy, hemm, I'm very happy, and , love... hemmm, thankyu, thenki, tankyu and love". C'mon John :) U can do better than this.

As an Italian i can say that Viggo is dope! He doesn't have a full command of Italian vocabulary, but he's really smart on disguising this lack, and hhe sounds BRILLIANT... He has a disruptive expressiveness... that's the key!

Viggo is a total legend! Also big up to Kobe and his Italian. Wow. Rip

All of this is amazing! I did not know any of them could speak Italian!

Jodie Foster impressed me the most: very confident and she sounds Italian in the first part of her sentences and even though she says that she speaks with a French accent, the last word of every sentence sounds Spanish to me

Colin Firth is AMAZING. Grammar, choice of words... everything is spot on. I 'm sure he practices Italian with very well-educated people. He just has a strong English accent. Listening to Jody Foster speaking Italian with a jaunty and intriguing French accent, is something really unexpected!

Wow Kobe conversing like that is awesome ! makes me want to pick up Italian NOW ! Good work Olly ! Cheers

When Jodie Foster said "americano" she pronunced it with a perfect italian accent , just as an italian person

I think Viggo improved his Italian a lot: I remember older clips, where he sounded like he was just "adapting" Spanish

Kobe was loved in all Italy and today we still love him, we miss you Kobe

Hey! You wrote that book that I just bought of short stories on Italian for beginners! How neat👍🏾

Caro Olly ciò che fa la differenza è la pronuncia, ho molti amici stranieri che parlano perfettamente italiano e le mamme che anche dopo anni ed anni hanno l'accento marcato della lingua di nascita. Infondo la cosa bellissima è poter comunicare, io fin da piccola non sopportavo l'idea che non mi si capisse, infatti parlo 5 lingue straniere. Complimenti davvero

Kobe could be a real Italian. He even speaks with his hands just like us Italians do. God bless him.

Oh man! You are so good Great knowledge of language and sound. Che invidia! Fantastico video

So true about Penelope. She’s speaks it well but almost more so with the rhythm of her mother tongue versus speaking in the rhythm and style that Italian is spoken in

Kobe learnt Italian as a first language, no doubt his accent was so perfect. Even better than many native Italians, I'd say.

Skin from the band Skunk Anansie is another celebrity who speaks Italian really well. She even was a judge in one season of the X Factor tv show there.

I love Colin, I am so proud of him ! He speaks really well , brava Livia !

Interesting analysis! Greetings from Italy

Grande Olly, bel video! 😆

When it came to Kobe, Olly seemed like he had an emotional reaction, like a real fan. And the fans know about Kobe’s “Mamba” mentality to excel at everything he did. That was nice:))

Loved this video!

Wow, you are able to react to some many people in the same video, I'm very impressed

Really nice entertaining video! I didn't know Jodie Foster and Colin Firth spoke Italian, it was a nice surprise! Funny how Travolta just rummaged in his memory for some random Italian words to say 😂😂😂

Mio Dio, Mr. Darcy parla italiano

Viggo's second clip was amazing really. He's thinking as he's speaking but the little pauses he does don't feel "amateur like" because of the pronunciation he puts into the words. It's quite relaxing...almost snape-like

Colin's italian is very good.I am italian and i have the feeling he is thinking in italian while speaking,because his italian is very fluent. He is relaxed and confident. Two thumbs up for him😊

C'est tellement génial d'entendre Kobe parler italien. Et Jodie Foster est incroyable !

Kobe learned Italian as a child when he lived there, and as an Italian I'm just so honoured 🖤🐍

Thanks for this video👍 Colin è fantastico e bellissimo😍

You are a great teacher!!! Greetings from Ferrara!

Italian immigrants in America (or Brazil, Argentina and so on) didn't speak italian at home but their dialect instead, and the most of them had a very limited command of the standard language unless they came from Tuscany or Rome. That's why italian americans couldn't have learnt italian from their parents: simply because their parents didn't know it too.

Someday I'd like to learn Italian. I learned Portuguese from Brazil fluently and a very high level(trying sound confident and not arrogant lol) but I'm learning Arabic right now for work reasons. And hoping to eventually learn some others. But i love the sound of Italian, i understand a lot and like you said i know how to say some things, but with Spanish and Italian i have trouble removing the Portuguese and sometimes it's hard to know what's different between Portuguese to the others.

I'm from Catania and I can tell you, Adrian Brody's performance in Peaky Blinders as Luca Changretta is AMAZING! Kudos to his teacher

bravo, uso i tuoi video per migliorare il mio inglese perchè parli motlo chiaro, bravo bravo!

Melania Trump lived in Italy from 1988 to 1996. So she probably could speak Italian, but may be a bit rusty by now. Also the German actor in Inglorious Bastard didn’t just learn those lines, he can speak a bit of Italian

Penelope, Viggo and Jodie they miss the double consonants. so cute!

Complimenti per l'analisi dell'italiano. È la prima volta che sento un'analisi così approfondita e completa.

Penelope Cruz impressed me with the great accuracy of her grammar. Well done!

Idc everytime someone speak italian, good or bad, im always impressed because italian is hard and just the fact they tried make me very happy.

Hey Olly, great video! Kobe really shocked me! Wondering if you are planning on releasing a video about Italian books for beginners? That would be super helpful! Love your content keep it up! 👍🏼🇮🇹 H

Beautiful critiques! I speak Spanish so I share the same sentiment with Penelope when I practice my Italian or even Portuguese. I need to work on my intonation when I speak Italian.

I found this series of you reacting to celebrities speaking foreign languages a few minutes ago, and I just had to check if you reacted to Colin Firth's Italian.💙

I couldn’t understand a word Christophe Walz said. And I’m Italian born and raised 😀

I knew about Kobe, he was one of us, then Jodie was really impressive for her confidence and good pronunciation

I was quite surprised by the kobe's italian skills, his accent and grammar are equal to native. RIP Kobe.

Olly, sono sicera non ti conosco, ma il tuo modo di parlare esprimerti "con le mani e" tipicamente ns....compliemnti il tuo modo di descrivere il parlato di queste persone famose, in Italiano e' perfetto...grazie da parte di un italiana, che ama invece, il tuo di paese😍

Jodie Foster seems to be pretty sharp. She went to Yale.

As an Italian I think Viggo is the one that surprised me the most. I already knew that Kobe had an incredible accent so that doesn't count lol. Viggo, however, was thinking about what to say, which to me says he actually had to study the language and didn't pick it up along the way. But whenever he said something it was perfect in both pronunciation and grammar.

Cool video. Thanks for sharing. Would you happen to have anything on Dean Winters speaking Italian? Apparently he is fluent, but I was unable to find anything on RU-vid or anywhere else for that matter. Thanks!

Kobe I think wins the most impressive Italian speaker. It is clear it is his second language. I was SUPER impressed with his Spanish however. I can detect an accent a mile away in Spanish and his was very impressive. His wife was Mexican-American so he got to really practice that everyday I suppose. I mean he was completely fluent. Kobe was a man of such HUGE intellect and talent in all respects what a genius. His life was too short and the world lost so much when he departed.

Italian here. Viggo Mortensen: heavy argentinian accent. Christoph Waltz: very, very unnatural, he's speaking quickly some memorized lines. He also uncorrectly said "me lo ripeti ancora?" instead of "me lo ripetE ancora?". Moreover the stressed words in the sentences are really weird. Kobe was in Reggio Emilia in that interview.

Hobe , Vigo and Jodie very good Italian. Thank you for this video .

Kobe moved to Italy at the age of 6 and lived there for 7 years. That was a great interview by the way I recommend every watch it 😎

i'm italian and in my opinion Viggo Mortensen speaks really relaxed and naturally our language as Jodie Foster. Kobe? The best one because inside him he was half italian...try to find the video of Kobe at Radio Deejay in Milan and you will hear a better prononce than this video. Colin Firth thinks like an italian but he has any english accent. Thank you anyway!