Timothée Chalamet speaks French. How good is it? 

He is so at ease in French, being corrected didn't bother him one bit! J'admire sa confiance en soi.

Hey! I’m a French native speaker and I really think I couldn’t have explained it better than you did, just to show that one needn’t be a native speaker to teach a language! Well done. Timothée speaks really really well. In my opinion, he’s learnt the language as a child but just lacks practice. A few grammatical and pronunciation mistakes, but nothing major. And for those who envy native speakers, one can actually lose their proficiency in their mother tongue, just like myself. I’ve been abroad for a long time and I also lack practice. My brother always makes fun of me for inventing Frenglish words lol!

I think any multilingual speaker appreciates it when people correct them. It just makes us sound more native! 😄

Hello ! As a french guy, I’d say Thimotée Chalamet deserves an 8: his accent and flow are really amazing, he does very few mistakes but nothing that could prevent from understanding. By the way, thanks for your work, I also improve my english through your videos 😊 Keep up the good work !

"j'étais assez confortable" is never used like that by native French! "Confortable" in french is always a physical feeling, but when you want to talk about an immaterial feeling or self-confidence, you might use "à l'aise" [a lèze]. For example, you will say "ce t-shirt est super confortable" but "j'étais à l'aise dans ce rôle au cinéma". 🌻 However, every French person will understand you through the context.

I showed my French friend Timothée Chalamet speaking French. He told me he is amazing and fluent, with only a few mistakes. He told me if he lived in France for a year at least, he would be native and no mistakes.

One small thing that stands out to a native French speaker is when he says « dans la vie vraie ». We understand it but really we would say « dans la vraie vie ».

Great breakdown Alex. I love the way you explain things. I'd give him a 18/20 but that is to be expected with the massive advantage he has over most of us .

French native here, when he speaks we can very easily notice he speaks actual day to day French and not academic French. Living abroad most of the time obviously made him lost some vocab, but he has a very very high level almost native.

This is such a great video - merci et bravo! Just used it with my year 9 French class in Melbourne, Australia. Love how you repeat the clip several times to focus on different elements, and use large, easily-readable font to highlight key vocab. C'est vraiment super!

Hey, great channel. I'm also a Brit based in Montpellier and have lived in France for more than twenty years! Excellent point sur l'intonation, je n'y ai jamais pensé mais c'est tout à fait vrai, bravo!

Merci pour cette vidéo ! C'est admirable de voir quelqu'un qui vit dans un environnement totalement anglophone faire si peu de fautes dans sa langue paternelle. Personnellement si je pars une semaine à NYC je cherche parfois les mots français en rentrant. Les quelques fautes sont vraiment mineures et j'aimerais bien être aussi "fluent" que lui en anglais.

Hey Alex, French native speaker here, believe it or not, watching your videos makes me improve my English level ! I like it ! Keep up the good work ! Vivement ta prochaine vidéo 😉

Timothé’s mother is also fluent in French though not a native speaker. She was a French major in undergrad at Yale University in the 80s.

Salut Alex! Merci infiniment pour cette vidéo et pour les autres dans la série. Je l'ai trouvée super utile pour améliorer mon français et j'apprécie ton travail. Bravo! 😃

As someone in a very similar situation (French dad side) and bilingual I actually make the "mistakes" he makes quite often " ce que j'expect" is a great example and i think a lot of it has to do with my brain still thinking in English at times when I speak French its involuntary Franglais . It so happens I do exactly the same in English as well , being bilingual sucks sometimes.

I think because Timothee spent a lot of his childhood in France his most comfortable French is when he’s in a more casual setting. It seems like when he hast to be in a more professional setting that is when he starts making a lot of errors. It’s clear that his father spoke to him in a lot of French and I watched an interview where Timothy expresses that his father would take him to France in the summers while he was growing up so that he could speak French with his only spent French speaking grandparents.

Thank you for his video. The point is communication is the key! I shouldn't let the lack of perfection prevent me from speaking. So I keep learning with enthusiasm!

As a french people , i am Indeed impressed by his french! His accent is really good and easy to understand ! A few mistakes but none that could prevent him from being understood . I didn't know he spoke french that well !!!

Merci pour votre analyse extrêmement précise et intéressante, avec le sourire, ce qui ne gâche rien 👌🏽🙋🏽‍♀️

Hi there. It was a perfect way to teach us french. The confidance that you gave through the video to me made me more couragous to speak with easier flow and not to stop often to corrrect myself. Very helpful. Thank you dear coach

Je lui donne une note de 20! I was going to look for a video on hot water tank maintenance on RU-vid when I saw this. It was so EMOUVANT that I could not stop watching it. And it kept getting de plus en plus emouvant. Subscribing!

I’m learning French and just when I think I’m getting to grips with the language, I tune into YT to listen to native speakers converse in French and my heart sinks because I can only understand the occasional word. I find I can understand written French just fine, but my brain struggles to process spoken French. It’s so disheartening, but I will not give up. I love learning French and am determined to (eventually) become fluent.

I liked what you said about the pronounciations of -tion(s), -isme, -asme etc. Most of the time I hear or read that stress is not really a thing in French but the few times I have dabbled with it, I have always found that my pronunciation is better when I actively focus on putting the stress on the final syllable of every word.

Très bonne analyse ! I, like Timothée, also have a French father, and grew up speaking the language. It's been quite a journey trying to perfect the language, as I grew up in Spain and in the US (and I don't really talk to my dad anymore), especially with noticing the nuances and diversifying my vocabulary. Writing "sans fautes" is definitely still a struggle, but I hope I can excel once I move to France 🙂

Great video! I definitely do the thing where you say English words/names in French. I live in a francophone region and when I have to introduce myself or give my name, I have noticed that I will say my name with a French accent. It just seems to flow more naturally with the rest of the French.

Bon boulot. You know your stuff. Amazing how a native speaker (he was raised speaking it)can if removed from daily immersion in their language can start to make small mistakes. Even I could not pick up on them.

a lovely format and beat to this video nice work alex, very fun to see the breakdown of the mistakes. cimer!

à 05:03 "dans le commencement de ma carrière" est aussi une traduction littérale; il est préférable de dire "au début de ma carrière" ou "en début de carrière". Sinon merci pour tes vidéos; elles me servent dans le "sens inverse" d' apprentissage ;-)

to my ear, his accent is so good that i would just assume he was grammatically perfect as well. excellent breakdown, thank you!

Excellent breakdown, Alex !

"cette scène, c'est émouvant" also means that you are moved, again, while talking about it... "cette scène est émouvante" would show a little more distance

I give him 18/20. It's great for me how well he understood the assigment. I don't care about his small mistakeds about mistaking genders and stuff. He has the vibe and intonation of a French person and that's all I wish to have in the language I'm learning.

I love your videos. Very well done, and I learn a lot.

Merci, Alex! :)

I'm new to your channel, and loved your video. I'm learning Italian right now, but would like to learn French in the future. And as a Dutch person, when speaking English, I keep to the English pronunciation of Dutch names, it just sounds better...

6:27 Vous avez oublié une erreur : "dans la vie vraie" : on ne dit pas ça en français mais "dans la vraie vie".

Good video thanks. That analysis method was helpful. I knew most of the points you raised but did not always recognise them in T's speech. Recognising the words in speech is a particular difficulty for me.

I loved your video!! You've got a new subscriber!!

Hey ! Thanks for your video and your kindness 🙂 Just for information, the verb "expecter" does exist in French (j'expecte, tu expectes, etc…), as well as the word "expectative", except that those words are not very used anymore, just in some expressions : "Je n'ai plus rien à expecter", "être dans l'expectative", etc… J'espère vous avoir été utile ! 🙂

Your lessons are outstanding. Thank you! My rating for Thimotee's French is 19.9/20. The young actor's use of French is practically flawless. I did struggle with some of his pronunciation because of the natural contractions and "liaisons" in speech. (I'm a bit rusty, but your vids "me donnent a quoi reflechir. Donc, j'adore!")

Bonjour! Beau travail dans cette chaîne! Pour répondre à la question, je suis Québécoise et habituellement, on dit les noms des acteurs anglo-saxons "en anglais", ce qui cause certaines confusions comiques avec des Français "de France" qui prononcent les noms avec un accent français très prononcé. La première fois qu'on m'a parlé de "George Clounet", j'ai mis quelques secondes à comprendre qu'il s'agissait de "George Clooney"... ;) L'accent de Chalamet est presque "seamless"... (Sauf, of course, "ce que j'attends", et plus tôt, il dit "la vie vraie" en parlant de son père. On dirait "la vraie vie"). Il est évident qu'il a un parent francophone et qu'il va en France souvent (et pas en Belgique, par exemple...). Mais une oreille francophone exercée saisit très bien les petites intonations (dans les N et les T, parfois) qui témoignent d'une personne qui vit aussi très souvent dans un pays anglo-saxon...

Ce "du coup" c est vraiment ta marque de fabrique ! J adore. J encourage tous mes amis étrangers qui souhaitent apprendre le français à venir consulter ta chaîne, C est un trésor concernant toutes les subtilités de la langue. Merci beaucoup !

Timothee is also very lucky his parents were able to send him to France every summer for summer vacation. And it wasn't a big city, I believe he said in an interview his grandparents lived in a small town. So he really had to speak French, a lot of his French can be forgiven as he probably thinks in English and then verbally saids it in French. It happens to a lot of us bilingual speakers, we will think in one language and verbally speak in another. I had to unlearn that habit to better my Spanish. But I was born in a Spanish speaking country, I just immigrated to the US when I was young.

Here I am, native French, learning how to speak French with Timothée Chalamet. What a life.

Timmy can speak to me in any language he wants. He can even make one up.

The only weird thing about his accent are is "U". They often sound between "U" and "OU". Funny because other hard sounds for non-natives like "in / an / on" are flawless, as well as his "R"'...

As a French, very interested in my own language, and also as a foreign language learner, I congratulate you for making such precise comments like when you talk about spoken contracted French formulations, or about French specific constructions. About Thimothée, I think he has very good French fundations, but it feels like he might lack some practice. His level of French is definitly enough to live in France without much difficulty ; though I'm not sure it is a level one passes through when learning a foreign language the normal way, since even while making some errors or lacking a bit of vocabulary, he speaks extremly naturally. I would bet that living just a few months in France (or Belgium, Quebec etc) would make it impossible to tell that he isn't a French native speaker (since he also has virtually no foreign accent).

I really like how he speaks in french! It sounds so smart

That was oretty amazing and very detailed analysis, Im dont speak french yet just started to learn but I am bilingual and Im so glad the peresenter corrected him (not on an embaressing way) the only way you can learn from your mistake and remember it next time . so amazing that his dad spoke to him in french which opened so many doors for him and he does kept it up .

As a French native speaker, I wouldn't dismiss "J'avais juste fini...", that's something we would totally say in a familiar way. The trap here is that it can have two meaning depending on the context and pronouciation. "J'avais juste envie de" would be "I only wanted to ..." but "J'avais juste fini de manger" would be "I had just finish eating"

There is a huge issue, anyway, around 11:10, when he says "avec un gratitude". In French we would say "avec gratitude". Otherwise, it sounds like "ingratitude", so the exact opposite meaning of what he tries to convey, literally, being grateful. There are a few mistakes between female/male nouns, in the same part. Another part that shows he is more fluent in English is when he says "je me sentais confortable", basically, "I felt comfortable". All ok in English, but weird in French. Anyway, that's something very common for bilingual people to mix things a little. As a French native and bilingual in English, I often mix English/French. Everyone is used to around me now, and I know my French will always be better than my English though I'm able to fit in any English-speaking community with ease. Anyway, he has a way better French than many French native speakers, so that's great to hear an American speak such fluently in French - without any accent!

I 'm french, and had the curiosity to watch , and yes, ...c'est génial ! 😊 I believe i can take advantage of it, in the opposite way , for improving my english 😉

I love Tim’s french! And I would say an english name in a french accent while speaking french. Because it has a natural flow

Hey merci pour ta vidéo :) :) tu parles très bien ! Pour la petite explication sur " I had juste finished the oscars" - Je pense qu'il voulait dire : "" je venais juste de finir les oscars" ,'' juste in this case is correct and totally drench the way he tells it'' , because ça peut être utilisé pour signifier une action courte dans le temps comme : je viens juste de faire, je viens juste de manger, je vais juste me laver et je reviens, je vais juste prendre un verre etc .... the way he used it, is actually correct, and thats sounds like he uses it a lot with his friends cie in his french conversations. So sorry for my english but as a french in my opinion, his sentence is correct and show how he is actually native. :) So lets put JUSTE everywhere guys, its okay 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Hello Sir. Gotta admit you're getting better & better. Your french is getting way better than in your fiRst videos... Were you really self-taught ? If so, all my respects. Outstanding job.

An Excellent lesson.

Cool video, I was surprised you didn't mention the "je me sentais assez confortable" this one seemed like one of the biggest mistakes to me

Hi Alex, when I'm speaking French and need to say an English name (person or geographic) in French I try to change my pronunciation depending on my audience. If I'm speaking with someone with a good level of English (like my language partners) I'll use an American pronunciation. In general, I will pronounce it in French because it's easier in the flow of speaking French. As to Timothée's level, I'll admit to being heavily influenced by his pronunciation and intonation, so I'll give him a 15/20.

Hi ! I just want to say that the expression "J'avais juste fini les Oscars" is actually good ; you can say "je viens juste de le finir"; I use and hear this a lot and its good ; its "very french" ❤

I am a native speaker apart from few mistakes I would say that he has a native speaker pronunciation. His expression is fluid and he uses words that are typical of a native speaker .

I'm a native French speaker who learnt English in school while my partner was raised speaker both languages and we both use "j'expecte" very often, forgetting that "expectations" are not a thing in French! I do wonder why this is so common out of all the things we could translate improperly 🤔

He is great

L' accent et la mélodie de la langue sont excellents, bravo! 19/20, en raison des petites fautes ďarticles, voire 20/20.

j'avais juste fini les oscars, actually works fine for conveying what he means.

15/20 for me. Not bad for someone who spends more time in an English speaking environment. I'd note a couple more subtle things "Dans la vie vraie" is an unusual word order (vs "dans la vraie vie") Translating "let's go" as "vas-y" in a context where "on y va" or "j'y vais" would make more sense (he is corrected on this by the interviewer)

You say english is far and away his most proficient language, but most people who speak several languages would make the sorts of mistakes he makes. That doesn't mean he is less proficient (actual, most native french speakers make an awful lot of gramatical errors even when it's their only spoken language). For example, he says "Je me sentais assez confortable" which is incorrect but a mistake half of native french would also make (a couch is "confortable", but if you are comfortable while seating on a couch, you are "à l'aise"). "J'avais juste fini les oscars" is a mistake that I would easily have made, as a french person, born and raised in France with french as my only day-to-to language for the first 20 years of my life. And french still is pretty obviously my most proficient language.

So beautiful

i think your video is confusing stress with accent though. accent is the high pitch in french. there is no stress in french: each syllable (uncontracted) retains equal length and volume. Conversely in english, (and stressed languages,) a stressed syllable is lengthened and louder, but not necessarily high pitched. An example is italian: stressed syllable often accompany a DROP in pitch and so in english it is that the raised pitch is common, but not distinctive of stress

This was great. I really enjoyed it. Can anyone tell me the name of the first movie clip (which is repeated throughout the video)? Merci!

C’est mignon les toutes petites fautes qu’il fait ne dérange pas la compréhension je trouve qu’il’parle mieux que certains français eux-même avec un accent français l est d’origine française mais a grandi aux USA c’est en quelques sortes un étranger le français est compliqué j’ai du l’apprendre moi aussi et ses fautes de genre masculin féminin donne un charme que beaucoup d’étrangers font et c'est très bien accepté c’est tout à fait compréhensible moi j’aime beaucoup ton accent quand tu parles français

I would love to speak english as good as you can understand french! congratulation! for me, the point that shown you mastered are "je venais de finir les oscars" and "c'est VS il/elle". I know that's impressive (because my wife isn't native french speaker)

Video tres informative. Je suis francaise expatriee au Canada; mes 3 filles ont le francais avec accent parisien a la maison (a cause de nous parents), le francais avec l'accent franco-canadien a l'ecole (ecole d'immersion ou le francais est appris comme seconde langue), et l'anglais partout ailleurs (l'anglais est la langue avec laquelle elles s'expriment le mieux). Elles utilisent des structures anglaises sur lesquelles elles "collent" les mots francais et peuvent changer d'accent francais en fonction de leur environnement (accent anglophone tres prononce avec les copains, moins avec nous; accent franco canadian tres prononce avec les enseignants).

Hi Alex! I'm 100% French but I am privileged to speak English. Let me point you out a slight error : the difference between 'cette scène est émouvante' et 'cette scène, c'est émouvant'. The second one is not a question of being more general than the fisrt one but it is used for emphasis : 'Gosh! this scene was really really moving'. Do you understand me?

Actually I understand the confusion about the "expect" thing because in French we do say "les expectations" ( qui est une version très soutenue de "les attentes") actually it comes from the same word. It's not used a lot though in everyday language. So he could have not corrected him, because it's understandable even if not correct.^^

if I'm not wrong, in Canada (I try to say Canada instead of just Quebec since there are Francophones outside of Quebec as well.) it's normal to not change the way English words or names are pronounced even when speaking in French. but then again in this context, Timothée is speaking France French instead of Canadian French.

Quand il dit '' cette scène, c'est émouvant" , la ", " change everything. Ce qu'il veut dire, c'est marquer une pause pour évoquer le souvenir, l'émotion qu'il a ressenti en jouant avec Matthew de façon général, sans parler de la scène précisément . A general feeling. Il aurait pu aussi dire : " Cette scène, voyez vous c'est émouvant parce que ...." Hope it will help to understand all the details in the french langage ...

you should definitely do a video on his sister pauline chalamet! she is much more fluent than he is as she lives in paris!

Je suis québécoise & parle français et WoW je lui donne un 9/10❤️

Il s’entend bien avec la langue à mon avis. Je souhaite que je peux faire ça bientôt

Hello! about " j'avais juste fini les oscars " le probleme vient surtout du fait du verbe " finir " qui ne convient pas car il suppose une action de sa part. "Je venais de finir les Oscars" ne convient pas vraiment, Il serait plus juste de dire "C'était juste après les Oscars " ou alors " je sortais à peine des Oscars " but go on with your work... It's pretty cool

@7:50 "juste" does actually translate the notion of the oscar being just finished. It IS one of the meaning of "juste". Ex: je viens juste de finir mes devoir = i've just finished my homework.

Son français s'est grandement amélioré.

I'd suggest in a next future you add to this series of celebrities speaking French, the name of Jean-Jacques Burnel, the bassist and founder of the British band The Stranglers. He was born to both French parents but was schooled in the UK, so his French is not perfect but you can point out and comment on his mistakes like you did in this video.

At 6:00 minutes in, you correctly pointed out that the final 't' is pronounced in the feminine form of the adjective "étonnante" because of the final 'e' ; however, please don't forget the liaison between the two words "(c')est-étonnant(e)".

I would say that in this instance "s'attendre" would be the better option (albeit much harder to use : s'attendre à quelque chose, or s'attendre "à ce que" quelque chose se produise... nightmare ^^ so he should have said "ce à quoi je m'attends..."). "Ce que j'attends maintenant" is closer to "what I hope is gonna happen now", or maybe even "what I'm counting on now" with a nuance of demand :) Btw your video is great, and as someone who has been in the situation of teaching French to English speakers, I can tell you're doing a great job explaining those little nuances of meaning which are so difficult to grasp

I don't know if somebody has already told it in comments, but in French, there's a group of words looking like the english verb "to expect" and also meaning "to wait". "être dans l'expectative" but it's very formal and not very used in casual chats.

I’m fascinated at every aspect of your video, the way you dip into English and French so effortlessly. Sorry, just subscribed to your Chanel, so not sure if you’re bi-lingual.

Well that certainly explains why he’s so damn cool

Wow, I never realised he had starred in Interstellar! I've seen the movie a few times, but it's been quite a while... even though it feels like it was yesterday. Time is relative, right? Guess I have to watch it again to see how he acted back then. His French is great, really. He pronounces words like a native speaker would, shortening them, making absolutely correct liaisons... Setting aside some turns of phrase literally translated from English we would never use (it's almost nothing really, anyone gets what he means anyway), he sounds spot on! He even says "Interstellar" the typical French lazy way of pronouncing English words (we don't really bother about the accent when using an English word in the middle of a sentence in French, to be honest)... he could have said it correctly, but no, he sounds so French it makes it funny! (in a good way) I'd easily grant him a nice 19. (20 is Jodie Foster level, you utterly can't guess she's not a native speaker when listening to her)

I wonder where his father is from. He's got a slight accent that could very well be a foreign accent, but I've heard similar ones from native speakers so I'm curious. Otherwise, as a native myself, I'd say his French is really good. Other than a few grammatical mistakes (most notably with gendered nouns), he speaks very clearly and can hold a conversation without problems.

Je suis Timothée mdr!! I'm a Londoner born into a Francophone family. Benefits? 1) I grew up eating food with FLAVOUR lol! 2) Maman was v dedicated in immersing us within the Francophone community. 3) Being a French speaker made it easier for me to study Spanish and Italian at school. 4) I've been a dual citizen since birth. This became very useful for me living in the EU post Brexit! Negatives? 1) I guess theres that cliché "cross culture kid" identity crisis thing lol... But was speaking French at home enough? Sure, it made me fluent. But honestly, it wasn't until I lived in France, I found that the speed at which I spoke and thought- plus my confidence in communicating in French- all strengthened. I have lived in Spain too, so sometimes confuse Spanish/ French pronounciations. ie. "Que". Or answer in one language when being spoken to in the other. Tbh Spanish is my favourite language to speak. Because it's the only language I CHOSE to learn! (I think you may understand what I mean, as you chose to learn French?) I love English and French because it connects me to my heritage, but I feel that Spanish hits my soul differently 🇬🇧 🇫🇷 🇪🇸

He seems like a normal natural, not studied, bilingual person to me. People who are naturally bilingual through raising tend to go in and out of both languages, even when speaking to one another. Yes, there is one language that is most proficient, but they still have a tendency to produce language salad. We jokingly call it speaking "spanglish" in America. I love when my Haitian coworkers throw in a random English or Spanish word during conversation. Sometimes they won't even realize they've done it. Studies show that the more languages a person knows the more limited their vocabulary becomes. This is why perfectly fluent people are particularly impressive. So kudos to you sir. Very fun form of education too. Pretty impressed with Timothee as well for not losing his French due to lack of practice. That happened to my grandfather actually with his native tongue. German was his full blown native tongue but by his 70s the accent was perfect but the words weren't. I myself certainly can't say I'm bilingual. I speak English and just enough Spanish and German to sound like a 4yo looking for the bathroom or some food 🤣. You guys are awesome.

Learning a language is so hard!!! Specifically for people that try to do it on their own and have very low income in their lives... like myself!!!! We don't get to travel overseas, don't have a great salary, so when it comes to this celebrities that travel all the time and can settle for a while in any given country to learn a language.... l'm like.... they should be fluent in whatever language they get to learn!!!

Ce que “j’expecte” je traduirais par “ce que j’espère” ..plutôt que par “j’attends” As a French speaking person living in Australia, I do speak Franglais 😜 En tous les cas vos accents anglais ou français sont …supers 👌

Le verbe "expecter" n'existe pas , mais on utilise "dans l'expectative" (dans l'attente) qui est du français soutenu ! Quel bazar ce français ! 😂 Je découvre tes vidéos et j'adore... ça me fait travailler mon anglais ! Hi from Montpellier as well 🙋‍♀️

Hey, je suis moi même un étranger en terres de France. Très souvent confronter à toutes les nuances de la langue. English speaker as well.... Oufff I shouldn't have said that... My English is blerck.mais J'adore ton enthousiasme...... En plus t'es beau gosse..... Oupppps 😂

For expect there is a French word witch is "expectative". Is meaning is: attente prudente en attendant une solution (rester dans l'expectative). translate: cautious waiting while waiting for a solution. Then even if I'm French, when I speak in English a long period of time and come back to the French, "expect" go straight from my mind to my mouth and I've to correct myself! Am sure am not the only one.

Tu devrais faire une vidéo sur le français d'Alex Lawther, de la série "The end of the f***ing world". Il parlait quasiment pas français et a dû apprendre pour le film "Les traducteurs". Son niveau est assez impressionnant (même s'il fait quelques petites erreurs de temps en temps).

Doea any one notice the "ovecorrection": "dans la vie vrai"? In french, the adjective is most of the time following the substnative, e.g. the blue dess --> la robe bleue the cold water --> l'eau froide etc But, in some case it is more natural to invert them: the tall man --> le grand homme my good friend --> mon bon ami Real lif would be more naturally translatted to "vraie vie", but he used "vie vraie", which is not strictly incorrect but sound less natural