Curious if you would consider adding another speaker to your French Uncovered series, from some African country? There are over 140 million French speakers in Africa and growing, perhaps it is approaching 150 million now, as it is the mandatory second language in so many countries where there are dozens of indigenous languages. In other words, perhaps the first language is indigenous but those who speak that heritage language may number only a few thousand, so French is mandatory as the regional language, basically a de facto extra native tongue even if not shown as such in surveys (it is usually shown as a second language, not native, yet it is a mandatory language for those born there, and it is the language a foreigner would use when traveling there). It is the language spoken across borders and between villages, even between families joined by marriage but from differing language heritages. I have visited places where a half dozen or full dozen languages are spoken in a single village, and French is the common tongue. You have Canadian French and Parisian French in your Uncovered series, it would seem easy to add mp3's of someone (some italki teacher for example?) from DR Congo or Burkina Faso or Cameroon or elsewhere, so that we can learn also from those accents? It would also be more inclusive in teaching, choosing to represent a speaker from that continent (especially given the reason they speak French is due to colonization). (I have been learning from Parisian recordings, and am shocked I miss so much when listening to a speaker from an African country,.) Thank you for considering this request.
Nick Clegg spoke great French but he didn't actually say anything. Lots of words without saying much. I believe that's the universal language call "Politician"?
I think most US politicians avoid speaking anything but English moat of the time in order to avoid being seen in any way as foreign, i.e., weird at best, dangerous at worst. GW Bush prattled a little in Spanish (with a Texas drawl) to curry favor from Latinx Americans, then turned around and did everything he could to kick them out and keep more from coming here.
Ooof. Theresa May doesn't just have the influences of "An English accent" in French. SHE LITERALLY STILL HAS HER EXACT SAME ACCENT WITH ZERO CHANGES. It's rare that someone pronounces a foreign language so badly that they still sound exactly like they normally do in their native language.
Ngl I don't think I know a single non native English speaker who speaks English with an English accent (or accent from other English speaking countries)
Macron actually speaks English at a useful level. He is both clear and articulate in spontaneous English. Hollande did sort of speak English but it was very, very bad. I think Sarkozy is somewhere between the two.
Funnily enough, 'sewer' happened to be one the first French words I learnt in school - plaque d'égout is a manhole cover and égout is the sewer. Not sure why I learnt that but it still sticks 10 years later
I'm a native spanish speaker and I tried to remember what the word for sewer was in french and I couldn't, so I went to spanish, and I couldn't either... I had to stop the video so the words he was saying weren't mingling with my thoughts, and then I had to think about the context for a while. Then I remembered. "Alcantarilla". That's one of those spanish "Al-" words that probably comes from arabic, so n luck, must be something different in french. Ended up googling it.
There's quite a difference between being fluent, and speaking without an accent. Many people find foreign accents charming - think of Maurice Chevalier, Sophia Loren or Salma Hayek, for example. They were/are fluent in English, but with a distinctive accent, and I see no good reason why they should try to eliminate it, if it doesn't impede comprehension.
There is a difference between the accent that you generally can't get rid of unless you spend years only speaking that language because it's ingrained in your brain, and not doing any effort whatsoever to have an at least resembling accent to native speakers of the language you're trying to speak. Not changing your accent at all like Theresa May did isn't a problem because of incomprehension, it's a problem because it's basically an insult to native speakers to not bother with even trying.
@@dwight3555 Have you ever heard Sarkozy speaking English? Or François Hollande, or Giscard d'Estaing for example? It's hard to believe they tried hard to achieve an English accent. But, as a native English speaker, I'm not at all offended or insulted by their English. In fact, I appreciate their effort to speak the language, and Sarkozy's English in particular seems delightful to me.
@@stephenaustin3026 I haven't listened to Sarkozy's, but I have to Hollande and... it's laughable. It's even worse in his case if he isn't lazy, because it shows how the most regarded schools in the country teach other languages, and lets you imagine how children in normal schools are taught.
Actually Maurice Chevalier spoke English almost without a French accent but due to his métier chose to exaggerate his accent when appearing in English speaking films.
How does the queen still sound so damn posh and English whilst still having a decent French accent?! 😂 I love it. I think they all did great actually. Not a fan of any of the politicians but it’s not easy standing up and speaking in public never mind in another language. Nick Clegg in particular really impressed me. Boris Johnson seems to have a similar grasp of French as he has on English 🤷♀️ at least we can be thankful he wasn’t talking about peppa pig. 🙄
As a french native speaker, i found Nick Clegg very good in french with 0 accent (he my sound like a french native), but he does a classic english native speaker error with the gendered article "le" and "la" which are the male and the femal version of "the"), it's not an terrible error, it doesn't change the meaning of senteces in general but it's very revelative of an english person, and in my opinion it's the most classical error from anglo-saxons dudes and it's normal and charming
I'm hyper aware of it myself and I still screw it up all the time. My brain has gone its entire life saying "the house" "the steps" "a book" "a chair" that to have to start paying attention to le/la/l' and un/une is difficult. Even when I'm thinking about it there are tons of nouns where I just can't remember if they're masculine or feminine. I'll get it right in sentences because one or the other sounds right, but I'll also mess up if the wrong one sounds right.
@@TheSpecialJ11 "I'll get it right in sentences because one or the other sounds right". That's how we roll as natives. We often use the one that sounds right. And rarely, we even do that when it's actually the wrong gender. To quote some word that appeared in the language recently because of some quite well known event, "COVID" was stated of being gendered female by the "Académie Française" (I think this organisation should be revamped IMO, but that's another subject), even though for a lot of us it sounds more natural to gender it as male and used it at male even before the academy stated anything. I'm almost confident that by listening to more french you'll get a better feel of what's sounds right and get most of the right genders this way.
@@TheSpecialJ11 I am french and to be honest, i am really indulgent with foreigners speaking french, especially when it comes to that gender rule... The other day, i was struggling to find if hydrangea (hortensia) was masculine or feminine. It appeared that the plant is masculine (un hortensia) but the flowers are feminine (une fleur d'hortensia). As you can see, 40 years old and still struggling, we never stop learning !
Nick Clegg used to get a lot of stick from the Daily Mail BECAUSE he was fluent in several languages. They saw it as an un-British ability and treated him as an honorary foreigner.
I never think you’re being mean with these videos. I think a lot of people on UA-cam don’t understand that constructive criticism isn’t being mean. And you’re always super nice to people anyway
Surprised you didn't feature 2 of the most known British Politicians in recent years. Both Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell are fluent French speakers. Especially Alastair Campbell who studied French and German at Cambridge and has amazing French with multiple appearances on French TV - definitely up there with Nick Clegg.
@@maxdavis7722 He was part of the Blair cabinet I think, or of that era at least. I think Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It was based loosely on him.
@@dpayO2 No, he was not a member of the Blair cabinet. He was not even an elected Member of Parliament. He was a "special adviser" to Blair, to tell lies on Blair's behalf.
Je me suis rendu compte d'un truc depuis que j'ai appris l'anglais et que je commence à m'intéresser aux langues de manière générale, les natifs on est vraiment pas les meilleurs pour expliquer de manière précise comment parler notre propre langue, car on a pas fait la transition anglais à français, on a fait la transition rien à français, donc on a pas la même expérience de comparaison que par exemple Olly a vu qu'il n'est pas natif mais très renseigné sur la langue.
Hi Alex. I do not want to embarrass you as it is an error made by many francophones when speaking English. When you describe yourself as being French you must say I am a Frenchman not I'm a French. You can say "I am French". Regards.
@@calebw8189 where does it say 'virtually indistinguishable' in the level's description? There are lots of people with C2 certificates whose target language is immediately distinguishable from that of a native.
@@ba8898 I guess there are different definitions of C2, but I had learned that it is essentially the equivalent of a native or even educated native speaker. Check out this video from Olly: ua-cam.com/video/hoh38GuHlKo/v-deo.html. A lot of people that could qualify for a C2 certificate don't really match the description (again, depending on the one you find).
@@calebw8189 Thanks. I remember seeing that video. Yeah I suppose it depends on the definition of C2 and the extent to which you accept the validity of a C2 certificate
I am quite impressed by Boris Johnson's French. He kind of reminds me of my uncle who is fluent but hasn't really spoken French in 10 years. Pronunciation, accent, attitude, filler words, etc... are all quite good it's just the vocabulary that is lacking.
Olly, your example of The Queen’s French was from a prepared speech. I don’t know if you are aware of this, but in 1994, Her Majesty was prank called by a radio dj from Quebec pretending to be Canadian PM Jean Chretein and he discussed with her - partly in French - about the upcoming referendum on Quebec independence. One can find the audio on UA-cam. That might be a better example of The Queen’s “natural” speech in French.
As a Canadian I find it interesting they mostly carried a clear British English accent into French. Apart from Clegg. Speaking in Canada, its future king, Charles, was speaking a foreign variety of French with a foreign English accent. :-)
Brits speaking in French don't have the same accent than Anglo North Americans when speaking French, just like French speaking Canadiens (...those with an accent of course!!) don't have the same accent than European French speakers when speaking English. I assume it's the same in the Spanish speaking world, where a Mexican speaking in English has a different accent than a Spaniard when speaking English. To me, as a French speaking Canadien, I can almost tell from which province an Anglo Canadien is when speaking in French...seriously!
@@daveduchesne3096 I guess I was a bit surprised by how strongly British it was. If we have francophones from Paris, Montreal and Lac St Jean then I hear a big difference when they speak French. Their English accents are also distinct but I cannot trace it directly back to their specific variety of French in the same strong manner the British people carried their accent to French. Probably my French isn't good enough. For example people from France typically change the English article "the" to "zee" but Quebecois and Acadiens typically change it to "dee". What does that have to do with their accents in French?
@@daveduchesne3096 (grin) Even we French Canadians who speak English "without an accent" still have an accent, of course. It's just not a francophone accent. We typically have the Canadian English regional accent from where we grew up, or a mixed regional accent if we moved around during our youth. I sound mostly like a Montreal anglo who's lived in eastern Ontario for a long time, with an odd Irish twist (from the Irish-influenced anglo accent typical of Shannon and Valcartier during my youth). I know what you mean about different English Canadian regions/provinces having different accents in French. I hear it too.
I spoke European French in Quebec, They must have found it difficult to understand French spoken with a slight English accent, as Quebecois I believe is an older version of French, we ended speaking in English 😂
3:30 french is a foreign language in parliament? isn't that bit like calling gaelic a foreign language in ireland? it's parliament's ancestrial language!
Your commentary about faire la liaison entre les mots in french is actually the main way to spot a non native speaker even when they're really good. I never thought of it that way but you're absolutely right (and it's what we do instinctively when immitating a brit speaking french).
I am french and I really enjoyed that video. Great job and very fulfilling to see how our neighbours struggle with learning a language just like us :) Keep up the hard work Olly. If ever you got any method to learn english, i would be for sure a client.
@@keidanekeith668 Watch as much French content as you can and listen to music or podcasts in French. This method really helped me when I was learning English as a kid.
Boy do I wish that back in the second world war, funny mustache man hadn't committed the mistake of declaring war against the Soviet Union, and had rather allied with them instead, as it was already proposed to them by the USSR before being rejected. That mistake has very well resulted in his humiliating defeat and thus if he simply would've accepted Stalin's proposal to having the USSR be part of the Axis powers, then it would've pretty much been an automatic defeat for the allies, as a combination of the Soviet Union, funny Mustache man, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan would've been far too much for either the allies and the United States to withstand, and as a result, France would've remained under the domination of Axis Germany, I really do wish it had happened this way..
I knew a French woman who, as a student, was appointed by the French army to accompany the Queen Mother in Normandy for the 1984 DDay ceremony. She told me that the QM spoke fluent French with perfect pronunciation and that she didn’t have to say a word.
A french journalist was in Ascot and put some money on a horse which won. He was waiting for his money and a friend ask him what he wants to do with the money " ce soir je me paye la reine ! " And he heard a woman voice saying " Bonne soirée, monsieur" it was the QM waiting in the same queue !
You should have got Phil the Greek up there. Nice story from Jean Chretien, ex PM of Canada. Phil and Jean were having a fine old conversation, and Jean says to Phil, "You speak very good French for an Englishman". Phil replies: "Young man. I'm not English, and I was speaking French before you were born"
I just bought your story learning Spanish course online!!! I’m so excited to start learning from you Olly! I’ve been wanting to buy it for ages but the price was a bit too much for me, but the Black Friday sale is great! Thanks so much for Making it more accessible for us! Can’t wait!
No Edward Heath speaking French? That was the funniest thing I ever heard. Enoch Powell spoke 12 languages, including French, Italian, Greek, Latin, German, Russian, Welsh, Hindi, Urdu, and Hebrew
@Gary Allen Almost right. He learned Portuguese so that he could read a technical manual in that language during the war. But should we credit him with both Hindi and Urdu? In the Indian Army he would have studied "Hindustani," which split after the war into the languages of two different countries.
Brain training to reduce mother tongue influence on French rhymthic stress is an answer. Singing along to military marches must smooth things out... The 8 Paras and Parisian fire brigade marches are the best🇬🇧(🇲🇫🇪🇺)
The French don't care about the accent with which, foreigners speak their language. They simply appreciate the effort these people make to speak french.
I don’t know why people seem to expect native English speakers to change their accent when speaking French. You wouldn’t expect a French person to put on an English accent when speaking English, so why expect the reverse?
@Real Aiglon Why? Who does it serve? If someone can speak a language fluently and is perfectly intelligible, then why does it matter in the slightest what their accent is?
Nevermind the remarkable knowledge in your commentary on linguistic markers, I was overjoyed to hear you delineate and identify the cultural and psychological root causes of each of individuals' communicative peculiarities, thus affecting their skills in language generation; you managed to articulately explain some incredibly perceptive and insightful personality traits and how those traits can transfer laterally across languages, imbuing either tongue with curious idiosyncratic proprieties.
You should do non-native speakers speaking spanish. Hearing Beto O'Rourke randomly switch to spaninsh in debates is hilarious. (It's especially cringe, because he only provides platitudes not policies.)
I love see English speakers trying other languages. We non native English speakers try very, very hard to speak English. But, I have to admit I like speaking English. It helps me.
Next you have to check out Yul Brynner and Jodi Foster, granted they are not British but nevertheless their french is extremely impressive and I would say it's even far superior that many native French speakers.
Yes, Jodie Foster is probably the most impressive 🙂 As for Yul Brunner, he lived quite long in Paris during the 20s and the 30s before moving to the US if I remember well, hence his very good French.
Hello Olly, can you make a video on how diplomats communicate with each other? For an example, what tools and procedures do countries use as safeguards for preventing World War III by miscommunication? Thanks
Arsene Wenger lived in England for god knows how many years and never dropped a hint of his French accent, despite speaking very good English. I am only bringing this up because I don't recall anyone criticising him for not taking on more of an English accent. The criticism only seems to go one way...
fun fact: french was the official language of England for about 300 years, from 1066 till 1362, after the Norman Conquest in 1066 French quickly replaced English in all domains associated with power. French was used at the royal court, by the clergy, the aristocracy, in law courts. But the vast majority of the population continued to speak English.French was the language of the nobles and those who wished to please them.
In time Old English and Norman French eventually merged to form Middle English which is understandable to modern English speakers, Old English is difficult to understand without some previous study.
We have a new Governor General in Canada named Mary Simon, who caused a bit of a scandal in Quebec because she can't speak French. Normally it's a sort of unofficial requirement for the position, but Mary Simon can speak Inuktitut.
I heard about that, she's the Minister in the Department of Languages or something like that, and there was a big ruckus because she does peak French even though she speaks native languages.
11:03 Thank you! I've always guessed why he hated Europe from the guts. He must have been traumatised in Belgium learning foreign languages when he clearly can't speak his native English adequately, either.
Personally I don't see anything wrong with English or American accents when someone is speaking a non English language, and I don't think I've ever tried to hide mine. Everyone is from their own special place in the world and no matter what language you're speaking, a person's accent is like a little marker of that. It may sound weird, but that's my view
I agree, so long as the accent isn’t too strong. As a native English speaker, I’m well used to hearing my language spoken by people from all over the world. I personally struggle at times with some (definitely not all!) Spanish and Italian speakers who still retain a very strong accent. My friend’s husband has lived in England for 9 years, and is fluent, but I have to concentrate when he speaks as his Italian accent and intonation is so strong, it makes it unclear. It’s embarrassing! I don’t have that issue at all with most other accents. I lived in Germany for a few years and never once struggled to cut through a German accent when someone was speaking English. I have clients here in England who come from Greece, Poland, Slovakia, Denmark and Russia, and I have no issue with their accents either. I guess some accents lend themselves to English than others.
As a native french speakers. I'd say they all doing pretty ok. Those are my grades. 10/10: Nick Clegg 9,5/10: Queen Elizabeth II 9/10: Prince Charles 8/10: Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson 6/1: Theresa May
You aren’t mean at all! People are just stupid by default. Good work, very based in semiotic. Couldn’t pay for your German course using my Visa, Master and Amex. There is some limitations for international CC? Thank you.
It’s a great channel genuinely. Really informative. Been slacking on the langauge learning recently- uni stress- but once I get up to a good enough level and have the cash I’ll definitely be buying either the German course and or the book.
What happened to the video "Polyglot Reacts: 9 British Politicians Speaking French"? Who deleted it and why? Is the video here simply that video with 2 British politicians speaking French removed? If so, who were the 2 British politicians deleted and why? I'm not asking these questions to embarrass anyone. I just would like to know. Btw, the video here is very thoughtful and instructive. Merci beaucoup.
J'ai beaucoup aimé cette vidéo Olly :) Autrement, ton T Shirt est tres cool! Entre les films de Ghibli, lequel est ton préféré ? As-tu pensé de faire des vidéo sur ce que tu aimes lire, regarder ou écouter dans les langues que tu as étudié ? J'ai appris le français, et as passé deux ans en France, mais j'ai souvent de mal à trouver des choses à lire, ou regarder... Il y a trop de choix 😅 Maintenant, j'apprends le japonais et j'ai l'autre problème... Je connais les choses que je veux lire, mais je n'ai pas encore atteint le niveau de prendre beaucoup de plaisir en les lisant 😅
Salut. I'm learning French, got to say I understood most of this 😂 but I read whilst translating to English in my head 😂 how could I improve my listening and grammar
I'm English and am learning Brazilian Portuguese and even though I would classify myself as an upper intermediate student when I speak the language it sounds as if I am strangling a cat and that is a travesty against this beautiful language. I think this is a common problem with many Brits as language learning is not particularly developed into our education system.
Nick Clegg rocks French. Love these videos. For what it's worth, I don't at all see them as putting people down; it's all very instructive to hear the grammar or pronunciation errors, subtle or gross. Merci beaucoup.
The queen’s French is way better than many Canadian politicians. She also had to read the throne speech several times in French in Quebec and in Canada.
Interesting that pronouncing French correctly, coming from phonetic languages (e.g. German or Hebrew) makes it easier than from English, which distorts all the vowels, e.g. U = you, instead of oo, A = aye instead of ah.
Credit where it's due then, Mr Johnson's French is fairly good his English is crap. Amazed to discover he is capable of ditching the ego, if only he would do that more often.
@@alicemilne1444 I disagree, it is at a level where he wouldn't have trouble living in France. He is clearly lacking vocabulary and mixes masculine feminine but he gets the sentance composition mostly right. Theresa May's french was the level I would call crap.
@@axellacaze9115 I am a native speaker of French. Considering Johnson spent five years living in Brussels, his French should be far better than it is. And if he was living in France, he wouldn't be able to simply fill in gaps with English words when talking to anyone from the general public. They wouldn't understand him. Theresa May was reading off a prepared speech. Though she had a strong accent, what she said was still understandable. I cannot judge how she would speak off the cuff.
@@alicemilne1444 I am tired of this "I am a native speaker" argument. Guess what, I am also a native speaker of french. Assessing one's performance in a language has nothing to do with time they spent learning it. It doesn't matter if Boris Johnson reached this level in 1 or 5 or 20 years of living in Bruxelles, my evaluation of his french wouldn't change. After all, I am not aware of any language test that ponderates your grade based on the time you've spent learning the language. He is clearly in the B1-B2 range, not great but definitely not "crap". At this range you can have pretty normal discussions on everyday topics, but you struggle a lot on more specialized topics which seems to he the case here. He probably wouldn't be able to work in french but would be able to deal with daily activities requiring french.
@@axellacaze9115 I work with languages. I have gone through all the stages of learning languages from scratch and have coached people in both English (my other native language) and French. I have coached L2 learners of German and Spanish. I really do know what I am talking about. Johnson would get by in France, yes, but that's not what I'm talking about.
Boris Johnson is basically me speaking Spanish 😂 I have the sentence's structure in my head but I severely lack vocabulary... Even worse, the words I search come in my mind in English. So you have a French, trying to speak Spanish but with English words 😅
as a german i sort of hear a slight german accent in the royals' french, particularly the exact realisation of the /ʀ/ (sounding less trilling than i'd expect for french but very much what i'm used to in german)
boris has some good fluency strategies it sounds natural but his vocab is lacking you're absolutely right. Damn you beat me to my analysis while I was writing this comment 😂
Your French seems amazing ! (Maybe 10/10?) These extracts are short but if I am not wrong : - Jeremy hunt - 7/10 (charming); - Micheal Glove - 3/10 ( it is actually understable); - The Queen Elizabeth II - 8.5/10 ( very confident); - Theresa May - 5/10 (her French is good but like you said her accent is really british); - Nick Clegg - 9.8/10 (just wow); - King Charles - 6.5/10 (calm and fluent); - Boris Johnson - 4/10 ( his French accent is great, he just lacks vocabulary); By the way, my English accent is - 1/10.😂😅😅 (my bad)
I am a frenchman and I'd say that Stress is something CRUCIAL for English. And, incredibly enough, treated as an afterthought in France when we are taught English ! French has almost no stress But when an English speaker stresses some syllabes when speaking French it really doesn't make it harder for a French audience. Pronunciation is FAR more important to us. We have trouble recogniziing the words when the pronunciation strays too far from the correct one. My advice for an English trying to speak French : make a special effort on pronunciation and don't worry on eliminating your natural tendency to stress syllabes. As for the seven examples given here, I would say that all of them were perfectly understandable. Of course Nick Clegg was WAY better than anyone else, coming very close to pitch perfect pronunciation which is amazing for anyone that is not a French-born speaker.
no stresses have always been taught in school. I even have 30 year old textbooks that feature word stress patterns. But I think we're so overwhelmed we tend to forget about it pretty quickly when it's essential.
@@EdgeOfLight I have kept my old textbooks from my high school days, I can tell you for a fact that,the very notion of stresses was nowhere in sight ! Nor was it taught orally by ours teachers. Meanwhile for Spanish, this notion was explained and emphasized from day one. Probably because it sometime changes the very meaning of a word (indicates a different tense for a verb).
You may know it or not know it but these two actresses here below are to me the ones who speak French at the highest level possible in the celebrity Anglo-Saxon world. Video One, speaking as an adult person, with some vocabulary problems due to lack of use: ua-cam.com/video/LWAS4GpqwAY/v-deo.html Video Two, Three and Four singing in French as an adolescent: ua-cam.com/video/4Bc7grENwa4/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/Ej0EwP6uCgw/v-deo.html Video Five, the other actress, even better, complete bilingual: ua-cam.com/video/0FzFsU-FFkk/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/Mrkg0yY_Hpk/v-deo.html Honorable mentions: Jane Fonda: ua-cam.com/video/7mHmIpaXWQc/v-deo.html Kirk Douglas: ua-cam.com/video/k20C_JYrhwQ/v-deo.html Marlon Brando: ua-cam.com/video/TY0_KYNBg3c/v-deo.html Enjoy the videos.
You do a very good job of explaining what each speaker needs to do to improve. With the Queen, however, I think that part of the reason why she didn't have a "glide" or elision is because she is giving a speech. When giving a speech to what is probably a large group of people, she wanted to make sure everyone could hear every word she said. She purposely slowed down her speech and somewhat over articulated each word so that every word would be understandable. When she spoke French in a normal conversation, she did elide her words more, though probably not as much as you would like.😊
Wow! French native here and the thing that made my ears bleed was when the (late) queen said "il est l'occasion" instead of "c'est l'occasion". However that proves *she* wrote the text and not a french-language expert. I agree on the "liaison" thing, it shows she's not native, but it doesn't hurt me as much as the "il est" instead of "c'est". And about accents, I don't mind and I doubt many french natives would mind either. Being fluent is different to sound like a native. And really all of them don't have heavy accents. About Nick Clegg, yes, he's very impressive, however 1. his article "la" sounds like his "le" 2. his "deux années" don't feel right for me, it should be "deux ans" (don't ask me why, seems idiomatic) 3. his teachers must have been from southern France (the "ou" sounds very like my toulousan accent). No comment on Boris Johnson further than yours ;)
I'm a Canadian born English speaker and I have never cared if foreign born people speak English with their native accent. Why are native English speakers held to a different standard? I don't know anyone who holds the opinion that a German or French or Swedish person speaking English must hide their accent - we just go: that person is obviously Chinese (or Spanish or Russian etc.,) but their English is amazing! Pronouncing English words correctly is obviously important to be understood but mimicing the "English accent" is unnecessary in my opinion.
This is an example of the late Queen delivering a speech in French where it's incumbent upon her to speak clearly articulate her words. It would be interesting to hear her speak conversationally. There is a video on YT of the late Prince Philip engaged in a lengthy interview with a French journalist and Philip is fully fluent with only a very slight accent. There's another between Philip and a German journalist where it's clear his German is nearly that of a native speaker.
Is your camera broken? It keeps zooming in and out, it’s really weird and disconcerting. Regarding French spoken by rosbifs, you forgot Edward Heath who was the model for Theresa May’s French.
Nick Clegg the best by a mile. Boris does the same as he does in English....but despite not liking him I admire his efforts, and as long as you are able to try and explain what you mean when you don't know a word, that is good. I'll also say that however bad anyone sounds, they are still making an effort, unlike many Brits who won't, and expect everyone to speak English to them.
You can’t be a genuine speaker of French at the time of this video or the one you did in Spanish. It’s clear you really don’t know what your reeeealy talking about. Like Theresa May! You sound a bit jealous of the Spanish speakers. Most weren’t better than you gave credit for. The French were significantly worse than you gave credit for. All The Queen and Son were ok, you can see they actually do use the language, or have used the language genuinely.
French Canadian here! I found Nick Clegg to be definitely the most comfortable in French. I like the slower speed of his well-accented speech as he doesn’t try to clog a thousand words in one minute.
@@NapoleonAquila Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver Mon jardin, ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine Mon chemin, ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver Dans la blanche cérémonie Où la neige au vent se marie Dans ce pays de poudrerie Mon père a fait bâtir maison Et je m'en vais être fidèle À sa manière, à son modèle La chambre d'amis sera telle Qu'on viendra des autres saisons Pour se bâtir à côté d'elle Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver Mon refrain, ce n'est pas un refrain, c'est rafale Ma maison, ce n'est pas ma maison, c'est froidure Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver De ce grand pays solitaire Je crie avant que de me taire À tous les hommes de la terre Ma maison, c'est votre maison Entre ses quatre murs de glace Je mets mon temps et mon espace À préparer le feu, la place Pour les humains de l'horizon Et les humains sont de ma race Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver Mon jardin, ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine Mon chemin, ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'envers D'un pays qui n'était ni pays ni patrie Ma chanson, ce n'est pas ma chanson, c'est ma vie C'est pour toi que je veux posséder mes hivers. - Gilles Vigneault
Curious if U.S. politicians fare better with Spanish than these Brits with French? 👉🏼 ua-cam.com/video/Q-F86ZpKqRk/v-deo.html
I want to suggest you the channel named choque cultural. The indian🇮🇳-maxican couple. You would be in shock, how much that man learned.
Curious if you would consider adding another speaker to your French Uncovered series, from some African country?
There are over 140 million French speakers in Africa and growing, perhaps it is approaching 150 million now, as it is the mandatory second language in so many countries where there are dozens of indigenous languages. In other words, perhaps the first language is indigenous but those who speak that heritage language may number only a few thousand, so French is mandatory as the regional language, basically a de facto extra native tongue even if not shown as such in surveys (it is usually shown as a second language, not native, yet it is a mandatory language for those born there, and it is the language a foreigner would use when traveling there). It is the language spoken across borders and between villages, even between families joined by marriage but from differing language heritages. I have visited places where a half dozen or full dozen languages are spoken in a single village, and French is the common tongue.
You have Canadian French and Parisian French in your Uncovered series, it would seem easy to add mp3's of someone (some italki teacher for example?) from DR Congo or Burkina Faso or Cameroon or elsewhere, so that we can learn also from those accents? It would also be more inclusive in teaching, choosing to represent a speaker from that continent (especially given the reason they speak French is due to colonization). (I have been learning from Parisian recordings, and am shocked I miss so much when listening to a speaker from an African country,.)
Thank you for considering this request.
You should consider doing one on canadian politician and their French skill
Nick Clegg spoke great French but he didn't actually say anything. Lots of words without saying much. I believe that's the universal language call "Politician"?
I think most US politicians avoid speaking anything but English moat of the time in order to avoid being seen in any way as foreign, i.e., weird at best, dangerous at worst. GW Bush prattled a little in Spanish (with a Texas drawl) to curry favor from Latinx Americans, then turned around and did everything he could to kick them out and keep more from coming here.
In fairness to Boris, his grasp of the French language is about as good as his grasp of english
Oof xD
Seems to be good at russian tho🤣🤣
Haha was just about to say the same thing 😂
Lol!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Ooof. Theresa May doesn't just have the influences of "An English accent" in French. SHE LITERALLY STILL HAS HER EXACT SAME ACCENT WITH ZERO CHANGES. It's rare that someone pronounces a foreign language so badly that they still sound exactly like they normally do in their native language.
I agree. She is understandable, but hardly.
It sounded as if she was reading a text spelt out phonetically.
Talk to typical white American Boomer in Spanish. You'll hear Much-O Grassy-asses on that.
Little practice probably
Ngl I don't think I know a single non native English speaker who speaks English with an English accent (or accent from other English speaking countries)
As a french let me tell you that english politicians speak a better french than most french politicians speak english
Macron actually speaks English at a useful level. He is both clear and articulate in spontaneous English.
Hollande did sort of speak English but it was very, very bad. I think Sarkozy is somewhere between the two.
Funnily enough, 'sewer' happened to be one the first French words I learnt in school - plaque d'égout is a manhole cover and égout is the sewer. Not sure why I learnt that but it still sticks 10 years later
Well if you want to do politics in the UK, égout seems an important word 😂, especially after Brexit.
@@julienboyer Hahaha
Égout = sewer
Dégout = disgust
Some things just go well together in French :v
The one word I remember from high school French (1991) is mourir. I remember it because my teacher would say "The moo cow died".
I'm a native spanish speaker and I tried to remember what the word for sewer was in french and I couldn't, so I went to spanish, and I couldn't either... I had to stop the video so the words he was saying weren't mingling with my thoughts, and then I had to think about the context for a while. Then I remembered. "Alcantarilla". That's one of those spanish "Al-" words that probably comes from arabic, so n luck, must be something different in french. Ended up googling it.
There's quite a difference between being fluent, and speaking without an accent. Many people find foreign accents charming - think of Maurice Chevalier, Sophia Loren or Salma Hayek, for example. They were/are fluent in English, but with a distinctive accent, and I see no good reason why they should try to eliminate it, if it doesn't impede comprehension.
There is a difference between the accent that you generally can't get rid of unless you spend years only speaking that language because it's ingrained in your brain, and not doing any effort whatsoever to have an at least resembling accent to native speakers of the language you're trying to speak.
Not changing your accent at all like Theresa May did isn't a problem because of incomprehension, it's a problem because it's basically an insult to native speakers to not bother with even trying.
@@dwight3555 Have you ever heard Sarkozy speaking English? Or François Hollande, or Giscard d'Estaing for example? It's hard to believe they tried hard to achieve an English accent. But, as a native English speaker, I'm not at all offended or insulted by their English. In fact, I appreciate their effort to speak the language, and Sarkozy's English in particular seems delightful to me.
@@stephenaustin3026 I haven't listened to Sarkozy's, but I have to Hollande and... it's laughable.
It's even worse in his case if he isn't lazy, because it shows how the most regarded schools in the country teach other languages, and lets you imagine how children in normal schools are taught.
Actually Maurice Chevalier spoke English almost without a French accent but due to his métier chose to exaggerate his accent when appearing in English speaking films.
I wholeheartedly agree. I find imitating accents disrespectful and when i do them i feel like mocking.
How does the queen still sound so damn posh and English whilst still having a decent French accent?! 😂 I love it. I think they all did great actually. Not a fan of any of the politicians but it’s not easy standing up and speaking in public never mind in another language. Nick Clegg in particular really impressed me. Boris Johnson seems to have a similar grasp of French as he has on English 🤷♀️ at least we can be thankful he wasn’t talking about peppa pig. 🙄
You must not be watching the same video as me. Her French accent is terriblé
@@kylebalmer3396 No it isn't.
She sounds as good as she does because good teachers are one of the privileges of being rich.
@@bobthabuilda1525 well she didn't get her money worth then
@@kylebalmer3396 She sounds fine. Get over it.
As a french native speaker, i found Nick Clegg very good in french with 0 accent (he my sound like a french native), but he does a classic english native speaker error with the gendered article "le" and "la" which are the male and the femal version of "the"), it's not an terrible error, it doesn't change the meaning of senteces in general but it's very revelative of an english person, and in my opinion it's the most classical error from anglo-saxons dudes and it's normal and charming
I'm hyper aware of it myself and I still screw it up all the time. My brain has gone its entire life saying "the house" "the steps" "a book" "a chair" that to have to start paying attention to le/la/l' and un/une is difficult. Even when I'm thinking about it there are tons of nouns where I just can't remember if they're masculine or feminine. I'll get it right in sentences because one or the other sounds right, but I'll also mess up if the wrong one sounds right.
@@TheSpecialJ11 "I'll get it right in sentences because one or the other sounds right". That's how we roll as natives.
We often use the one that sounds right. And rarely, we even do that when it's actually the wrong gender.
To quote some word that appeared in the language recently because of some quite well known event, "COVID" was stated of being gendered female by the "Académie Française" (I think this organisation should be revamped IMO, but that's another subject), even though for a lot of us it sounds more natural to gender it as male and used it at male even before the academy stated anything.
I'm almost confident that by listening to more french you'll get a better feel of what's sounds right and get most of the right genders this way.
@@TheSpecialJ11 I am french and to be honest, i am really indulgent with foreigners speaking french, especially when it comes to that gender rule...
The other day, i was struggling to find if hydrangea (hortensia) was masculine or feminine. It appeared that the plant is masculine (un hortensia) but the flowers are feminine (une fleur d'hortensia). As you can see, 40 years old and still struggling, we never stop learning !
@@phguitard2123 mais c'est l'objectif d'être indulgent envers ces personnes qui apprennent le français.
Nick Clegg used to get a lot of stick from the Daily Mail BECAUSE he was fluent in several languages. They saw it as an un-British ability and treated him as an honorary foreigner.
I never think you’re being mean with these videos. I think a lot of people on UA-cam don’t understand that constructive criticism isn’t being mean. And you’re always super nice to people anyway
je suis vraiment impressionner par l'accent de la reine Elizabeth II quand même ! elle à un petit accent mais elle à une excellente prononciation
Elle a une excellente prononciation.
Lol I hate the French so much
🥱@@Void-Element
Surprised you didn't feature 2 of the most known British Politicians in recent years. Both Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell are fluent French speakers. Especially Alastair Campbell who studied French and German at Cambridge and has amazing French with multiple appearances on French TV - definitely up there with Nick Clegg.
I’m British and who is Alastair Campbell? I’m very young and I know a couple politicians but who TF is he?
@@maxdavis7722 He was part of the Blair cabinet I think, or of that era at least. I think Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It was based loosely on him.
@@dpayO2 I see, but is he that famous?
@@maxdavis7722 He was Blair's Chief Spin Doctor (in charge of communications, etc).
@@dpayO2 No, he was not a member of the Blair cabinet. He was not even an elected Member of Parliament. He was a "special adviser" to Blair, to tell lies on Blair's behalf.
I’m a Frenchman living in the UK and I’m very impressed by how amazing your explanations are 😳
Je me suis rendu compte d'un truc depuis que j'ai appris l'anglais et que je commence à m'intéresser aux langues de manière générale, les natifs on est vraiment pas les meilleurs pour expliquer de manière précise comment parler notre propre langue, car on a pas fait la transition anglais à français, on a fait la transition rien à français, donc on a pas la même expérience de comparaison que par exemple Olly a vu qu'il n'est pas natif mais très renseigné sur la langue.
Hi Alex. I do not want to embarrass you as it is an error made by many francophones when speaking English. When you describe yourself as being French you must say I am a Frenchman not I'm a French. You can say "I am French". Regards.
@@Robob0027 Oops 🙊 No no thank you for correcting me, that’s how we learn :)
Never in my entire life have I seen a french speaker apologize for their accent, so why should the others?
Wow Nick Clegg. I can finally respect him for something. That sounded C2. He must have done lots of comprehensible input ;)
His femme est espagnole
He has a very solid C1 level. C2 means virtually indistinguishable from a native speaker.
@@calebw8189 where does it say 'virtually indistinguishable' in the level's description? There are lots of people with C2 certificates whose target language is immediately distinguishable from that of a native.
@@ba8898 I guess there are different definitions of C2, but I had learned that it is essentially the equivalent of a native or even educated native speaker. Check out this video from Olly: ua-cam.com/video/hoh38GuHlKo/v-deo.html. A lot of people that could qualify for a C2 certificate don't really match the description (again, depending on the one you find).
@@calebw8189 Thanks. I remember seeing that video. Yeah I suppose it depends on the definition of C2 and the extent to which you accept the validity of a C2 certificate
I am quite impressed by Boris Johnson's French. He kind of reminds me of my uncle who is fluent but hasn't really spoken French in 10 years. Pronunciation, accent, attitude, filler words, etc... are all quite good it's just the vocabulary that is lacking.
Olly, your example of The Queen’s French was from a prepared speech. I don’t know if you are aware of this, but in 1994, Her Majesty was prank called by a radio dj from Quebec pretending to be Canadian PM Jean Chretein and he discussed with her - partly in French - about the upcoming referendum on Quebec independence. One can find the audio on UA-cam. That might be a better example of The Queen’s “natural” speech in French.
As a Canadian I find it interesting they mostly carried a clear British English accent into French. Apart from Clegg. Speaking in Canada, its future king, Charles, was speaking a foreign variety of French with a foreign English accent. :-)
Brits speaking in French don't have the same accent than Anglo North Americans when speaking French, just like French speaking Canadiens (...those with an accent of course!!) don't have the same accent than European French speakers when speaking English. I assume it's the same in the Spanish speaking world, where a Mexican speaking in English has a different accent than a Spaniard when speaking English. To me, as a French speaking Canadien, I can almost tell from which province an Anglo Canadien is when speaking in French...seriously!
@@daveduchesne3096 I guess I was a bit surprised by how strongly British it was. If we have francophones from Paris, Montreal and Lac St Jean then I hear a big difference when they speak French. Their English accents are also distinct but I cannot trace it directly back to their specific variety of French in the same strong manner the British people carried their accent to French. Probably my French isn't good enough.
For example people from France typically change the English article "the" to "zee" but Quebecois and Acadiens typically change it to "dee". What does that have to do with their accents in French?
@@daveduchesne3096 (grin) Even we French Canadians who speak English "without an accent" still have an accent, of course. It's just not a francophone accent. We typically have the Canadian English regional accent from where we grew up, or a mixed regional accent if we moved around during our youth. I sound mostly like a Montreal anglo who's lived in eastern Ontario for a long time, with an odd Irish twist (from the Irish-influenced anglo accent typical of Shannon and Valcartier during my youth).
I know what you mean about different English Canadian regions/provinces having different accents in French. I hear it too.
As a French, I found Charles had a bit of a French Canadian accent (when the English accent was not too strong)
I spoke European French in Quebec, They must have found it difficult to understand French spoken with a slight English accent, as Quebecois I believe is an older version of French, we ended speaking in English 😂
3:30 french is a foreign language in parliament? isn't that bit like calling gaelic a foreign language in ireland? it's parliament's ancestrial language!
Can you do British politicians speaking German. I only know of one and that’s Angus Robertson.
Your commentary about faire la liaison entre les mots in french is actually the main way to spot a non native speaker even when they're really good. I never thought of it that way but you're absolutely right (and it's what we do instinctively when immitating a brit speaking french).
I am french and I really enjoyed that video. Great job and very fulfilling to see how our neighbours struggle with learning a language just like us :) Keep up the hard work Olly. If ever you got any method to learn english, i would be for sure a client.
Advice for improving listening to French?
@@keidanekeith668 Watch as much French content as you can and listen to music or podcasts in French. This method really helped me when I was learning English as a kid.
Boy do I wish that back in the second world war, funny mustache man hadn't committed the mistake of declaring war against the Soviet Union, and had rather allied with them instead, as it was already proposed to them by the USSR before being rejected. That mistake has very well resulted in his humiliating defeat and thus if he simply would've accepted Stalin's proposal to having the USSR be part of the Axis powers, then it would've pretty much been an automatic defeat for the allies, as a combination of the Soviet Union, funny Mustache man, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan would've been far too much for either the allies and the United States to withstand, and as a result, France would've remained under the domination of Axis Germany, I really do wish it had happened this way..
Now let's react the other way around: 7 French politicians speaking English ( if you manage to find that many).
Next video: 7 British politicians speaking Russian!
Olly Richards:
we're famously known for our language learning skills
I knew a French woman who, as a student, was appointed by the French army to accompany the Queen Mother in Normandy for the 1984 DDay ceremony. She told me that the QM spoke fluent French with perfect pronunciation and that she didn’t have to say a word.
Perfect relative to which French dialect?
@@heronimousbrapson863Français soutenu. Avec un très très petit accent québécois
A french journalist was in Ascot and put some money on a horse which won. He was waiting for his money and a friend ask him what he wants to do with the money " ce soir je me paye la reine ! " And he heard a woman voice saying " Bonne soirée, monsieur" it was the QM waiting in the same queue !
You should have got Phil the Greek up there. Nice story from Jean Chretien, ex PM of Canada. Phil and Jean were having a fine old conversation, and Jean says to Phil, "You speak very good French for an Englishman". Phil replies: "Young man. I'm not English, and I was speaking French before you were born"
Colin Macdonald - Ha! Phil “the Greek” (actually, more German-Danish) spoke several languages well! - my favourite Royal...
I just bought your story learning Spanish course online!!! I’m so excited to start learning from you Olly! I’ve been wanting to buy it for ages but the price was a bit too much for me, but the Black Friday sale is great! Thanks so much for Making it more accessible for us! Can’t wait!
No Edward Heath speaking French? That was the funniest thing I ever heard.
Enoch Powell spoke 12 languages, including French, Italian, Greek, Latin, German, Russian, Welsh, Hindi, Urdu, and Hebrew
Enoch Powell is the best argument against the idea that learning languages broadens the mind and increases tolerance
@@villeporttila5161 Totally right. Enoch Powell would never have tolerated the gang-rape of tens of thousands of children in Britain.
@@villeporttila5161 Enoch Powell was right.
@Gary Allen Almost right. He learned Portuguese so that he could read a technical manual in that language during the war. But should we credit him with both Hindi and Urdu? In the Indian Army he would have studied "Hindustani," which split after the war into the languages of two different countries.
Brain training to reduce mother tongue influence on French rhymthic stress is an answer. Singing along to military marches must smooth things out... The 8 Paras and Parisian fire brigade marches are the best🇬🇧(🇲🇫🇪🇺)
The French don't care about the accent with which, foreigners speak their language. They simply appreciate the effort these people make to speak french.
I will test that statement when I visit France in a few months. I speak decent French but no where near like a native.
I think the French lynched him
@@StinkyCatFarts I must believe that I was wrong
I don’t know why people seem to expect native English speakers to change their accent when speaking French. You wouldn’t expect a French person to put on an English accent when speaking English, so why expect the reverse?
@Real Aiglon Why? Who does it serve? If someone can speak a language fluently and is perfectly intelligible, then why does it matter in the slightest what their accent is?
Boris genuinely just speaks French in the same way that he speaks English.
Best point: Ditch the ego. Seek to communicate. Don't focus on how you look, sound or linguistic skill even. All that will only paralyze.
Nevermind the remarkable knowledge in your commentary on linguistic markers, I was overjoyed to hear you delineate and identify the cultural and psychological root causes of each of individuals' communicative peculiarities, thus affecting their skills in language generation; you managed to articulately explain some incredibly perceptive and insightful personality traits and how those traits can transfer laterally across languages, imbuing either tongue with curious idiosyncratic proprieties.
You should do non-native speakers speaking spanish. Hearing Beto O'Rourke randomly switch to spaninsh in debates is hilarious. (It's especially cringe, because he only provides platitudes not policies.)
Already done. Link in the pinned comment!
I love see English speakers trying other languages. We non native English speakers try very, very hard to speak English. But, I have to admit I like speaking English. It helps me.
06:06 hoooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwl No, that's painful. Je "say" ...Mais qu'est-ce que tu "say"??
Next you have to check out Yul Brynner and Jodi Foster, granted they are not British but nevertheless their french is extremely impressive and I would say it's even far superior that many native French speakers.
Yes, Jodie Foster is probably the most impressive 🙂 As for Yul Brunner, he lived quite long in Paris during the 20s and the 30s before moving to the US if I remember well, hence his very good French.
Jodie Foster attended French speaking school, not everyone has the same opportunities to do so.
Hello Olly, can you make a video on how diplomats communicate with each other? For an example, what tools and procedures do countries use as safeguards for preventing World War III by miscommunication? Thanks
Come on Teresa French it up
Boris: “Le bad stuff.” Oui. He is.
Great video! Gotta say, your story learning courses are really tempting. I just bought some of your books on Amazon. Keep up the great work!
Arsene Wenger lived in England for god knows how many years and never dropped a hint of his French accent, despite speaking very good English. I am only bringing this up because I don't recall anyone criticising him for not taking on more of an English accent. The criticism only seems to go one way...
Arsene was a Footballer, how do you expect these people to be smart? Ask a rugby player not a footballer ^^
@@olivierpuyou3621 I'd say Arsene Wenger is very smart, he can speak about six or seven languages.
@@olivierpuyou3621Rubbish Wenger has a degree in economics
These uploads are among my favourites. Nicely played Olly, giving the people what they want 😁👍☕
Read your Italian short stories from cover to cover and I'm going to re read it again, your doing great work!
fun fact: french was the official language of England for about 300 years, from 1066 till 1362, after the Norman Conquest in 1066 French quickly replaced English in all domains associated with power. French was used at the royal court, by the clergy, the aristocracy, in law courts. But the vast majority of the population continued to speak English.French was the language of the nobles and those who wished to please them.
In time Old English and Norman French eventually merged to form Middle English which is understandable to modern English speakers, Old English is difficult to understand without some previous study.
We have a new Governor General in Canada named Mary Simon, who caused a bit of a scandal in Quebec because she can't speak French. Normally it's a sort of unofficial requirement for the position, but Mary Simon can speak Inuktitut.
I heard about that, she's the Minister in the Department of Languages or something like that, and there was a big ruckus because she does peak French even though she speaks native languages.
11:03 Thank you! I've always guessed why he hated Europe from the guts. He must have been traumatised in Belgium learning foreign languages when he clearly can't speak his native English adequately, either.
He also spent several years in adult life in France and Belgium as the Daily Telegraph's EU correspondent.
Personally I don't see anything wrong with English or American accents when someone is speaking a non English language, and I don't think I've ever tried to hide mine. Everyone is from their own special place in the world and no matter what language you're speaking, a person's accent is like a little marker of that. It may sound weird, but that's my view
I agree, so long as the accent isn’t too strong. As a native English speaker, I’m well used to hearing my language spoken by people from all over the world. I personally struggle at times with some (definitely not all!) Spanish and Italian speakers who still retain a very strong accent. My friend’s husband has lived in England for 9 years, and is fluent, but I have to concentrate when he speaks as his Italian accent and intonation is so strong, it makes it unclear. It’s embarrassing! I don’t have that issue at all with most other accents. I lived in Germany for a few years and never once struggled to cut through a German accent when someone was speaking English. I have clients here in England who come from Greece, Poland, Slovakia, Denmark and Russia, and I have no issue with their accents either. I guess some accents lend themselves to English than others.
Hello can you do video about georgia? We have our own alphabet with 33 letters. გამარჯობა როგორ ხარ? This means hello how are you?
Une vidéo très intéressante! Votre accent est impressionnant pour un Anglais. (Le mien n’est pas parfait non plus.)
As a native french speakers. I'd say they all doing pretty ok. Those are my grades.
10/10: Nick Clegg
9,5/10: Queen Elizabeth II
9/10: Prince Charles
8/10: Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson
6/1: Theresa May
Nick is good. The rest people mentioned in the video are all “nul” in French. C’est vraiment désolant.
You aren’t mean at all! People are just stupid by default. Good work, very based in semiotic. Couldn’t pay for your German course using my Visa, Master and Amex. There is some limitations for international CC? Thank you.
I just found your channel and lo and behold you just put up a new video, good timing 😁
It’s a great channel genuinely. Really informative. Been slacking on the langauge learning recently- uni stress- but once I get up to a good enough level and have the cash I’ll definitely be buying either the German course and or the book.
What happened to the video "Polyglot Reacts: 9 British Politicians Speaking French"? Who deleted it and why? Is the video here simply that video with 2 British politicians speaking French removed? If so, who were the 2 British politicians deleted and why? I'm not asking these questions to embarrass anyone. I just would like to know. Btw, the video here is very thoughtful and instructive. Merci beaucoup.
Not all videos featuring famous people are allowed to be recycled - even for educational purposes. Silly, but there it is.
J'ai beaucoup aimé cette vidéo Olly :)
Autrement, ton T Shirt est tres cool! Entre les films de Ghibli, lequel est ton préféré ?
As-tu pensé de faire des vidéo sur ce que tu aimes lire, regarder ou écouter dans les langues que tu as étudié ? J'ai appris le français, et as passé deux ans en France, mais j'ai souvent de mal à trouver des choses à lire, ou regarder... Il y a trop de choix 😅
Maintenant, j'apprends le japonais et j'ai l'autre problème... Je connais les choses que je veux lire, mais je n'ai pas encore atteint le niveau de prendre beaucoup de plaisir en les lisant 😅
Salut. I'm learning French, got to say I understood most of this 😂 but I read whilst translating to English in my head 😂 how could I improve my listening and grammar
@@keidanekeith668 par essayant chaque jour
@@abd_cheese7353 EN essayant chaque jour :)
I'm English and am learning Brazilian Portuguese and even though I would classify myself as an upper intermediate student when I speak the language it sounds as if I am strangling a cat and that is a travesty against this beautiful language. I think this is a common problem with many Brits as language learning is not particularly developed into our education system.
😂😂😂😂🤣
Nick Clegg rocks French.
Love these videos. For what it's worth, I don't at all see them as putting people down; it's all very instructive to hear the grammar or pronunciation errors, subtle or gross. Merci beaucoup.
The queen’s French is way better than many Canadian politicians. She also had to read the throne speech several times in French in Quebec and in Canada.
Sounds to my ear (weak as it is with accents) that Prince Charles was taking a swing at a Quebecois rendering on a few words.
Nick Clegg: très impressionnant !
Interesting that pronouncing French correctly, coming from phonetic languages (e.g. German or Hebrew) makes it easier than from English, which distorts all the vowels, e.g. U = you, instead of oo, A = aye instead of ah.
These politicians speak french much better, than french politicians speak english.
As a french...I think...(suspense)...
It is true. 😂😅😅
wow really impressed with nick clegg
Well... We could say Boris Johnson's French is quite as good as his English. Not sure if that's good, though.
As a Québécois, I'd kill for Canadian English-speaking politicians as good in French as their British counterparts are
Credit where it's due then, Mr Johnson's French is fairly good his English is crap. Amazed to discover he is capable of ditching the ego, if only he would do that more often.
Johnson's French is crap. Very basic stuff.
@@alicemilne1444 I disagree, it is at a level where he wouldn't have trouble living in France. He is clearly lacking vocabulary and mixes masculine feminine but he gets the sentance composition mostly right. Theresa May's french was the level I would call crap.
@@axellacaze9115 I am a native speaker of French. Considering Johnson spent five years living in Brussels, his French should be far better than it is. And if he was living in France, he wouldn't be able to simply fill in gaps with English words when talking to anyone from the general public. They wouldn't understand him.
Theresa May was reading off a prepared speech. Though she had a strong accent, what she said was still understandable. I cannot judge how she would speak off the cuff.
@@alicemilne1444 I am tired of this "I am a native speaker" argument. Guess what, I am also a native speaker of french.
Assessing one's performance in a language has nothing to do with time they spent learning it. It doesn't matter if Boris Johnson reached this level in 1 or 5 or 20 years of living in Bruxelles, my evaluation of his french wouldn't change. After all, I am not aware of any language test that ponderates your grade based on the time you've spent learning the language. He is clearly in the B1-B2 range, not great but definitely not "crap". At this range you can have pretty normal discussions on everyday topics, but you struggle a lot on more specialized topics which seems to he the case here. He probably wouldn't be able to work in french but would be able to deal with daily activities requiring french.
@@axellacaze9115 I work with languages. I have gone through all the stages of learning languages from scratch and have coached people in both English (my other native language) and French. I have coached L2 learners of German and Spanish. I really do know what I am talking about.
Johnson would get by in France, yes, but that's not what I'm talking about.
Prince Philip could speak French and German.
Boris Johnson is basically me speaking Spanish 😂
I have the sentence's structure in my head but I severely lack vocabulary... Even worse, the words I search come in my mind in English.
So you have a French, trying to speak Spanish but with English words 😅
as a german i sort of hear a slight german accent in the royals' french, particularly the exact realisation of the /ʀ/ (sounding less trilling than i'd expect for french but very much what i'm used to in german)
You're right to identify Boris Johnson's lack of attention to detail
Who gives a shit!!! Language of our enemy!! 🤮🤮🤮
Wake up, Eddie 🙂 France and UK are not ennemies anymore since at least the friendship between Queen Victoria and king Louis-Philippe, 200 years ago 🙂
boris has some good fluency strategies it sounds natural but his vocab is lacking you're absolutely right. Damn you beat me to my analysis while I was writing this comment 😂
Your French seems amazing ! (Maybe 10/10?)
These extracts are short but if I am not wrong :
- Jeremy hunt - 7/10 (charming);
- Micheal Glove - 3/10 ( it is actually understable);
- The Queen Elizabeth II - 8.5/10 ( very confident);
- Theresa May - 5/10 (her French is good but like you said her accent is really british);
- Nick Clegg - 9.8/10 (just wow);
- King Charles - 6.5/10 (calm and fluent);
- Boris Johnson - 4/10 ( his French accent is great, he just lacks vocabulary);
By the way, my English accent is - 1/10.😂😅😅 (my bad)
You should have put Prince Phillip, he speaks French like a native Frenchman
As a frog-eater , I must say the UK french is fabulous, the accent is great
I am a frenchman and I'd say that Stress is something CRUCIAL for English. And, incredibly enough, treated as an afterthought in France when we are taught English !
French has almost no stress
But when an English speaker stresses some syllabes when speaking French it really doesn't make it harder for a French audience.
Pronunciation is FAR more important to us. We have trouble recogniziing the words when the pronunciation strays too far from the correct one.
My advice for an English trying to speak French : make a special effort on pronunciation and don't worry on eliminating your natural tendency to stress syllabes.
As for the seven examples given here, I would say that all of them were perfectly understandable. Of course Nick Clegg was WAY better than anyone else, coming very close to pitch perfect pronunciation which is amazing for anyone that is not a French-born speaker.
no stresses have always been taught in school. I even have 30 year old textbooks that feature word stress patterns. But I think we're so overwhelmed we tend to forget about it pretty quickly when it's essential.
@@EdgeOfLight I have kept my old textbooks from my high school days, I can tell you for a fact that,the very notion of stresses was nowhere in sight ! Nor was it taught orally by ours teachers.
Meanwhile for Spanish, this notion was explained and emphasized from day one. Probably because it sometime changes the very meaning of a word (indicates a different tense for a verb).
Now try French politicians speaking English.. It's 10x more hilarious.
But which French accent are you referring to? Here in Canada, the French accent is distinctly different from that of Paris.
Clegg was excellent.
You may know it or not know it but these two actresses here below are to me the ones who speak French at the highest level possible in the celebrity Anglo-Saxon world.
Video One, speaking as an adult person, with some vocabulary problems due to lack of use: ua-cam.com/video/LWAS4GpqwAY/v-deo.html
Video Two, Three and Four singing in French as an adolescent:
ua-cam.com/video/4Bc7grENwa4/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/Ej0EwP6uCgw/v-deo.html
Video Five, the other actress, even better, complete bilingual:
ua-cam.com/video/0FzFsU-FFkk/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/Mrkg0yY_Hpk/v-deo.html
Honorable mentions:
Jane Fonda: ua-cam.com/video/7mHmIpaXWQc/v-deo.html
Kirk Douglas: ua-cam.com/video/k20C_JYrhwQ/v-deo.html
Marlon Brando: ua-cam.com/video/TY0_KYNBg3c/v-deo.html
Enjoy the videos.
You do a very good job of explaining what each speaker needs to do to improve. With the Queen, however, I think that part of the reason why she didn't have a "glide" or elision is because she is giving a speech. When giving a speech to what is probably a large group of people, she wanted to make sure everyone could hear every word she said. She purposely slowed down her speech and somewhat over articulated each word so that every word would be understandable. When she spoke French in a normal conversation, she did elide her words more, though probably not as much as you would like.😊
Wow! French native here and the thing that made my ears bleed was when the (late) queen said "il est l'occasion" instead of "c'est l'occasion". However that proves *she* wrote the text and not a french-language expert. I agree on the "liaison" thing, it shows she's not native, but it doesn't hurt me as much as the "il est" instead of "c'est". And about accents, I don't mind and I doubt many french natives would mind either. Being fluent is different to sound like a native. And really all of them don't have heavy accents. About Nick Clegg, yes, he's very impressive, however 1. his article "la" sounds like his "le" 2. his "deux années" don't feel right for me, it should be "deux ans" (don't ask me why, seems idiomatic) 3. his teachers must have been from southern France (the "ou" sounds very like my toulousan accent). No comment on Boris Johnson further than yours ;)
I'm a Canadian born English speaker and I have never cared if foreign born people speak English with their native accent. Why are native English speakers held to a different standard? I don't know anyone who holds the opinion that a German or French or Swedish person speaking English must hide their accent - we just go: that person is obviously Chinese (or Spanish or Russian etc.,) but their English is amazing! Pronouncing English words correctly is obviously important to be understood but mimicing the "English accent" is unnecessary in my opinion.
Nick Glegg wins.
This is an example of the late Queen delivering a speech in French where it's incumbent upon her to speak clearly articulate her words. It would be interesting to hear her speak conversationally. There is a video on YT of the late Prince Philip engaged in a lengthy interview with a French journalist and Philip is fully fluent with only a very slight accent. There's another between Philip and a German journalist where it's clear his German is nearly that of a native speaker.
Criticize? You are INSTRUCTING how to improve pronunciation. I love your videos!
Is your camera broken? It keeps zooming in and out, it’s really weird and disconcerting.
Regarding French spoken by rosbifs, you forgot Edward Heath who was the model for Theresa May’s French.
sorry english constantly , CONSTANTLY does liason. we just dont have regular rules for it.
Strange that the queen would have such a strong accent speaing french
The English should be ashamed that they do not speak a foreign language.
In England we already speak 6 native languages and are foreign language skills are in the the top 10 worldwide.....
I guess I'm not English then
Prince Charles: He does not know anything.... he is reading just a text, that somebody else wrote....
Nick Clegg the best by a mile. Boris does the same as he does in English....but despite not liking him I admire his efforts, and as long as you are able to try and explain what you mean when you don't know a word, that is good. I'll also say that however bad anyone sounds, they are still making an effort, unlike many Brits who won't, and expect everyone to speak English to them.
You can’t be a genuine speaker of French at the time of this video or the one you did in Spanish. It’s clear you really don’t know what your reeeealy talking about. Like Theresa May! You sound a bit jealous of the Spanish speakers. Most weren’t better than you gave credit for. The French were significantly worse than you gave credit for. All The Queen and Son were ok, you can see they actually do use the language, or have used the language genuinely.
French Canadian here! I found Nick Clegg to be definitely the most comfortable in French. I like the slower speed of his well-accented speech as he doesn’t try to clog a thousand words in one minute.
Language québécois : Tabernac... Fin
@@NapoleonAquila Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon jardin, ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine
Mon chemin, ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige
Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Dans la blanche cérémonie
Où la neige au vent se marie
Dans ce pays de poudrerie
Mon père a fait bâtir maison
Et je m'en vais être fidèle
À sa manière, à son modèle
La chambre d'amis sera telle
Qu'on viendra des autres saisons
Pour se bâtir à côté d'elle
Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon refrain, ce n'est pas un refrain, c'est rafale
Ma maison, ce n'est pas ma maison, c'est froidure
Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
De ce grand pays solitaire
Je crie avant que de me taire
À tous les hommes de la terre
Ma maison, c'est votre maison
Entre ses quatre murs de glace
Je mets mon temps et mon espace
À préparer le feu, la place
Pour les humains de l'horizon
Et les humains sont de ma race
Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon jardin, ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine
Mon chemin, ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige
Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'envers
D'un pays qui n'était ni pays ni patrie
Ma chanson, ce n'est pas ma chanson, c'est ma vie
C'est pour toi que je veux posséder mes hivers.
- Gilles Vigneault
@@Christian_Martel Amen, merci à la colonisation Française
@@NapoleonAquila Non merci. Au lieu de perdre ton temps dans la Toundra de Moscou, tu aurais pu venir nous libérer des Orangistes!
Oh, my goodness, BoJo tyring to speak French. He barely speaks English!
It’s all abut you, you don’t let us to hear anything except few words. We are interested to hear from them speaking French but u don’t let us.
He speaks too fast for non-English speakers, neglects RP. His videos seem to be for British users only.
as a French speaker, i can tell you that Boris French is high level
Nick Clegg has a good accent