TGIF: Bradley Cooper speaks French? June 2, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.trackback
Who knew? This video is being featured on all the Hollywood gossip blogs I follow and is being met with shock that Bradley Cooper is fluent in French.
As my favorite blogger stated:
I think as Americans, we are used to everyone only speaking English. We cannot fathom that everyone in the world does not speak English and I think we are equally as shocked when someone from America who does not actually come from another country can speak a language fluently other than English. And no, asking how much a beer costs in Spanish is not being fluent.
So, to be a stereotypical as the world sees us American, I was shocked to discover that not only does Bradley Cooper speak French, he does it brilliantly. I promise that even though you might not understand a word of this, you will have a new found respect for Bradley Cooper. Not for the way he treats women, you will still have that bias, rightfully so, but for the language ability. I have watched this thing like five times already.
We know that it isn’t that shocking for someone to speak another language, but it is rare that an actor – let alone a very well-known actor – can speak another language and do it well. At least I am assuming he does it well. Well, fellow French speakers, what say you?
Musings from an overworked translator 
His French is pretty good but I would not say brilliant. But French people will for sure appreciate that he made such an effort on French television. Good for him!
Thanks Jill for sharing.
Hi Jill,
I would say his French is great because i’ts a difficult language to learn :-)) That’s very nice to see an American actor speak French on tv even if I’m not a big fan of his movies.
Thanks Jill !
As a french, I agree, I appreciate the effort, and, yes, it’s not perfect at all. But it’s even more nicer 😉
While one can tell that French is not his first language, it is still quite good. He masters the vocabulary quite well (doesn’t need to do a lot of thinking when replying to questions) and certainly understands the interviewer’s questions. He clearly has a French ‘accent’ (vs a North American French accent). All he needs is more practice.
In case no one knew, Jodie Foster is very fluent in French and Gwyneth Paltrow in Spanish. And, of course, many Canadian actors are bilingual as well.
Well, his French is better than mine, and he may need a few days of acclimation to speak his best. And I have no idea what he does with / has done to women (I don’t think I have ever heard of him or seen him before), but if it is the “womanizing” typical of good-looking celebrities (I could find no charges of abuse in a quick Google search), do you think the women are innocent victims who do not know what is going on? Or are they adults who should know what they are doing?
I imagine that women throw themselves at such guys more or less on a daily basis. You want these guys to be faithful to one and say no to all the rest?
Once you are married with kids, you have a commitment for life, but this guy seems to be playing the field – and I imagine he’s making a lot of ladies happy, if only briefly 😉
I’ve come full circle here. I used to think it somehow important to speak a second language (or a shame that Americans often don’t), but having lived in Europe many a year now I can’t say that I think that anymore. It’s practical, for sure, and beautiful for its own sake if your really care for the language in question, but I can’t say that all the bilingual people I have met out there over the years are somehow the better off for it (or more worldly or even intellgent). If anything, I tend to find them a bit on the arrogant side (for being so “special”). But maybe that’s just me.
He speaks French like a foreigner but like a foreigner who is quite fluent in a foreign language and who clearly likes the language and the culture. He said that he lived in France as an exchange student, so that tells me right there that he values foreign languages and cultures.
At @EP
I met a lot of people when I lived in foreign countries who never bothered to learn the language of that country although they have been living there for many, many years.
Personally, I always considered people like that pretty stupid.
For instance, I worked for a few months with a Turkish guy for US army in West Germany in early eighties. Although the guy has been living in Germany, he could only understand a few words in German and that was it. He must have felt very isolated because there were no other Turks around there, so he just talked to everybody in Turkish. Nobody could understand a word of what he was saying, but he did not care, he just kept mumbling something in Turkish on and on and on ….