Emma Stone speaks French

When we feature celebrities speaking French it has a demotivating effect on some of our Chouchous* (désolée!*). Rather than inspiring them, some report feeling exasperated that Bradley Cooper and Jodie Foster, par exemple*, are not only genetically blessed, talented, wealthy, creative and charismatic, but also happen to speak French beautifully.

This clip of Emma Stone may make such Chouchous take heart. Watch as Emma tries to express her thoughts in French and gets herself all tangled up to the point where she starts trying to communicate by way of gestures - it’s a little bit cringey because we’ve all been there. You know that feeling when you know exactly what you want to say and you know you know the words but they just won’t come out? That’s Emma (and all of us) in this clip. Then listen to how eloquent she is in her native language. The difference is striking and leads me on to a petit conseil* (see below).

When you’re taking your first steps into speaking French, remember you have nowhere near the pool of words to choose from that you do in English. That is completely normal as you’ve likely spent your life immersed in your native language. What we tend to try to do is express ourselves with the same sophistication as we do in English and that gets us into trouble. We start on a thought and then a few words in we realise we have no idea how to finish that sentence so we get stuck, and that’s often when the arms start flailing and we feel our faces going red. An alternative technique is to pause before you speak and think of a way to say what you mean in very, very simple language, then go from there.

Case in point: Emma tries to say that she doesn’t speak very well but that she understands better. Halfway through she realises she doesn’t know the word for ‘better’. Luckily, the French journalist helps her out, but she could have said: Je ne parle pas très bien mais je comprends bien*. See what I mean?

Try it next time you find yourself being interviewed by a French journalist to promote your smash hit movie. You’ll thank me.

*Teacher’s Pets | *sorry | *for example | little tip | *I don’t speak very well but I understand well