# How Good Is Jodie Foster's French? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 21, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826 "2015-07-21T22:55:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Carryon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Carryon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carryon)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/1 "2015-07-21T22:55:25Z")
Question for French speaking people This 1997 interview with Miss Foster is in French and has her speaking it. I see from the comments how people say how well she speaks French, so I thought I’d ask any French speakers here, just how good is she? Can she really hold her own against a native? [Jodie Foster Speaking French, from YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUwz0axMfCI) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/2 "2015-07-22T00:56:58Z")
Jodie Foster can speak broken French to me anytime, anywhere. Hey baby, peel me a grape. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/3 "2015-07-22T01:33:53Z")
Her French is essentially perfect, and she doesn’t even have the slighest accent. I noticed a couple flaws because I was paying attention, in particular an anglicism : she used the French verb “balancer” as if its meaning was identical to “to balance” in English (FTR she should have used “équilibrer” instead). If you didn’t know it, you wouldn’t guess that she isn’t French. My first assumption upon hearing this interview was that she had been brought up in France (I was wrong). I had no clue she was bilingual until I read this thread. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/4 "2015-07-22T02:23:39Z")
Ah, so the horrid accent of her character in _Elysium_ is the character’s bad accent! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/5 "2015-07-22T05:01:46Z")
Huh. Jodie Foster has a lot of secrets, and not just the obvious ones. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/6 "2015-07-22T05:26:33Z")
And here she is singing in French: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/HWxvhX3rhH0/hqdefault.jpg "Jodie Foster - La vie c'est chouet'") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWxvhX3rhH0) ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/7 "2015-07-22T10:46:04Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Huh. Jodie Foster has a lot of secrets, and not just the obvious ones. Secret? She lived over there for years, right after college. According to her brother, with a Frenchwoman about fifteen years older. As for Elysium, I’d say she’s likely rusty as she left France, what, two decades ago? ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/8 "2015-07-22T10:51:53Z")
If I only listened to the audio without knowing it was her, I’d think she was French. Putain d’Parisienne too. Her mannerisms/body language and voice tone are noticeably different when speaking French or English. Does that happen to anyone else? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/9 "2015-07-22T11:49:48Z")
So how good is [Sandra Bullock’s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BK1GlyGdm4) German? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/10 "2015-07-22T11:59:16Z")
Concur with **clairobscur**. I’m particularly impressed with her complete lack of any Anglo accent - in my experience even British/US born-and-raised people who’ve lived in France for decades and speak perfect French hardly ever lose that final touch of it (unless their own parents were French and they were raised in both languages, I suppose). The lady has an ear for language. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/11 "2015-07-22T12:07:48Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > Secret? She lived over there for years, right after college. According to her brother, with a Frenchwoman about fifteen years older. As for Elysium, I’d say she’s likely rusty as she left France, what, two decades ago? She also attended a French-language school, the Lycée Français de Los Angeles. (The school has programs from preschool through high school, but I can’t find anything saying how many years she attended the school.) ---
**Author:** ![Carryon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Carryon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carryon)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/12 "2015-07-22T14:33:08Z")
I thought it interesting that the Wikipedia mentions she dubbs herself for the French language versions of her films, so that in itself should’ve answered my question. According to the website for the school, Foster entered at 6 and graduated at 18 as the valedictorian. I see that the following celebrities also attended Lycée Français de Los Angeles: [ul] [li]Jessica Biel[/li][li]Tatum O’Neal[/li][li]Claire Danes[/li][li]Shannen Doherty[/li][li]Molly Ringwald[/li][li]Leelee Sobiesk[/li][li]Noah Hathaw[/li][li]Shavar Ross[/li][li]Christie Brinkley[/li][/ul] Shavar Ross? Really I wonder how good Arnold’s BFF Dudley speaks French 🙂 Thanks for the feedback. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/13 "2015-07-22T14:41:08Z")
I love these kinds of videos. Mila Kunis can cuss me out in Russian any time she wants to. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/14 "2015-07-22T16:51:12Z")
I vaguely recalled that, in her youth, Jodie attended a French immersion school in Los Angeles. That is, she was speaking exclusively French in school every day for many years. Dewey Finn seems to confirm that. ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/15 "2015-07-22T17:42:45Z")
…if her French isn’t very good, does that mean I have to shoot someone? That didn’t work out so well for Hinckley. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/16 "2015-07-22T22:00:32Z")
Anyone know how well this guy is doing? (Monsieur Jean Malkovich) ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/17 "2015-07-22T22:22:45Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Anyone know how well this guy is doing? > > (Monsieur Jean Malkovich) If he ever got into Tuvan Throat Singing or something, I reckon he’d still be identifiable as John Malkovich. Something about the rhythm and the gaps. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/18 "2015-07-22T22:33:56Z")
At Yale, she took upper-level French courses. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/19 "2015-07-22T23:13:04Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > At Yale, she took upper-level French courses. She and I were at Yale at the same time (Christ, I’m as old as JODIE FOSTER???) and I took upper-level French courses, too. I was a Comp Lit major and knew enough French to participate in chatty seminar courses and write papers on Moliere and Racine and Robbe-Grillet. Now I can’t talk French for shit. I assume the bitch is still fluent because she’s rich enough to hang out in France whenever she wants. My old man TOLD me to go to law school, but noooooo… ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826/20 "2015-07-22T23:21:19Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > She and I were at Yale at the same time (Christ, I’m as old as JODIE FOSTER???) and I took upper-level French courses, too. I was a Comp Lit major and knew enough French to participate in chatty seminar courses and write papers on Moliere and Racine and Robbe-Grillet. > > Now I can’t talk French for shit. I assume the bitch is still fluent because she’s rich enough to hang out in France whenever she wants. > > My old man TOLD me to go to law school, but noooooo… but you had to go be an actor like Ms. Foster, because that’s so lucrative? 😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-good-is-jodie-fosters-french/725826.md?page=2)