MovieChat Forums > Le divorce (2003) Discussion > Can Naomi really speak French?

Can Naomi really speak French?


I can't figure out if Naomi Watts just learnt French for the film, just knows some or is fluent because her accent was really good in the film. Does anyone know?

reply

Who cares? It drove me wild when she spoke it. It turned me on every time she spoke it. Like Gomez and Morticia.

CINEMA CRAZED:
http://thebalcony.coolfreepage.com/

reply

I love Naomi Watts. I think she's a great actress. And great actresses do their homework to 100%, not 25 like the rest.

reply

The movie was filming in french or in english ?

reply

Her french is not good. She seems like someone studied it in high school or a couple years in college, but has never learned it properly. Obviously she must have had time to practice her lines and probably had a language coach. She still couldn't pronounce the name of her husband properly, Charles-Henri (she used 4 syllables instead of the correct 3). However, most of the time a french person would understand what she was saying. You could not say the same for kate hudson who speaks french like a spanish cow.

@raven, the film is mostly entirely in english with little bits of french thrown in and subtitles thrown in for the french lines.

reply

Dioro, are you from France? cause when I watched the film I thought she spoke it well enough. Of course her accent was off she is not a native speaker. I speak french and learnt it is France so I know that her french wouldn't be perfect because it is not her native language. so lay off her. She did a great job.

reply

I speak French as well. She did a pretty good job with the French. The accent was off, haley kuhl you're right. But, none the less, decent job. I understood it.

One Man, One Puppet

reply

Though french is not my native tongue, I speak french well. For the little in french she had to do in the film, the time she had to prepare what she would have to say (days, weeks of having the script in advance), with the help of language coaches, etc., my conclusion is that she is not very fluent in french. Basic fluency yes. She's probably had a couple of years of university french or equivalent but no more.

Now, Jodie Foster, she speaks excellent french and is a oscar-winning actress. Why didn't they cast her for the part?

reply

PUHLEASE DIORO! Like previously stated, Naomi was playing an AMERICAN girl living in Paris. Her accent wasn’t meant to be PERFECT! Jodie Foster? Yuck! She so could not have played the part. She would never be able to pull the role of in the soft, vulnerable way Naomi did coz she’s too butch!
I’m sorry to all the Jodie Foster fans, but I just don’t like ppl criticizing Naomi, when she played the part perfectly

reply

[deleted]

I find your remarks quite dismaying. If I heard a French person (or a person of any non-English speaking country) trying to speak English in a movie or otherwise, I would never make such a mean-spirited comment, like, "He talks like he's trying to clear his nasal passages." I would think, "This person is trying to speak a new language" which, in my opinion, is such an admirable thing. It's comments like yours (though pithy as it was) that, I think, discourages people from trying to speak new languages for fear of sounding like a "Spanish cow" (is this a specific brand of cow, btw? are Spanish cows more disharmonious than, say, a Danish cow?).

reply

Hi missrbn,
I like your post very much. Thanks.

reply

"discourages people from trying to speak new languages for fear of sounding like a "Spanish cow"


"Vache Espagnole" is what some people think is a French phrase as it's the one that sometimes appears in language books". The correct phrase the French use to describe people speaking their language badly is "Basque Espagnole"

reply

[deleted]

I speak pretty decent French, and I thought her accent was not so good.

reply

Hey everyone, remember that she plays a woman for whom French is not her native language. So why would you fault the actress for not speaking it perfectly?

"Ahoy there! Ahoy there! Ahoy, cock-a-doodley there!"

reply

Excellent point. I think she did a pretty decent job. Her French didn´t hurt my ears as much as kate hudson´s did. And i´m not criticizing hudson. Her character had just arrived in Frence; obviously her French had to be lousy.

You´ve got to bear in mind that they´re not playing Franch girls speaking their own language; they are american girls speaking French as a second language. Of course it isn´t supposed to be perfect.

"Darth Vader would say: 'Impressive!'"

reply

The original question was whether we thought the actress knew some french or was fluent in it. The correct answer is "some french".

reply

[deleted]

Hey troll, the question wasn't if her french was good enough to play an american. It was how good was her french. She obviously knows some french, but is not highly fluent in it.

reply

true dioro
also, about kate hudsen's french being awful, i'm sure she would have tried harder and worked on her accent if her character was supposed to speak french well, but that was not the case.

reply

"You could not say the same for kate hudson who speaks french like a spanish cow"

lol had a good laugh over that... don't remeber what she said in french but ima watch the movie again just to hear. No offense to her she, as well as her character are not supposed to be speaking french, so no wonder!


Nobody sits like this rock sits. You show us how to just sit here and that's what we need.

reply

I'm from Québec, Canada so french is my first language. She speaks french like I was when I was like... 4 years old. But anyway here we don't speak like the people in France so I can't compare.

Vive l'union entre le Québec et la France.

reply

I totally agree with you!
I am french and I live near Paris
anyway, the movie just came on screen few days ago and i watched it in english.
and Naomi Watts's french is good enough to understand her. and i think it brings a lot of charm to the person when she doesn't speak perfectly french. it even sounds kinda sweet.

but i have a question. what do you think of Thierry Lhermitte's accent (Edgar Cosset) and of Romain Duris's?

and about Kate Hudson. I've heard her in an interview on a french channel.
and she IS fluent in french. I agree that her accent is not so good but she can speak it. and I must say that I understand better when people doesn't try to have the accent cause sometimes it's even harder to understand.

reply

As an earlier poster says, French-Canadians have their own French accent and so do the Swiss, never mind the French colonies.. In fact all over France the accent and the colloquial expressions vary to a lesser or greater extent. So what does it mean when it is said that Naomi Watts's accent is 'not good'? Does this just mean that she doesn't sound Parisian?

To me Naomi Watts's character spoke French like an American who had been in the country for a few years; I actually know a few Americans who have lived in France for over 10 years and while they are reasonably fluent they still don't sound native born. So I think some thought went into this decision to keep her accent 'different', just as it was decided that Kate Hudson's character should speak French the way she did, when it seems Kate is actually fluent in French (according to another post).

reply

I thought Naomi's french was rather slow, and she didn't slur from one word to the next the way a more fluent speaker would. I would have thought that someone like Roxanne, who had fallen in love with france and made it her home, would have a much better french accent, even after such a short time in the country. but I'm willing to forgive it. I thought Naomi did a fantastic job with this role, and anyway, she nailed the American accent.

reply

I don't speak French, so I'm not qualified to comment on Naomi's command of french or grasp of the French accent.

However... "she nailed the American accent". Great point, JackieBlu! Everyone seems to have forgotten that she's British, so I really have to commend her on that one! ;)

reply

Actually, what they've forgotten is that she's Australian, not British.

reply

Loved Edgar's accent. Very authentic. It sounded like the accent of someone who had learned to speak English so well, he'd practically lost all the charm of his french accent. It's something that happens quite a lot. Ironically, when french people have really great ears, they don't sound as romantic when they speak English. There's an accent, but not really a very pleasant one...just some mispronunciation around the "r"s.

reply

that was a very good point by JackieBlu... I didn't realise Naomi wasn't from the united states bc her accent was so dead on... and lets remember that katie may be fluent in french but if all she does is for example write and read it or only speaks to other english speaking natives with poor accents her own accent may never improve.... and lets remember that fluent according to the dictionary means "capable of using a language easily and accurately"

reply

[deleted]

i didn't think her french was all that great. mine's appalling and she had mistakes that stood out to me. like 'deux l'eau' c'mon!

reply

She didn't say "deux l'eau," she said "de l'eau!"

There's quite a difference. And I'm fluent in French (My mother was born in Paris, and I spend summers there...it was my first language).

reply

she was ordering 2... i thought that was odd. i dunno, like i said, my french = not good at all but my mum's fluent and she said it was mistake ridden.

reply

She wasn't ordering 2. Her brother said "some 'eau,'" and that's incorrect. She was just correcting him and said "de l'eau," because that is how you're SUPPOSED to say it...

reply

okay, okay, so, clearly should pay more attention before trying to criticise other people's french. don't remember why i had it in my head she was ordering 2. *considers going down the 'her accent threw me' route but doesn't think spark will stand for that* don't worry, i'm sure watts's french speaking reputation is still in tact.

reply

No the accent thing might work lol.

But seriously...her French really is pretty good, though I'm sure that it's just limited to the few phrases that she spoke in the film. But for those, I really feel as though she nailed them (accents included).

That may be though because they stuck me randomly in 4th semester French last year, as they didn't know what to do with me (can speak fluently, and read...but I can't write AT ALL). And since the French department here is just TERRIBLY, I was subjected to the worst accents possible...

reply

Heh... my speaking and listening is atrocious but i can write (well, sorta). and, were i in america, *assumes that's where you are* mine would have been one of those accents you were subjected too.

anyhow, i suspect we've spent far too long discussing my mistaken understanding of watts's non-error.

reply


I'm french and I watched the movie last week on the british channel film four (on satellite).

I must say that Naomi Watts' accent was absolutely charming, of course she doesn't speak very well, she speaks just like an american who tries to speak french as well as she can, but if you consider the part, this accent was just perfect, good enough to be understood by a french without any effort !! She sounded a bit like Jane Birkin (an english who lives and work in France for many many years and couldn't get rid of her accent)

Someone talked about Jodie Foster. Jodie Foster speaks french so well that a french who doesn't know her and doesn't pay attention won't notice that she's not french... but, of course, if you're used to listen to french accents, you will notice tiny things that will make you thing she's a foreigner.

In conclusion, I was very surprised by Naomi Watts' accent, which was far better than most of actors and actress pretending to be french in Hollywood movies !!! For instance, take "The Last of the Mohicans" in 1992 with Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe, the french was so bad I had to read the englsih subtitles to understand ! it didn't even sound like french.... it sounded like americans who know nothing about french and tried to pronounced the french words as englsih words !!!! awfull!

reply

Having read through all the replies, excluding the already deleted ones, nobody actually KNOWS the answer to the original question, right?

Did she or did she not learn French before, or was it made close to perfect or otherwise for the movie?

What's the fuss about accents in any languages anyway? Good gracious!!

reply

accents are important in all languages... you can tell where some one is from and not just the country but regions as well.. I live on the Canadian prairies and can tell some one from Atlantic Canada. Plus accents sometimes imply education... unfortunatly certain accents from the southern united states give me the impression that the speaker isn't educated.. so if some one is playing someone from australia and has an english accent it can take away from the movie.. I personally wouldn't like to see a american southern belle with an english accent... accents can enhance or diminish a character and thus the film therefore Naomi's accent was fine bc she sounded like a non native french speaker, which her character was.. as for the actual question.. Can Naomi really speak french? I believe she is not fluent.

reply

Thank you, finally someone ANSWERED the question.

reply

I speak french (not a native, though), and I thought her accent sounded American/English (in French they sound the same to me), but I think the French would find it cute. Just like we find French accents sexy (or whatever you think about them). And it's clear she speaks French better than the average American, though perhaps not quite fluent.

But, have you seen her in The Painted Veil? She sings a song in French there at the end, so I'm guessing she's fairly familiar with the language. Just thought I'd add that I've seen two films where she uses French. And she sounds pretty good both times.

As for our French friend who mentioned the awful French in The Last of the Mohicans, I completely agree. My friends, of course, wanted me to tell them if the translation was accurate, and I couldn't help because the French was so bad. Also, Cary Grant attempting to speak French in An Affair to Remember- I'm not sure he says anything at all. (I still adore him, however.)

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=8093247

reply

Even if Naomi had virtually fluent French capability (unlikely), the character isn't supposed to sound perfect.

Anyway, she may speak some french herself. She did put one of her children into french classes. I don't think it's confirmed how much she speaks.

reply