Polyglot reacts: How good is Mark Carney’s French?

多语种回应:马克·卡尼的法语有多好?

Learn Languages with Steve Kaufmann

2025-03-20

14 分钟
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Canada has a new Prime Minister—but how good is his French?
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  • Bonjour. Today I want to talk about how to improve your French.

  • This is addressed primarily to people who already have at least an intermediate level in French and would like to improve.

  • And we all know that there is that long period when we sort of migrate from B1 to B2,

  • where we're facing the headwinds and we're not advancing as quickly as we could.

  • And the reason why I want to talk about improving French is because Canada has a new prime minister,

  • Mark Carney, who is an Anglophone.

  • And in Canada, of course, prime ministers have to be able to speak both official languages,

  • as do most federal politicians in a leadership position.

  • And so I want to look at Mark Carney's French and some of the suggestions that I would give Mark Carney,

  • if I were in a position to, you know, advise him on his French.

  • And I think this might be applicable to a lot of French, you know, non-native speakers.

  • First of all, I say that Mark Carney's French, in my opinion, is very good.

  • It's very pleasant to listen to.

  • And that should be the first goal.

  • He makes mistakes with gender.

  • He makes a lot of mistakes, but it's pleasing.

  • He's got a nice cadence in his French.

  • And it's French that he learned.

  • Apparently, he learned it while he was at Harvard.

  • He had to speak French as a governor of the Bank of Canada.