All too often when we hear about celebrities it is some negative news or scandal. We tend to forget that celebrities are not gods but are human beings like the rest of us. What the gossip columns do not tell us about is some of their amazing accomplishments. You might be surprised to know that quite a few well known celebrities are bilingual.  Language learning is becoming more and more of a necessity. Some celebrities are not only bilingual, some even speak two or three foreign languages! Let’s look at a few,  some may surprise you:

Speaks French:

Alanis Morissette – Singer
Celine Dion - Singer (no surprise)
Claudia Schiffer – Model
Hugh Grant – Actor
Jane Fonda – Actress
Johnny Depp – Actor
Justin Bieber – Singer
Morgan Freeman – Actor
William Shatner – Actor

If you’d like to learn to speak French, Click here!

Speaks Spanish:

Antonio Banderas – Actor (no surprise)
Benicio del Toro – Actor
David Lee Roth – Rock Star
Gwenyth Paltrow – Actress
Kate Bosworth- Actress
Ricky Martin – Singer
Will Smith – Actor

If  you too want to speak Spanish, Click Here.

Speaks German:

Arnold Schwarzenegger – Actor ( no surprise)
Heidi Klum – Model
Kim Cattrall – Actress
Renée Zellweger – Actress
Sandra Bullock -Actress

Show offs:

Audrey Hepburn -French, Dutch/Flemish, Spanish, and  Italian- Actress
Maya Angelou – Italian, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Fanti – Writer/Poetess
Natalie Portman – Hebrew, German, Japanese, Spanish, some French – Actress
Shakira - Spanish, Italian, Arabic, and Portuguese
Sigourney Weaver – German and French – Singer

Most Honorable mention:

Sidney Poitier – Russian – Actor

For some celebs, English is actually their second language because they were born in another country. Heidi Klum for example was born in Germany and thus German is her native language. Celebrities have travel all over the world filming movies especially foreign films or entertaining. Knowledge of foreign languages really helps them in their careers. Other celebrities had personal reasons for learning another language. Johnny Depp for example lives  with his beautiful girlfriend, French singer-actress Vanessa Paradis, they have two children, a boy and a girl. Having a strong motivation to learn a language is always very important. Maybe Johnny didn’t learn French originally for this reason but I’m sure it didn’t hurt!

Check out Sandra Bullock accepting an award in very fluent German:

What is your motivation? Travel, business interests, or family? Often people look up celebs as role models, here is an example when that is a good thing. We have heard a lot about how stars have been motivated to take up international causes, they have gone beyond their own countries to help people. One way to show true sincerity is to be able to speak a foreign language.

If you know of any other bilingual celebs, let us know.

Filed under: Learn Italian

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