Eddie Izzard – Learning French

Eddie Izzard – Learning French

Eddie Izzard in his own inimitable way recounts how he used French in France – a couple of naughty words have crept in, but that’s Eddie for you.

Eddie says:

I describe my language ability in percentages of fluency.

I’m about 65% fluent in French, 30% fluent in German, about half a percent fluent in Spanish.

I’m already touring my show in French in France, and after that I’ll be doing it in Spanish, then Russian, then Arabic.

They say if you have French and English you should be speaking Spanish pretty well after a month of deep immersion.

If I get stuck with a word or a phrase during a show I ask the audience, “How do you say such and such”, and they help out.

I don’t find languages easy but I have a hunger to learn.

When you can speak another language you go from being a person in an adult’s body pointing at things like a child to being able to communicate with people like an adult again.

There’s a political basis for me to learning other languages, because if we don’t come together in the world then the world’s not going to make it.

There’s a business case, too – I’m beginning to turn a profit on my foreign shows.

Plus, no stand-up has done this before, so there’s also the fun, bloody adventure of it.

(Source: The Guardian)