Many of Lady Gaga’s biggest hits feature lines in different languages, including French. Does she actually speak this language, or did she only learn a couple of words when her songs called for it?
Lady Gaga can speak French, and some of her interviews prove that she has a solid grasp of this language. She included French lines in songs “Bad Romance” and “Bloody Mary” and performed a cover of Édith Piaf’s “La Vie en rose” in A Star is Born.
Stick around to learn more about the use of foreign languages in Lady Gaga’s songs, and why French is her absolute favorite.
The French Connection
It’s no secret that Lady Gaga has Italian roots since she mentioned it on countless occasions, but most people aren’t aware of her French connection. The singer’s mother Cynthia Germanotta is half Italian, but she also has French-Canadian ancestry.
According to the singer’s biography Lady Gaga: Looking for Fame, she learned French at school. It’s possible that her mother helped her out, but that’s up to debate, especially since the singer never became fluent in Italian despite being raised by parents of Italian ancestry.
Lady Gaga’s musical affair with the French language started when she included the line “Je veux ton amour et je veux ta revanche” (“I want your love, I don’t wanna be friends”) in “Bad Romance”. She later performed a few words in French in “Bloody Mary”.
Lady Gaga delivered a cover of Édith Piaf’s signature song “La Vie en rose” in TV special Tony Bennett Celebrates 90 in 2016. She performed it again in A Star is Born, and even got a back tattoo paying homage to this song.
The singer demonstrated her ability to hold a conversation in French in several interviews, but her fluency is up to debate. She clearly speaks French with a lot of confidence and tries to do it whenever possible, but her accent isn’t always top-notch.
Vanity Fair reported that she speaks “fairly fluent French”, and she shared a video teaching Katy Perry some words before a show in Marseille in 2009. Her French may not be perfect, but she clearly enjoys speaking this language and including it in her songs to make them more sensual and mysterious.
Singing in Other Languages
“Bad Romance” and “Bloody Mary” aren’t Lady Gaga’s only songs that feature lines in foreign languages. In addition to French, she also sang in Italian, Spanish, German, and Swedish, even though she doesn’t actually speak any of these languages.
“Paparazzi” is one of the most notable examples – it opens with Lady Gaga speaking Swedish with Alexander Skarsgård, who plays her boyfriend in the video. She doesn’t speak this language on a regular basis, so it’s possible she only learned a couple of words from the “True Blood” star.
Gaga also sang in Spanish in “Americano”, included a few Italian words in “Born This Way”, and gave German a shot in “Bloody Mary” and “Scheiße”, which ironically starts with the line “I don’t speak German but I can if you like.”
“Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody “Perform This Way” poked fun at her habit of singing in foreign languages, saying she does it “for no reason”. Not everyone would agree with that statement. Amber L. Davisson, the author Lady Gaga and the Remaking of Celebrity Culture, described her use of foreign languages as a strategic move.
“Just like clothing choices and music style, the incorporation of a foreign language also functions to signal who Gaga is as a celebrity. It communicates her desire to be understood as an international superstar. Speaking multiple languages places Gaga in multiple communities,” explains Davisson.
She’s certainly onto something since Lady Gaga’s lyrics in foreign languages made her fans around the world feel heard and seen. She knows how to make the crowd go crazy, and singing in their own language is one of the best ways to do it – even if it’s only a couple of words.
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