Michael Stevenson, aka Dai Bando, Johnny Foreigner, Monsieur Pas De Merde, is a blogger of French and British culture. His blogs "Pas De Merde" and "The Hobbledehoy" have been called "marvelous" by some, and "meh" by others.
It probably goes without saying, but everyday spoken French is really hard to understand. Pronunciation doesn’t flow logically from the spelling — and then there’s the fact that French people eat letters from their words!
Today, let’s practice your understanding of real spoken French, specifically by looking at when and why we “eat” letters. We’ll use a clip from the movie L’Auberge Espagnole (= “The Spanish hostel,” 2002) as an example, for our practice.
It was so cool to run into this gypsy jazz quartet performing at Place aux Herbes, in Uzès last July. In this video recorded from my iPhone, the Uzès guys (never caught their name so let’s call them The Uzèsniacs ) are masterfully strumming “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” in that beautiful jazz manouche style.
Apologies -my cell battery sadly dies in the middle of a great guitar solo. Mert!
“I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” is an American jazz standard attributed to the Tin Pan Alley team of Jimmy McHugh (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics) in 1928. Fats Waller and Una Mae Carlisle recorded my favorite version of the song, and there are jazz scholars who maintain that it was actually Waller who wrote the song and sold it to McHugh and Fields for $500. Mert, encore!
The song “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” is also famously featured in the classic screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. The Uzèsniacs probably learned the song from this wonderful 1936 version from Django Reinhardt et le Quintette du Hot Club de France ( listen below)
This big-name French actress has starred in the likes of Chocolat, The English Patient, Dan in Real Life and Cosmopolis.
Monica Bellucci
Monica Bellucci appears in series three episode.
She is best known for starring in Spectre, The Apartment, Matrix Reloaded and Tears of the Sun.
Monica Bellucci in Call My Agent (Credit: Netflix)
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver appears in series four episode five.
This major Hollywood star is perhaps most famous for starring in the Alien movies.
And also for her movie roles in Avatar, Galaxy Quest and the Ghostbusters films.
Sigourney Weaver is one of the many celebrity cameos in Call My Agent! (Credit: Netflix)
Jean Reno
Jean Reno appears in the final episode of the show – series four episode six.
He is a French-Moroccan actor who is particularly well-known for starring in Leon: The Professional. As well as for his roles in the likes of Godzilla, The Da Vinci Code and Mission: Impossible.
Actor Jean Reno is a huge Hollywood star (Credit: Netflix)
Jean Dujardin
Jean Dujardin appears in series three episode one and also episode six of this series.
He is perhaps best known for starring in the the silent movie The Artist. This won him the Oscar for Best Actor – a first for any French actor.
