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star trek - Is Picard actually fluent in French?



Let me throw out a few examples and potential evidence either way:


We have heard Picard utter isolated words and phrases in French ("merde", "maman") and, in "11001001":



PICARD: "Incroyable! Vous êtes Parisienne?"
MINUET: Au fond, c'est vrai, nous sommes tous Parisiens.
PICARD: Oui, au fond, nous sommes tous Parisiens. The spirit of that city can always enchant my soul.



Alas, this only really shows a working knowledge of French (tourist-level), especially since he sort of just parrots Minuet's line back to her and then switches back to English Federation Basic.


We also have "Code of Honor", where Data refers to French as "an obscure language called French", which suggests that some people may not even know what French is. (!)


On the other hand, we certainly get the impression from "Family" that Robert and Jean-Luc Picard's parents were rather traditional.



Plus, we are led to believe that in the future, we have advanced to point that people have such good learning and retention, that if Picard decided to sit down with a book on French grammar and a dictionary in his spare time for a couple weeks, he would suddenly be fluent. And this seems like the sort of thing that Picard would consider important to do.


So, bottom line:




Related questions:




Answer



Picard speak fluent French. Not only was he born and raised in France but we see him speaking French confidently with a French accent, swearing in French under his breath and singing French songs on multiple occasions.


In the pilot episode for Star Trek: Picard, he spends a considerable amount of time speaking in French to his dog.




Je sais que tu penses que tu amènes ça dans la maison, mais c'est hors du question! Ne fais pas semblant de ne pas parler Français. Nous avons pratiqué.


STP: Remembrance




In TNG, the longest instance of Picard speaking (what appears to be fluent) French is from TNG: 11001001



MINUET: Aren’t you going to introduce me?


RIKER: Captain Picard, this is Minuet. Minuet, Captain Jean-Luc Picard.


MINUET: Enchantée. Comme c’est merveilleux de vous voir ici.


PICARD: Incroyable ! Vous êtes Parisienne ?



MINUET: Au fond, c’est vrai, nous sommes tous Parisiens.


PICARD: Oui, au fond, nous sommes tous Parisiens. The spirit of that city can always enchant my soul.



Notably, he recognises her accent as being "Parisian" rather than just "French" which suggests a reasonable degree of experience of French regional accents, presumably as a result of his having been born and raised in Labarre, France.



He uses a little bit of French in TNG: Elementary, Dear Data


Picard says


(and again in TNG: The Last Outpost).



In TNG: Chain of Command, Part II he states that his family would sing songs in French each week.




PICARD: Sur le pont d’Avignon, on y danse, on y danse.


MADRED: Wake up. Where were you?


PICARD: At home. Sunday dinner. We would all sing afterward.




He sings Frère Jacques in TNG: Disaster



PICARD: I’m afraid I don’t know that one. I know. Frère Jacques. That’s a song I used to sing when I was at school. Patterson, do you know that one? Good. It goes like this. “Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?”


ALL: Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines, ding ding dong, ding ding dong.



PICARD: Very good. Now, keep singing.


ALL: Frère Jacques, frère Jacques, dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines. Ding ding dong, ding ding dong. Frère Jacques, frère Jacques, dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines. Ding ding dong, ding ding dong. Frère Jacques, frère Jacques…




He sings Auprès de ma blonde with his brother in TNG: Family



PICARD(S): Auprès de ma blonde, qu’il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon… Dum, dum, dum…




Moving down the canon scale, in the EU novel A Time to be Born, Picard’s mother carries on a conversation in French with a teenaged Jean-Luc at home. It’s not clear what language he’s speaking since the conversation is translated for the reader, but he definitely understands her.




“Here, Jean-Luc, eat your lunch,” said a feminine voice speaking French.
He whirled around to see his mother carrying a tray of food into the room; she set it on his desk and smiled at him. He glared at the wall where the picture window had been in the cabin, because he assumed they were watching him. “I know that’s not my mother.”



The novel What Lay Beyond confidently states that French is his mother tongue:



“May I help you, Captain Picard?”


Startled, the captain looked at the interface and saw its expression had not changed. The words were in French, his native tongue.


“Yes, you may,” he said in the same language. “How do I disengage the gateways?”




The novelisation for Generations states that his conversation with his wife and children in the Nexus is in French (with the proviso that this is a weird alternate dimension where weird things happen).



“Go on....” A soft voice at his elbow took him aback. He whirled, and saw his gentle captor—golden-haired, straight, slender—smiling at him with the same indulgent love in her green eyes.


He had never met her; yet he knew that this beautiful creature was Elise, his wife of the past sixteen years. And she had spoken to him in French.



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