French as spoken by non-native speakers

Something I noticed while doing all these tests for French proficiency is that after a certain level for the listening tests, they give you extracts that are NOT read by native speakers and/or with background noise. I think this really tests your listening skills because if everything was read by a native speaker, slowly and clearly with no background noise then 1) it would be too easy and 2) it would not be realistic as there is lots of background noise in every day life!

One of the hardest things I found at the start was making and receiving telephone calls because the line would undoubtedly be somewhat noisy and writing down telephone numbers was always hard...

Anyway I'm getting off the point I wanted to make.

I was looking at a trailer for Un Plan Parfaît and discovered that Diane Kruger speaks fluent French! She sounds like a native speaker to my ears. I did a bit of research and found out she went to Paris when she was 15 which I guess is still young enough to pick up a native accent. Of course she also speaks fluent German and English.




 J.K. Rowling (of Harry Potter fame) also speaks French. Here she is with President Nicolas Sarkozy (although she is reading and not speaking). She has an accent so I think it's good to watch this video for French listening practice.