Foreign stars who speak Russian | Иностранные звёзды говорят по-русски

Всем привет! It's Mila from Hacky Russian, and today I want to show you some foreign celebrities, actors, singers, and sportsmen who can speak Russian. And I mean really speak Russian and not just to say words like да, нет, спасибо, до свидания. Some of these celebrities have Russian roots, others learn it at university or by themselves, and maybe their experience will inspire you to start learning Russian or motivate you to continue. Okay, before starting, I want to apologize for not posting any videos for a long time. I had some reasons for this, but now I'm back, and I'm going to create more interesting and useful videos for you. And I also have some good news. I have recently received my new book from Amazon. This is The Most Comprehensive Guide to the Russian Accusative Case. You can find a preview of this book on my website, so if you're interested, you can find a link in the description. Okay, let's start with the first category of foreign celebrities who speak Russian. Those who have Russian roots or were born in Russian-speaking families. The best example is an American actress Mila Jovovich, who was born in Ukraine and immigrated with her family to the USA at the age of 5. She speaks Russian very well, and I actually assessed her Russian skills in a series of my video lessons. Another example of a Hollywood star who speaks Russian is an American actress Mila Kunis. She was born in Ukraine in a Jewish Russian-speaking family, and they immigrated to the USA when she was a little girl, that is why she never learned Russian at school, and she cannot read or write in Russian. Oh my goodness, is that... In Russian. That's in Russian. Okay, you speak Russian. But I don't read it. You idiot! Well, it's a good thing that she couldn't read because they actually made a mistake. They wrote Могу ли я иметь обнять? Can you spot the mistake yourself? If we translate in English, it would be May I to have to hug, which doesn't make much sense. It would be correct to write Могу ли я тебя обнять? which is super polite. Or it's better to write Давай обнимемся! Let's hug! But her grandparents spoke to her only in Russian, that is why she can speak Russian quite well with a very strong Odessa Jew accent. Let's watch an excerpt of her interview where she speaks in Russian. So she can actually make some grammar mistakes. For example, instead of saying she said It's a mistake, but it's not something really terrible, like any way people can understand her. She speaks very fast, really. And of course, she has an accent, but overall she speaks really good. If you want to watch this interview with her, I will leave a link in the description. And I was surprised to learn that her husband Ashton Kutcher decided to learn Russian. Let's watch the excerpt from the video where he explains why he decided to learn Russian language. It doesn't matter what you say, it sounds like you're yelling, you can be like And it's like, oh, that's a beautiful pencil. But you don't know, like, it's just really like everything sounds really aggressive. And I thought that they really didn't like me, like, I thought they were really upset. And so I learned it just so I could understand what everyone was saying. And it turns out they're just like, we love you so much! But it's like, it's like this, like, aggressive, but now I get it. Well, I don't know why so many foreigners think that Russian language sounds rude. For me, it's a beautiful language. Tell me in the comments whether you also think that Russian language sounds rude. Or maybe it was like this in the beginning, and now you changed your opinion. I don't know. I'm lost. Because for me, Russian is beautiful. Okay, so the next Hollywood star with Russian roots who can actually speak Russian is Michelle Trachtenberg. As you can see from her surname, her father is German, but her mother is Russian, and her name is Svetlana. It's no wonder that she can speak Russian fluently, but anyway, she has a little accent. You will be really amazed by her Russian if you watch the movie Killing Kennedy, where she is playing the role of Marina Oswald. But unfortunately, not all Hollywood stars with Russian roots can speak Russian. Like, for example, I would really love to hear Leonardo DiCaprio speaking Russian. Yes, if you didn't know, Leonardo DiCaprio also has Russian roots. His maternal grandmother was Russian, and her name is Elena Stepanovna Smirnova. And here is a photo of Leonardo DiCaprio with his grandmother, his babushka, his Russian babushka. Well, at least he can imitate Russian accent quite well. Another category of foreign celebrities who can speak Russian are those who learned Russian at university or with a tutor. One of such Hollywood stars is an amazing American actress Kate Beckinsale. As she explained it herself, she decided to learn Russian language at Oxford University. Okay, let's watch an excerpt from the video where we can see how she can speak Russian. Well, we can see that she can perfectly understand Russian. She could speak any way, like, probably she will not be able to make some really long conversations in Russian, but anyway, her level of Russian is quite impressive. So, we can see that her motivation to learn Russian language was an interest in Russian literature and Russian culture, which is a really good motivation to learn Russian language, by the way. And here is some interesting tip of Kate Beckinsale that you can also use by yourself. So, it can also be a good tip for you if you want to hide something from your wife or your husband, and you can write it in Cyrillic, so that they will not be able to understand what is written. Wow, she has a very good handwriting, by the way, just like a native. Well, let's watch another excerpt where she is also speaking in Russian, but she explains that at the moment she doesn't speak Russian that well, because it has been a very long time ago when she learned Russian language, and as you can understand, she forgot some words, so it was not really easy for her to communicate. But it has been a long time. We did a lot of language, we also did a lot of literature. So, if you are learning Russian at the moment, you need to know that you will need to practice it all the time in the future, because otherwise you will just forget it. Every language, when you learn it, you need to use it, otherwise it can be easily forgotten. And I guess that you are doing so much efforts now to learn Russian language not in order to forget it in the future. Another famous celebrity who decided to learn Russian is a wonderful British actor Ralph Fiennes, the one who played Voldemort in Harry Potter. Yes, we do pronounce Harry as Gary. Gary Potter. And for me, he is just a unique actor, because he was able to play in a Russian movie where he spoke completely in Russian, and believe me, he speaks really well. This movie is a film adaptation of Ivan Turgenev's The film follows a romantic criss-cross where Ralph Fiennes plays a role of Mikhail, who fell in love with a married woman. His friend's wife Natalia, who is in her turn, has a secret passion for a young man Alexei, who works as a tutor of her adoptive daughter Vera. This is a wonderful movie to watch, and not only because of the impeccable Russian of Ralph Fiennes. And then he also played in another movie, The White Crow, where he also spoke in Russian. Almost perfect Russian. This movie is about a ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev, who defected to the West in June of 1961 at the height of the Cold War. Ralph Fiennes played a role of Nureyev's ballet mentor in the Soviet Union, Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin. The movie is simply great and shows a person who was far from politics and just wanted to be free and happy, even at the cost of fleeing his country, where he was seen as a white crow, белая ворона, an idiomatic way to call a person who is different from others. And I also want to show you the video where he delivers speech in Russian. Well, he does make some grammar mistakes, which do sound a little bit strange, for example, here we would rather say because it's a one-time action. Well, he does speak Russian with a British accent, but it's really adorable. Well, it's really impressive. I don't know whether he wrote it by himself, but we can see that actually he didn't make any mistakes at all. It was really great. Another Hollywood star who speaks Russian is Elizabeth Olsen, and she was able to learn Unfortunately, I never heard her speaking Russian. I was trying to find some videos on the internet, but all I could find was this video, where she's swearing in Russian. Let's watch an excerpt. Yeah, it was where I did my abroad study there. All I wanted to do was go to Russia, because of being a theater geek and loving Chekhov. Sure, yeah. Anyone knows or cares. Yeah, yeah, I know. They think you're talking about the guy from Star Trek. Yeah, lots of Russians. No Russians. So, shoot-shoot means a little? Shoot-shoot means a little bit. What are the words that you learned that are cool? I mean, I would, well, the ones that really stuck behind, I think, anytime you learn a language is the curse words. Right. Those are the ones I would want to know. What are the dirty words? Oh, God. I feel weird being on television saying another country's dirty words. Like I said, this isn't a real show. Don't worry about it. But do you remember any words you can teach me in Russian? Yes, yes. There's pizdets. Pizdets? Yeah, that's a bad one. What is it? Pizdets? Pizdets. You can't tell me? I mean, I don't think I can say it in English, either. Really? But it's like the- You can't say it or it's a bad word that you can't say on TV? No, it's like the- Okay, so you can watch this video yourself, but I assure you that pizdets is not that bad, actually. If you don't really try to understand the root of the word, the word by itself, it's quite fine. Like it means a catastrophe and pizdets, like we can actually say it when something is good or something is really awesome. And at the same time, we can also use it when something is going really bad. So it's like a universal word that you can use in many situations. You just need to change your emotions. Another famous person who speaks Russian is Angela Merkel. She was able to learn Russian at university, and then she was also able to practice her Russian in Ukraine when she was a student. It seems like she understands Russian quite well, but I don't know about her speaking skills. We should probably ask Putin about this. Okay, the next category of celebrities who speak Russian is amateurs. Those people who had Russian friends or they were in relationships with Russian people, and also those who just wanted to impress their Russian fans. And the first celebrity in this list is a famous actress Gal Gadot. I don't know whether I pronounced her name correctly. I hope. And so she said that she was able to learn Russian thanks to her Russian friends. Probably she doesn't speak Russian fluently, but anyway, it's quite impressive to see that she knows so many different words in Russian. Just have a look. So she actually pronounced these words quite well with a little accent, but anyway, it was good. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any other videos where she speaks Russian. Well, she doesn't really speak Russian. She knows some words, just like another celebrity that I will show you next. And this celebrity is an American singer Cardi B. Let's watch a video where she explains how it comes that she knows some Russian. Well, as she said, she knows only a couple of words in Russian, but I decided to include her here because I was really surprised to find out this. And I also found a very funny video where she is singing and dancing to Russian music, to a Russian song that I don't even know. Another celebrity who speaks a little Russian and was even able to read a poem in Russian is Bruce Willis. Just look at this. I started to learn Russian because I wanted to take part in a project with one of my favorite Russian comedians, Azamat Musagaliev. By the way, this poem is from the movie Brat 2. Well, I would say that Bruce Willis was able to read it quite well, almost without an accent. But unfortunately, it's not a real Bruce Willis, and this video is just a fake, and it was created with a computer program. The first time I watched it, I actually believed that it was a real Bruce Willis, so that is why I decided to include it here. It's not the first time when Russian Internet users try to make foreign celebrities speak Russian. How about Elon Musk singing in Russian? This video was posted after a successful launch of the Crew Dragon capsule to commemorate Musk's historical moment. In the clip, Musk replaced the lead singer of the Soviet band Zemlyanie. Who was performing a song called Trava u doma, the grass behind the house, a song about Soviet astronauts. But it seems like Elon Musk is actually interested in learning Russian, as there have been several times when he wrote in Russian on his Twitter. Probably with the help of a translator. Look, he wrote a comment under the tweet made by Roscosmos about the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer Sergey Korolev. Elon Musk wrote in Russian He was great. Who knows, maybe one day we will hear Elon Musk speaking fluent Russian with Putin. The next celebrity who speaks a little Russian is an Uruguay actress and singer Natalia Oreiro. Russian people adore Natalia Oreiro mostly because of the TV series where she played and also because she is a person who comes to Russia very often. And many Russian people actually believe that Natalia Oreiro is half Russian. Which is not true. But anyway, she speaks a little Russian. Well, I believe that she learned some Russian in order to impress her Russian fans. The next celebrity doesn't speak Russian at all, but it didn't stop him from dubbing the whole movie in Russian. And I would say that he did it very well. Really impressive. Stoy. Is Stoy right? Stoy. Stoy is good. Stoy. Stoy, you got good. You did Stoy good, baby. We've got the Stoy. Stoy. Okay, the next celebrity who speaks a little Russian is an American actress and singer Hayden Panettiere. I'm not sure whether I pronounced her name correctly. So she speaks a little Russian that you can actually see in the next video. Hayden, are the rumors true that you and Vladimir are engaged? What? Are the rumors true that you and Vladimir are engaged? So she was able to learn some Russian because she was engaged with a Ukrainian boxer Vladimir Klitschko. And they actually have a daughter who also speaks Russian. Now, she speaks Russian? Yes. And you speak Russian? I speak like baby Russian. There she is. I speak like baby Russian. Like where you add a little chick at the end. Like she loves cucumbers. So I know like the baby Russian. But she's really good at Russian. She's great getting good at English. She's great at skiing. But she has an accent. Like a southern accent? No, like a Russian accent. Like a Russian accent. Like when she says dog, she says dog. Look, mama, dog. Well, believe it or not, but celebrities who speak Russian the best are football players. They actually had to learn Russian because they got a job in Russia. So it was quite easier for them to learn Russian because they were surrounded by Russian people. They had Russian friends. They were probably in relationships with Russian women. So they had no choice but to learn Russian. It was a good motivation for them. Let's watch the most impressive examples. So how did your relatives react to you getting a Russian passport? My parents? Yes, all of them. No, they didn't object to anything. No, no one, no one. Everyone thinks that my decision was right. But if I can tell the truth, even if they don't object, the decision is always mine. And when it was possible for me to get a Russian passport, I didn't think much about it. Because I already knew what I wanted. And the decision had been made a long time ago. How long have you been learning Russian? Russian is better now. I learn it every day. But the language is still very difficult. I hope that in a year and a half, I will speak better. I hope that you enjoyed watching this video. And if you did, don't forget to like it and leave a comment below. By the way, share in the comments why you decided to learn Russian language. What is your motivation? And what is your level of Russian so far? Увидимся в следующий раз! Пока-пока!