Carla Bruni, pop star and former First Lady of France, minds her language

As a multilingual pop star, Bruni intimately feels each language. Photo: AFP

As a multilingual pop star, Carla Bruni intimately feels each language. In her native Italian, she explains, reading a simple menu sounds like poetry but the words can be hard for non-natives to decipher.

French, her main professional language, is wonderful for writers but lacks tonality – “Rr! rr! rr! rr! rr! rr!” she explains for emphasis, exaggerating the Gallic uvulars.