Can Justin Bieber Seriously Speak French?

Justin Bieber's book, 'First Step 2 Forever: My Story' dropped Tuesday, and Billboard has 10 of the best quotes.

While the photo-book is full of gems both insightful ("If I can do just one-tenth of the good Michael Jackson did for others, I can really make a difference in this world.") and hilarious ("Singers aren't supposed to have dairy before a show, but we all know I'm a rule breaker. Pizza is just so good!"), our attention was beckoned to a little factoid about Bieber we'd previously missed: Dude can speak French.

Or can he? Our hard-hitting, highly scientific multimedia investigation, after the jump.

EXHIBIT A -- What Bieber tells us (in 'First Step 2 Forever'): "I'm really glad that I speak French, because, let's face it, girls dig it when a guy speaks French. They call it the language of love, and that ain't no coincidence. Plus, I love my French fans! Très jolie!"
VERDICT: Inconclusive. Saying two words of French in a statement, no matter how much swagger is incorporated, leaves us in the dark.

EXHIBIT B -- What WikiAnswers tells us: "Yes, he speaks fluent French. Canadians can speak English and French. He is a Canadian. But not all Canadians speak English and French." Right. We forgot, yet again, that Biebs is Canadian! But he's from Stratford, Ontario, and when our leave-no-stone-unturned research skills did a big Ctrl-F on the Wiki for that fine township, we got nothing for the word "French." However, the official languages of Ontario itself are indeed French and English.
VERDICT: Still foggy.

EXHIBIT C -- What the music tells us: Bieber has a version of 'One Less Lonely Girl' in French. Well, half in French; there's a lot of it in the song, including a word the Biebs is all-too familiar with: "Encore." While his pronunciation and flow are crystal clean, we're dubious this denotes fluency. The Beatles, after all, recorded versions of 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' and 'She Loves You' auf Deutsch('Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand' und 'Sie Liebt Dich'), but you didn't hear them claiming bilingualism.

More recently, Beyonce re-recorded Spanish versions of about half the songs from her 2006 disc 'B'Day' but admitted she didn't speak the language: "I did grow up in Houston, Texas, so I was around Spanish; I took it at school but I completely forgot it. I had the best [vocal] coach. I did it phonetically; every sentence I recorded maybe four times." But whatever, it's cool to hear the silky smooth Biebs melodizing in French:


VERDICT: Justin Bieber may be able to kind of speak French. Unless he just memorized the words.

EXHIBITS D, E, F -- What YouTube tells us:


VERDICT: Very unconvincing. Biebs starts off strong but can't even bust out a "Welcome to my French page" in French? C'mon.


VERDICT: Bieber forgets some basic grammar in this live video. He's starting to seem like one of those bros who takes three semesters of a language and says he can speak it.

VERDICT: This video is the mother lode of Justin Bieber speaking French and Justin Bieber not speaking French, both strengthening and weakening the argument for young Biebs. The clip unapologetically uses live chunks of 'One Less Lonely Girl' as a crutch to show Bieber's French swagger, but he's stuck with many bumbling instances of "um" and "how do you say" something or other. He also mumbles through 'Frère Jacques,' a tune many non-French speakers often sing in full.

FINAL VERDICT: Justin Bieber can speak some French, but not all French. We'd be remiss if we didn't note Bieber's "chicks dig French" sentiment remains airtight.