Just how bad is Emily’s French in ‘Emily in Paris’? A language expert breaks down her progress across the 4 seasons.

When Emily first arrived in Paris, she avoided using even basic French greetings.

“So many things are going wrong here,” Massey said of Emily’s first encounter with Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) and Julien (Samuel Arnold) at the marketing agency Savoir.

“Emily’s unprepared to interact in French on the most basic level. She greets in English, doesn’t even ask if he speaks English, and pulls out a translator app,” he said.

To Massey, this is a major no-no.

He said that memorizing a simple line such as “Bonjour, je m’appelle Emily. Vous parlez anglais?” would have shown that she had a least made an effort.

In season two, Emily writes a letter full of grammatical errors.

In the third season, Emily takes up a temporary position as a server at Gabriel’s restaurant after losing her marketing job.

Unfortunately, her French isn’t up to scratch, and she makes a serious mistake when she fails to recognize the distinction between champignons (mushrooms) and Champagne (Champagne), which leads to one of the customers having a serious allergic reaction.

Instead of apologizing, Emily complains that the two words sound similar to her, proving that she’s “simply not ready” to be in a role where communication is key, Massey said.

“She has been living and working in Paris for nine months at this point in the show, so I would expect for her pronunciation and comprehension to be a bit better, especially with something as simple as champignon/champagne,” Massey said.

Later in this season, Emily meets a man named Théodule. Unable to pronounce his name, she ends up giving him the nickname Ted instead.

Massey said it was “another example of her choosing something that is easier for her rather than trying to assimilate to the culture, which can often be seen as rude.”

By season four, Emily’s French faux pas are a ‘lot less frequent’ — but it may be too little too late.

In the season finale, Emily leaves Gabriel a voicemail spoken entirely in French.

Describing Emily’s language skills as finally “satisfactory” in this episode, Massey said that “while short, this message shows that she is working to learn more French and to understand Gabriel more fully.”

“While it’s not particularly fluid, and her pronunciation is still a bit off, she gets her point across and uses the right words and tenses,” he added.

However, Emily’s decision to improve her language skills may have come a little too late, as she is asked to head up Agence Grateau’s new office in Rome.