I haven't caught up on Leverage yet. But I've been watching Covert Affairs, and Piper Perabo is a dab hand at languages, it seems. Her French was shockingly decent in that ep set in Paris earlier (not like a native, accent-wise, but quite good nonetheless), and her Russian... didn't sound rubbish. Not that I speak Russian or anything. But you can sometimes hear how an actor is mangling up a language even if you don't speak it. She must have spoken half a dozen languages on the show so far.

The most atrocious I've heard in my life still has to be when David Boreanaz tried to speak Korean in that one episode of Angel back in S2. I still laugh whenever I think about it.

I've been wondering about Covert Affairs. I really like how they'll have actual dialogue in various languages, but wondered how they were doing with it, to someone who speaks any of the languages.

My most atrocious is Kendra. Oh, mothereffing god.

I love on Burn Notice when Jeffrey Donovan speaks Russian, since he actually learned the language.

Apparently Perabo is a quick study with accents: [link]

Your character is supposed to be a master at languages. How challenging has it been to learn these different languages

I’m pretty good with picking up languages because I’m good at accents. But some languages I have no experience with, like in the pilot we’re in Sri Lanka and so we’re speaking Sinhalese. That has a sound that I’m not used to at all. We have a dialect coach who works with us, and because we’re in Toronto – it’s one of my favorite little facts about Toronto – it’s the most diverse city in North America. So far, we’ve been able to find a native speaker of every language we’ve done. We do recordings of native speakers that we can then break down and use … so it doesn’t sound like a language teaching tape, you know, it can get too perfect and then it sounds fake.

I've lived in Toronto for 3 years and still visit often, but she's right -- you can easily find anyone who speaks a given language in that city. I used to work near the Kensington Market, and it was like the world bazaar every day. Man, I miss living there.

The most diverse city in North America though? That's probably New York though, I'd think.

Toronto might win because there are fewer native Torontans, i.e. since non natives make up 75% of the population, it's more diverse than New York, since non natives make up only 60% of the population, even if the number NY's 60% is greater than the number Toronto's 75%.

Or I could be (am most likely) completely full of shit. and of course, the numbers are completely made up.

OH! Aldis Hodge speaking French! megan walker would have to approve the accent officially, but it sounded damn good to me. As in, so hot. Mrph.

Accent was good, although the cadence and intonation were a bit off. And, basically, as he spoke faster, it sounded more off. But that first sentence was very nice. Definite potential.

That was so sweet. Aw!

Although I feel I must point out that "when you speak English and French, German's not that hard" is utter bullshit.

It seems like it would be, Megan. Although I speak Spanish so it seems like I wouldn't have trouble with French or Italian. Comparatively. German has totally different rules.