Avril Lavigne spent a year in Paris to master French

Avril Lavigne has mastered French after spending a year in Paris.

The Sk8ter Boi hitmaker, who is French Canadian, admits she had always promised her father she'd learn the language and last year (12) she relocated to the City of Lights so she'd have to speak it daily.

She says, "I have my French passport and my dad is from France, but I'm also a French Canadian, so I really wanted to learn French; it was important.

"Last year I was single for the first time and I sold my house in L.A. and I'd just finished my world tour and I was like, 'I think I'm going to go to France...' I went all by myself, I didn't know anyone and I got an apartment... and I did school with Berlitz, five days a week, six hours a day."

And her new language skills quickly came in handy: "I ended up hurting my back and I was in the hospital in Paris by myself... I had to figure it all out."

Lavigne admits it was a huge leap of faith but she's glad she did it: "I walked around the streets by myself and I was in school. It was so weird because I'm super-ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and I can't sit still and it was hard and I was jet-lagged too for, like, a month. But it was really cool. I loved it."

And she's keen to learn more French: "I'm still gonna continue to learn. It's so much fun, speaking another language."