Avril Lavigne Isn't Just Another English-Speaking Girlfriend

Napanee, Ontario native Avril Lavigne is showing appreciation for her fans around the world, and looking to sell a lot more albums, by recording her new "Girlfriend" single in eight different languages.

While some detractors aren't convinced that Lavigne has mastered English yet, her annoying single can now be heard in Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. Lavigne even went so far as trying to record it in Hindi, but the language was too difficult to match the song's western rhythm, said manager Terry McBride in a Canadian Press interview following his keynote address at Toronto's Royal York Hotel as part of the Canadian Music Week conference. McBride said that Portuguese was the hardest language to learn, next to Hindi, and that the singer spent hours studying foreign language recordings before going into the studio to record the song.

CBC-TV will air a 90-minute special titled Avril Lavigne: Exclusive on April 2. The show includes footage of a Calgary concert and rehearsals in Los Angeles. Lavigne's The Best Damn Thing album is slated for an April 17 release by Sony BMG, but she isn't scheduled to tour in support of it until next February.