“Criticizing any imperfections in her Dothraki performance would be like criticizing Colin Firth for stuttering in ‘The King’s Speech,’” said series linguist David J. Peterson.

Game of Thrones linguist says Emilia Clarke ‘misunderstood’ his comments about her Dothraki skills

"Criticizing any imperfections in her Dothraki performance would be like criticizing Colin Firth for stuttering in 'The King's Speech,'" said series linguist David J. Peterson.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and *NME*.

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January 13, 2026 2:40 p.m. ET

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Emilia Clarke on 'Game of Thrones'.

*Game of Thrones* linguist David J. Peterson is clearing the air after series star Emilia Clarke recently claimed that he thought she “sucked” at Dothraki. ****

While visiting *Late Night With Seth Meyers *on Monday, the 39-year-old actress, who played Daenerys Targaryen, recalled feeling “hurt” and “really pissed” after reading an article in which she claimed Peterson critiqued her pronunciation of the language. However, Peterson tells* * that’s not the case.****

“I think Emilia may have misunderstood what I said, because I've never criticized her Dothraki,” Peterson said in a statement to EW. “Why would I? Her character was never supposed to speak it like a first language, so she never had to be good at it.”

David J. Peterson.

Leonard Ortiz/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty

The linguist, who also developed the High Valyrian language for the hit HBO fantasy series, noted that it was actors like Jason Momoa, Amrita Acharia, Elyes Gabel, and Steven Cole who had to have a solid mastery of the tongue because they “all played Dothraki characters who were supposed to be born with the language and speak it fluently," not Clarke's character.**

In fact, Peterson said that learning Dothraki was “built into” Daenerys' plot on the show, which ran for eight seasons from 2011 until 2019.**

“Criticizing any imperfections in her Dothraki performance would be like criticizing Colin Firth for stuttering in *The King's Speech*. It would be entirely missing the point,” he said. “In fact, grammatical and punctuation errors were built into many of her Dothraki lines — and these were included in the MP3s I recorded for her — for this very purpose.”

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He continued, “No, Emilia Clarke did a fine job with Dothraki, in that she was portraying a character who, through incredible hardship, is forced to learn a language she's never heard before and eventually becomes functionally fluent in the manner of a non-native speaker — and in a relatively short amount of time.”

Peterson also took a moment to praise Clarke’s take on High Valyrian throughout the series, too. “High Valyrian is the language her character was supposed to speak natively,” he said, “and her delivery and accent when speaking Valyrian is one of my cherished memories from the series.”

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Clarke spoke in depth about Peterson's alleged comments while visiting Seth Meyers’ talk show on Monday.

“The creator of the language, I read in an article, said that I sucked at Dothraki,” she said. “And I was like, ‘What? Bro!’ It’s not real! It’s not a real language! I can’t suck at it because me saying it on the TV, that’s how it goes. That’s the language.”**

Host Seth Meyers fully agreed with the actress’ assessment. “That’s Dothraki now,” he said. To which she added, “And forever!”

Meyers couldn’t help but poke fun at the entire fantastical situation. “I love that guy being like, ‘I love to see her order dinner at a Dothraki restaurant,’” he teased. “You’re like, ‘Don’t worry, bro. It’s not real!’”

While Clarke laughed at the host’s joke, she admitted that it did sting to be called out like that. “I was so hurt,” she confessed. “And then really pissed.”

Peterson has spoken about Clarke’s Dothraki and High Valyrian skills over the years. “It’s always funny to hear Emilia Clarke speak Dothraki,” he said in a 2017 *Rolling Stone *interview. “I mean, of course, her character is not supposed to be fluent — and it really sounds not fluent. It’s great for her character. She understands and she can speak, she just doesn’t sound quite right.” **

He also praised her in a 2019 *Vanity Fair* interview, saying, “Emilia, thank you for everything you did. Your non-native, yet fluent Dothraki always sounded very nice, so well done.” **

Peterson has also praised Clarke’s High Valyrian in the past, writing in a 2013 blog post that he was “extraordinarily pleased” with her take. “As it was, the scene was outstanding. I was delighted by Emilia Clarke’s performance. She really does speak High Valyrian like a natural,” he wrote. “She missed a word or two here or there, but such will happen. Overall, I’m extraordinarily pleased.”**

Watch Clarke reflect on her Dothraki skills in the clip above.

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