The Limited Times

VIDEO. “I was told that I should be paid 6 times”: from Ukraine, this journalist impresses by doing six duplexes in six languages

2/23/2022, 6:41:14 PM


Special envoy to Kiev in Ukraine for the Associated Press news agency, Philippe Crowther has made a name for himself for his skills.

English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Luxembourgish: already more than 20 million people have seen the talents of Philippe Crowther, a multilingual journalist for the American press agency Associated Press (AP ).

In a video that is gradually going around the planet, we see him making six live interventions in different media about the situation in Ukraine, in six different languages.

This 41-year-old journalist grew up in Luxembourg, raised by a British father and a German mother.

He learned French and Spanish at school, and Portuguese at university, “once [my] Spanish was perfect, or almost”.

By videoconference from Washington, where he returned a few days before leaving to cover the tensions in Ukraine, Philip Crowther speaks in perfect French.

He says his cell phone “keeps vibrating” since his video montage was posted on Twitter.

Some even suggest that he get “paid six times over”.

But he will refuse to tell us if he has been canvassed by other editors.

The reporter also reports that his video triggered a click in many people: "there are people who think it would be a good time to learn a language, or to resume this language not practiced for years".

For his part, Philip has set himself a new challenge: to learn Arabic.