891. The Bilingual Journalist (with Charles Pellegrin) | Luke's ENGLISH Podcast - Learn British English with Luke Thompson

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You're listening to Luke's English Podcast.

For more information, visit teacherluke .co .uk.

Hello, listeners. Welcome back to Luke's English Podcast.

Just in case you don't know, this is a podcast for learners of English.

And one of my aims for these episodes is to help you get more listening practice into your everyday life.

Because listening to plenty of English, natural spoken English, I think is a really important part of the process of learning this language.

And so I want to help you to listen to more English for longer periods of time on a regular basis, long term.

That's the idea. So this episode today is a conversation episode.

That means I'll be in conversation with a guest.

So let me tell you about my guest today.

So today I'm talking to my friend Charles Pellegrin.

Charles is a journalist, actually.

he works for the news station France 24, which is a 24 -hour news station.

They have news in English, in French, in Spanish and in Arabic.

Anyway, Charles is a reporter and a news presenter for France 24.

But I know Charles from doing stand -up comedy in Paris, because Charles also, in the evenings, does stand -up comedy in English.

And so that's how I know Charles.

I met him doing shows and I've known him for a few years now.

In fact, Charles is the guy that I'm doing this stand -up comedy show with on the 19th of July, which is very soon.

I think I'm publishing this like the Tuesday and the show is on the Friday.

So there's still a little bit of time for you to decide to come if you're in the Paris area.

I know that most people listening to this are not in the area.

So you can't really come.

So sorry for those of you.

Hopefully on on Friday evening, after the comedy, I'll be able to record a podcast in the room.

That's the plan. So you should be able to get something from the evening, even if you can't actually come to the room.

But if you are in the Paris area, let me just remind you of the details.

So the show is called Same Difference, Charles Pellegrin, me, Luke Thompson.

The date is July the 19th, 2024, 4, 8 .30 p .m.

The venue is called Au Soleil de la Boute, 32 Rue Muller in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.

It's free. It's a free show.

And if you want to reserve a seat in the room, then you can do that.

Just follow the link that you'll find in the description.

And reserving your seat is free as well.

Now, we don't actually know how many people are going to come to this.

But it's, I mean, it's possible.

Since I've been talking about it on the podcast quite regularly, it's possible, I suppose, that we'll get a completely full room.

But, you know, I don't really know.

As you know, I've got a lot of ninjas who listen to this podcast, and I can't always predict what they'll be doing.

They might just decide to hide in the shadows and not actually come to the show.

Or maybe we'll get a full room.

Now, if you've reserved a seat using the link I mentioned, if you've already reserved your seat, but it turns out you can't come to the show, then please cancel your reservation because there's a chance that the room will be full and we wouldn't want to hold seats for people who are not coming.

Right. So if you can't come and you've reserved, please cancel your reservation.

Again, following the link in the description.

And maybe I would suggest maybe if you are coming, try and come a little bit early in order to avoid disappointment.

Because if the room is completely packed, and I mean, I doubt that we will have no space, but you never know.

So in any case, it's better to be safe than sorry.

So come early in order to be sure that you'll get a seat.

Also, I should let you know that in the same room at 7 p .m., there's an open mic night, an open mic comedy night in English.

So you could come for that as well and then just stay and you'll be able to see the show at 8 .30.

And then after that, I'll be doing my podcast recording at the venue.

au soleil de la bout obviously you can get drinks but you can get food as well they sell pizzas and stuff so you could eat there as well if you want um okay so there you go i thought i'd just remind you of that uh 8 30 19th of july 2024 au soleil de la bout uh for the comedy show and stick around for the for the uh

podcast recording as well and of course there's the open mic night at 7 p .m beforehand.

Follow the link in the description for the details.

Right. So back to Charles Pellegrine, my guest in today's episode.

So Charles is an interesting person to talk to for a number of reasons.

Let's see. First of all, he's bilingual.

He's completely bilingual between French and English, which is always an interesting thing for me.

I love to talk to multilingual people to find out basically the nature of their bilingualism, the story of it, how it happened, whether there is a difference for them between the different languages that they have.

We also are going to talk about his work as a journalist, of course.

We start by talking about the ways that news readers and reporters speak when they read the news or do their reports in English.

This is one of the things I like to talk about in my stand -up.

And so I talked to Charles about that.

And we talk about the ways that news reporting, the conventions of news reporting, the way that they influence the way that the English is used.

So that's the way that newsreaders and reporters speak.

We talk about how Charles got started in journalism, what he did at university and beyond.

We talk about how news reports are made, how they're actually done and the challenges of getting it right and squeezing everything into a certain amount of time and how you've got to adapt your English for it and so on.

We talk about the Paris Olympics because obviously the Olympics are taking place in Paris this year, this summer.

And so we talk about that.

Will the Olympics be good for France or will they not be good for France?

Are they going to help the economy or not?

and another interesting thing about Charles is that he used to live and work in China he spent three years in Beijing working as a journalist for mostly providing news reports for France 24 working as a kind of Chinese correspondent for them so we talk about his experience of living in China for three

years the kind of everyday cultural differences and also what it's like to work as a journalist for a Western news outlet in China and what that's like and the kind of complications and the way that the political situation is involved in it.

So I think it's a very interesting conversation.

I hope you agree. I hope you find it interesting, entertaining and engaging.

Stick around until the end.

I'll ramble to you a little bit more, but I think now it's time to start the conversation.

So let's get started and here we go.

Hello, Charles. Welcome to this room, which I call my podroom, which is in this pod castle.

It's not actually a castle, of course, it's a building.

It's just one room.

I don't know how much of a castle it is, if it's just one room.

So no, the whole building feels a bit like a castle when you look out the window and you see these sort of like towers, which are actually chimneys.

So it's not a castle at all, is it?

No, you're really grasping at straws here.

A little bit. Anyway, welcome on to my podcast.

Thanks, Luke. So maybe a good way to begin, this is sometimes how I start when I've got like, guests on friends and stuff i asked people how we know each other so how do we know each other i think we probably we met uh via um through through performing stand -up in paris in english i think i started

about 10 years ago you started much long before that a longer it's been a longer time i think yeah i think so yeah but i think i saw you i remember seeing you as an audience member oh yeah yeah and then meeting you later once i started doing stand -up myself what did you see me doing do you remember

uh so it was at pan am in the 11th arrondissement and you i remember you did a really funny uh bit about um newscaster voices and and like the different types of bbc voices there was the in -studio voice the out -of -studio voice and you're just very good at doing it and uh and the crowd was really enjoying

it and the sense of urgency of the of the reporter who's outside the comfort of the studio that really struck a struck a chord with me yeah suddenly it was much more high pitched and yeah there's just a sense of alarm that was interesting so i don't know if my audience might be familiar with that there

is a video of me doing that on youtube um but it's the kind of thing i do in stand -up is like kind of copying the voices of news readers in different situations in the studio and outside um but as a journalist yourself and someone who reads the news did that i mean did that strike you as being kind

of true accurate do uh have you noticed a certain uh way that news readers speak do they have a kind of typical way for sure for sure um well i think that the the the good part about your bit was that i hadn't thought about it before and you just sort of unveiled this reality to me and it really struck

a chord and that's why i was i was laughing so much but then um not necessarily about the way we speak but the different types of speech there are within journalism but you know there's definitely in English language journalism and in French language journalism there's a way of speaking that's almost

not natural but I think it's something that we do as a way to be clear and to be intelligible to people from different backgrounds and with different accents.

Unfortunately that can be also alienating for some people.

I think in French for example French journalism French TV journalism has an incredible, like a very sort of an overbearing majority of Parisian accents.

And there's not much space for people with an accent from the south of France or from other parts of the country.

And there's not much sort of a tolerance for it, which is too bad.

Maybe these things are changing a bit faster in other anglophone countries in the U .S., definitely.

Or, you know, I think in the U .K.

you start hearing different kinds of accents.

Yeah, it's coming in a little bit.

But so reading the news, the main news, sort of like the main news show, the national news at sort of 10 p .m.

or 6 p .m., it's still you still don't hear that many regional accents in the news.

There's still a kind of standard BBC voice, although having said that, we did have a Welsh news reader who had a bit of a Welsh accent.

But for the most part, it's still a sort of standard BBC.

Yeah. sort of receive pronunciation right little by little it's you know uh regional accents are coming in but for for less formal shows like the more informal sort of magazine style programs uh like there's a show called the one show um which are kind of like you know uh yeah a magazine style program

which basically means kind of like more human interest stories more informal interviews they sit on sofas you know uh then definitely regional accents are you know uh the most common thing that you get like you in fact you have to have a regional accent it seems so there's like someone with a Newcastle

accent a Welsh accent you know definitely very much so so in my bit that you're talking about on stage where I copy the way that news readers speak I think it's particularly British news readers I say it's the BBC but it's really anyone with a kind of English accent who does it because I was listening

to France 24 this morning um and i'm gonna have to do an introduction i think to this episode to explain you know who you are basically and that you you read the news on france 24 so i was i was watching your show is it people and profits is that what it's called that's the yeah the the weekly sort

of business and economics uh show that we have on france 24 english that i'm currently hosting uh as a replacement to kate moody who's on maternity leave okay yeah so i was i was listening to that and and there were sort of uh reports from different reporters and uh most of them had american accents

but then whenever there was a british one it was like totally the british news voice so i don't know what the story could be it would be like you know uh um i don't know give me a story idea about the sort of the success story of the swedish video gaming industry and that was cammy knight who's british

and a very good reporter yeah yeah yeah and uh and she has that sort of a perfect bbc intonation and accent especially it's i think more than the accent it's the intonation of how to how to put a sentence together and go up and down and especially at the end of the story you have to finish like this yeah

yeah yeah yeah um yes specifically english one i don't mean to kind of make fun of uh kate is that her name but like all english news readers do it or reporters do it and it's kind of like the very specific intonation pattern which you only here on the news it's like in no other situation do you hear

this so the story would let's say the story is about if you just give me like a made -up story i don't know what could it be uh a bear mauled um i don't know the prime minister of canada go on okay so political meetings in canada usually you know political meetings in canada normally take place in a boring

office environment But last week, amid plans for, I don't know, you know, last week amid plans to rejuvenate the political meeting, the world of political meetings, the president, the prime minister's meeting took place in a forest.

Right. You know, so that kind of.

And that's where it all went wrong.

Yeah, that's more like America.

And that's where it all went wrong.

the american one sounds like kind of like uh like a trailer for staging a meeting in a forest for a prime minister of any country is a rare occasion uh but for the prime minister of canada recently taking uh having a meeting in a forest is where it all went wrong whereas in in england it would be like

uh uh deciding to conduct a meeting in a forest is where uh everything went wrong so you know yeah very specific but it's just kind of I think there's a way of like uh as opposed to you know in conversation or people talking normally there's a sense of you you tend to finish sentences and then start

again but like in this especially if you're a package producer and you're putting your voice on an edited bit of video not if you necessarily not because there's a difference there's a presenter voice and then there's the reporter uh putting a package together out of footage that he shot on the ground and where you

don't see his face and that's a whole different exercise and that's where you don't want to go down until the end of the story.

So that's why, you know, I forget what the sentence is, in this imagined scenario of the bear mauling the prime minister of Canada and then that's where it all went wrong.

And that's where it all went wrong and then you keep going on sort of a higher pitch until you land at the end.

Yeah, that final landing is just a signal this is the end of the report but yeah i know it's very difficult for reporters because you go out you shoot the story often with one camera is that my phone you shoot the story often with one camera and maybe do a couple of interviews or something you do a piece

to camera but then also you take that footage back to the studio and you quickly edit it because it's got to be on the news by the end of the day you edit it together and then you have to do a voiceover you've got to write your script and then you've got to put the voice out the script to the visuals

this is all done very quickly yeah yeah it's a real challenge to kind of get the information across and try to make it very clear try not to get into the world of cliches and and then to also do it within just very tight time limit and to signal to the audience this is the end of the report so it forces

it creates a kind of interesting very specific form of english which includes things like these certain intonation patterns also has to be presented as being informative serious And so this is the sound that happens.

This is the result of that situation.

Right. Well, what's funny as well is working at France 24, there's so much synergy with the French side of the channel and the Arabic side of the channel.

We have a Spanish sister channel as well, but they work, their offices are in Colombia, so we don't have to deal with them too often.

And sometimes some journalists are multilingual and are able to go from one to the other.

And so you'll get some interesting crossovers where where some formulations or some ways of writing are accepted in French but not in English but they'll still make their way in because you know that's the way it works at France 24 and so there's some for example in French sometimes what they do is a reporter on the ground

face to camera might start by a quote by someone else like let's say you're covering a trial I think I'm not going to name names but one of the funny ones that happened there was a trial I think it was, I think it was, um, a child molestation or something very serious or like that.

And, um, the reporter on the ground started with a quote by the, from the accused who actually, um, confessed his guilt, uh, or confessed that he, he, he'd done it, you know, and, and he was, he's trying to get better.

And the lie turns to the reporter on the ground and he just says, I want to be castrated.

Said, said the man on the docket or whatever.

And everyone was like, no, you can't do that in English.

Probably weird in French too, honestly.

But yeah. Talking about sort of like conventions of reporting in different places and that maybe in sort of Spanish -speaking places or at least in Colombia, that's perhaps a bit more conventional to start with a quote.

In this case, this was a French reporter who switched to English, because he speaks English quite well, and did this live for the English channel.

But there, yeah, we probably should have checked the script beforehand, you know.

But it's, yeah, it's interesting that you have...

We don't always have time to write scripts.

That's a problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know. It's tough, yeah.

But it's interesting from a sort of, from my point of view as an English teacher, to look at how situations create different types of English, different sorts of contexts and different situations, and also how conventions become important.

So it's conventional in the world of news reporting to do certain things, to start your report in a certain way and to finish it in a certain way, just so that no one's surprised in the wrong way.

You don't want to be surprised by something.

you want you know if you start your report with a quote if everyone did that if that was like common if that was the convention then that would be normal but because it's not conventional you can't really do that which is really unfair because it's uh in a way i mean we have these conventions but it's

okay to change conventions some sometimes and and after a while conventions become barriers to entry it becomes who's in the club and who's not in the club and that's why you'll end up with having a newsroom made of people who are all from the same background or all with the same education and we probably

need to be more conscious about you know allowing for more changes or being a bit more lenient or tolerant of different you know terms of phrase in script writing or in presenting and all that stuff i think i think there's a lot being done on that obviously it's journalism is not as rigid as it as it

used to be yeah yeah um so we we already started talking about journalism uh starting with um the first question which is how do we know each other we know each other through stand -up so both of us do stand -up in the evenings as a sort of side hustle type thing I suppose I don't know how much hustle

there is but you know it's it's uh for me it's a it's a passion almost something it brings me a lot of joy yeah and that's why I do it yeah yeah me too me too um but that's how we know each other but so so oh there's lots of things that i want to talk to you about so in your stand -up so let's let's

start with um your your background and maybe your english as well if if that's all right with you um in your stand -up if i can quote you i'll start with a quote you say can i do that yeah go on yeah yeah one of the things you say is that you're french on a technicality what do you mean by that um the technicality

uh is that both my parents are french um which not a technicality but it makes sense because i didn't grow up in france and uh i only moved to france for the first time to actually live here when i was an adult i was uh 21 um and so i just i'm an expat kid really my my father moved around for work a lot

and so i followed him my whole life and i was born in london oh yeah well you wouldn't tell by my accent apparently i used to have a very sort of posh proper british accent as a kid really and i feel like i've missed an opportunity because i feel like i'd get a lot more respect as a journalist if i

didn't have this dumb broey american accent um but that's the uh after but we left britain quite uh quickly i was three or four years old and then we moved around a lot more to southeast asia singapore bangkok then to south africa i lived in johannesburg that's where i was in high school and then i

went to canada uh for my for university for studies um and not in a forest hopefully no no i did not uh i did not uh meet any grizzly bears uh although i did have a roommate who was very close very close he's a very good friend of mine and i'm sure he'd appreciate that Quite hairy, hibernated a lot.

Hibernated a lot. Big sort of roaring, booming voice.

He's an actor. He was in plays a lot.

He's very charismatic the way bears are.

They are, aren't they?

Yeah. I'm just trying to put a positive spin on it.

Saying qualities of bears, charismatic, charming.

Yeah, ferocious. Very good at surviving.

Can beat most people in a fight.

Yeah, I'd say so. I'd say so.

Not Leo DiCaprio. we watched the revenant the end of the day and that's a tangent but yeah yeah yeah no that's a good reference though a lot of people will will have seen that leonardo dicaprio versus the bear in the in how did leonardo dicaprio survive that it's very unrealistic anyway yeah we can well

we know that bear was over 25 because then he would have let that bear do whatever he that's the joke about dicaprio rightling you know that he doesn't this is a whole thing on the internet that um dicaprio does not date women over 25 right yeah yeah okay you mean if the bear had been less than 25 he

would have let the bear do what it wanted to exactly but he was desperate to run away from that bear because it was too old yes yes exactly um so all right you mean are you technically British or technically technically so you're basically the story is your parents are both French but you moved around

a lot you were born in the UK do you have a British passport so at the time my parents you know inquired about whether I could get one, etc.

And I could, but the thinking was just, well, we're all part of the European Union, so what's the point?

And now it's too late if I wanted to.

Would you want one now, though?

I mean, you know, I like to keep my options open.

I like the UK. I like going there for a visit.

And as an English -speaking reporter, maybe I'd have professional opportunities there, but it would be more complicated for me to move there now without the appropriate you know passport but yeah okay but then your accent then explain your accent so i think as i said apparently i started off this is what my

parents telling me i start off with a british accent because i grew up in the uk but then living in southeast asia i was sort of in expati international environments or you know so or there was singlish but uh i mean i can do a bad singlish accent singaporean english singaporean english it's almost

like a creole like because there's a lot of uh of local languages like whether you know uh mandarin or hawkien or some other chinese languages and any of the it's a bit of a melting pot singapore for that so singlish it really puts all that together in a sort of local patois um and i actually like i

could do a decent singlish accent because i was watching all singaporean tv and all that but i was in a French school but where people learned English earlier than they do a French school in France and uh quickly I had sort of that internationally accent that's tinged with a lot of American just because of cultural

imperialism basically just just or soft power is probably a nicer word for it um so so I think I'm just basically I'm the the result of this sort of American hegemony in a way and then apparently i i had a more discernibly international accent before i moved to canada and in canada i was really in a sort

of a immersed in north american culture uh and and my accent i think cemented into what it is currently okay so this is canadian accent is it Well, I was, I'd say generic North American because I was, I was surrounded by Americans who happened to be at the school that I was at, as well as Canadians

and Canadians from different provinces as well, where there are different accents within Canada.

so i think i think it's honestly my accent is more the reflection of like yeah these conversations but also tv and movies and and just uh just recreating that on a daily basis and trying to trying to stick to to that um yeah generic north american is how i i think it makes most sense and i think when i

meet americans or canadians they tend to think that i'm from north america and not necessarily where they're from but that general area yeah so kind of a standard american actually yeah yeah but i'll mess up sometimes and i'll you know i'll say some weird thing that kind of that's a tell and my wife

who's australian likes pointing these out or sometimes maybe i'm tired and i forget a word uh like uh i think one day i called a pinky toe i called it a tiny toe pinky toe listeners it's basically the little toe it's the littlest littlest toe on the foot yeah because if we talk quickly if we do like

a mini lesson about uh the the vocabulary of the hands and feet so in the uk thumb uh index finger middle finger ring finger and little finger and on the on your foot it's big toe and just other toes and then little toe but in american english thumb index finger i guess middle finger ring finger pinky

pinky and pinky toe yeah but i guess she's australian so she would have said little toe but i said tiny toe which apparently is hilarious and she won't let me can i swear on this yeah you can swear it's fine well she won't fucking let me go yeah yeah she's i guess she always brings it up and has a good

laugh about it okay but that's so that's like a little uh indication yeah that tell yeah yeah that you've got a slightly more complex uh journey in terms of your english and it might be there might be other diverse influences in there yeah another one is uh and this this makes no sense and i know what it

is but sometimes i'm hard and i say it i was like i you know i put my pants in the pantry and i was like what when you say you put your pants in the pantry what what is what do you mean by the i'm thinking the wardrobe the wardrobe right or the closet yeah you open the drawer put the pants in or open

the cupboard or wardrobe and put the pants on the shelf not a cupboard not a cupboard well because that's where you put cups cupboards yes this sort of thing is a cupboard but a wardrobe yes it's much much larger yeah cupboard cupboard cupboard cupboard wardrobe yeah i'm just imagining a situation where you

might have a cupboard with clothes in it but anyway generally speaking yes cupboards in the kitchen where you put your your cutlery and your crockery and then wardrobe is the large one where you put coats and shirts and things and there might be shelves for jeans trousers socks and pants interesting

you're using the word pants when you say pants this is the american american pants yes meaning trousers yes because when you say pants i'm thinking underpants it's so complicated isn't it but anyway so you when you say oh i'm as you do i suppose in a couple i'm putting my darling i'm putting my pants

in the wardrobe um okay darling but you end up saying i'm putting my pants in the pantry which makes complete sense complete and total sense if you think about it pants pantry i mean really you should be the pantry should be where you put pans no but it's not apparently what is it what is a pantry it's

where you put uh your stocks of food of uh for the things that that can sort of survive have a long shelf life right yeah it's sort of like uh yeah it's your stock room yeah it's a tiny little stock room it's a sort of yeah a little built -in room it's it's it's about it can be about the size of this room

but if you've got a big house but otherwise it would be about a quarter of the size of this it's like you got a door it's like a built -in cupboard type room with shelves inside it and then you've got yeah all your kind of canned foods and bottles of water and things like that yeah the pantry um yeah

don't put pants in a pantry i wonder what the etymology of pantry is though if it's not pants it's fine we're looking up we could check we could check listeners that's something for you to do for homework there just to check out the etymology of the word pantry i did latin in high school so i'm big

into etymology yeah yeah yeah okay um what about your french then so because you live in france now how long have you actually been back here in france or here in france so i moved to france uh to live here for the first time at end of 2009 um and i've been here well been here ever since with like in the middle

three and a half years in china and uh another six months uh living in in new york but but yeah since 2009 yeah okay so what about your french then since we're talking about your your languages and stuff your english and your accent what about french so no my french is pretty good i mean all i went

to school in french abroad and the france has a friend the french educational systems has these french schools all over the world uh that fall that all follow the same curriculum so it's quite easy to move from one place to the other and to not not be lost or to be able to have some sense of continuity

so so my whole education was uh was uh was in french until the end of high school so no discernible accent in french fluent ability to work in french uh which is what even if even though i i work mostly in english currently at french 24 because that's where my strength is uh you know and that's where there's

there's a need for for people like me uh but in china i I always did my reports in two languages, in French and in English, always back to back live or any reports that I would send packages.

So, yeah, in French, no discernible accent.

But, again, I feel like maybe this is me.

This is something that I think about myself, but isn't necessarily true.

But I feel like I'm more comfortable in English in a way because I work every day in English.

my wife is australian we our language together is is english i have a daughter who's two and a half years old but she and to her i speak french but i mean those aren't those aren't you know like very tough conversations to have either so um so sometimes when i find myself having conversations long conversations

in french i feel like i'm just a little bit look of sort of searching for words more you know okay it's interesting so at home with your parents growing up you spoke french yeah and then in in the international school situation you were speaking french too yeah uh although you know maybe french in class

but outside you know and with with friends and everything we'd switch uh we'd switch a lot um and with my siblings weirdly enough still to still right now when my as siblings when we speak together we speak in english and when it's the whole family uh as a whole with my parents included then we'll switch

to french or we'll do a weird mix of it maybe maybe as siblings we thought this it was like the cool thing to speak english amongst ourselves and then we the grown -ups would show up and say i guess we'll switch to french you know but they speak english too so i didn't know okay very interesting but when you

speak to french people you mentioned the fact that your english it maybe feels like your first language i guess but you're bilingual um but english is probably your first language is that right well that's the one i struggle with because i was listening to your conversation with the barbara sarah the italian journalist

and uh she brought up the concept of the dominant language which i think is probably more useful to me because i don't remember learning english but clearly french is my native tongue yeah yeah because because that was what was spoken at home even if i was in the uk do you remember learning french though

no and i don't remember learning english either but i feel like that's gotta that's gotta count for something that my parents spoke to me in french exclusively because her definition of being a native speaker was if you can never remember having to learn that language so it sounds like you're a native

speaker in both french and english by that definition which yeah and is that is that the common definition of of native speaker or is that her definition that's her definition i think i think it's a pretty good one man would you say that i'm native you sound like a native to me even despite the pantry

and tiny toes and all that stuff yeah but the thing is even when you're making a mistake like that it's like a completely accurate mistake you know what i mean you're not making errors that would be maybe influenced by french right you're not right sort of if anything i tend to make because i've been

using english so much i tend to make a lot do a lot of ang more more anglicisms in french than Gallicisms in English.

Interesting. Yeah. So if we use Barbara's definition of a native speaker as someone who can never remember actually having learned that language, just speaking it from, you know, early childhood.

And, you know, there are different definitions of it, but let's just go with that.

Then you may be a native speaker of both.

But then she also, as you said, talked about having a dominant language and then, I guess, a sub -dominant language or something.

Do you feel like that?

Do you feel English is a dominant language?

I think, but I think, yeah, I think that right now English is dominant, but only by a bit, but it can change.

And if tomorrow I suddenly decided to work for the French channel or for another French network or, you know, suddenly had to work in French more than in English, that might change uh because because of habit and and you know basically exercising these linguistic muscles i is lucky you're lucky aren't

you to have the two yeah i'd say so i think i think it helps i think also yeah i think learning have known several languages is uh it's probably good for the brain to be able to have sets of twos for everything and to be able to switch tracks you know i think it's probably healthy i don't know i think

so yeah yeah probably um you know we'd have to look at science to see you know what what happens to people's brains who are bilingual and whether things like alzheimer's don't happen that'd be an interesting uh guest for this podcast if you found a researcher on that topic i'm sure it's around it's

a great idea i should do that i should i should be more like a professional journalist in the way i've taken over as producer of a luke's luke's english language podcast i welcome these collaborations um that would be a good idea yeah to try and find a sort of a neuro linguist or something like that yeah

that was that would be a good idea um okay so right all of this international experience and upbringing and then um you studied in the u .s in canada canada right and so what did you study i studied uh i I was in the sort of Faculty of Arts, so generally like Arts and Humanities, but history and political

science, and mostly history.

History and political science, mostly history.

Did you specialize in something in particular?

No, I specialized in procrastination and eating pizza.

Me too. Wow. No, I did all kinds.

I mean, I think maybe that's why I became a journalist, is like I have trouble specializing.

I think there are too many interesting things in the world to specialize in any one particular thing.

And history is great for that because, you know, it's like history is a very straight.

It's like like an account of everything that ever happened on planet Earth.

You know, it's it's it's quite wide and you can pick and choose.

And so like that was a great part about studying history in college is like one day I was doing one semester doing class on 20th century Britain and like doing a deep dive on on like post -war Britain.

and the rise of the welfare state and all that, very interesting.

And then the next semester maybe I was doing, I don't know, a history of science and medicine and a history of psychiatry in Africa or whatever.

And it was wasted on me being so young.

I'd love to do it all again now with more as a fully -fledged adult who knows how to handle, you know, a schedule and deadlines.

Me too. I often feel like that.

I often look back at my days at university and think, wow, I just wasted so many opportunities.

I got very good at Tekken 3 and Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64.

Oh, man, yeah. I scraped my degree.

I got through it. But, you know, I could have taken so many more opportunities.

There was like a student union radio station and stuff.

Why wasn't I part of that?

exactly the same I I remember having like 16 overdue papers before I graduated and just spending a month of trying to finish everything because I hadn't done anything before and I did it and I scraped through but like yeah there was there was a there's a school paper there's all kinds of great what is it

where they say youth is wasted on the young you know yeah it's true but I think maybe at the time if I look back to it you know like that student union radio station actually i remember the people who were really involved in it because there was like a gang of people who were like we're going to do

the radio thing and it was a little kind of a clique yeah clubs a little club of students who were like and and i just felt like i don't want to spend time with these people i don't like them they're just really annoying and you know they're obviously really sort of a bit self -important they're like

no we're going to push ourselves to the front and be the ones who do the radio show and other people aren't allowed in and then i was like oh screw you guys then i'm just gonna go home and play goldeneye is it possible that you are also you projected onto them things that you know weren't true just

because you felt uncomfortable about starting something new yes sure i basically felt very threatened by i wasn't very confident they knew what they wanted to do it seems yeah and i i certainly didn't so when you're 18 19 20 you're not always that you're not always confident enough to take opportunities

you know and i yeah i just didn't have the confidence i did sort of like write a couple of uh reviews for the magazine and stuff and that was quite good fun but yeah i felt like very unsure of myself which is probably you know it's probably why i didn't take those opportunities i needed to spend a lot

of time doing stupid things and then regretting it later you know in order to like you know build up the sort of um thick skin to be actually to be able to do things later yeah well that was just the journey you're on i guess you know like you can't force things i think i was the same i was the same

if you're not sure of yourself you need to take time to figure out what to be sure of yeah yeah it's true yeah and that does sort of feed into the idea of regrets you know it's very it's easy to look back at something like a period where you had all these opportunities and you didn't take them and it

can make you feel bad which kind of forms as of a loop of like kind of feeling bad about yourself which then actually um is counterproductive for the future so you have to i guess you have to say to yourself well you know uh at the time i just wasn't in that in the right place sort of in myself to to

take those opportunities and give yourself a break yeah give yourself a break too because i don't know maybe for you maybe at least for me it was it was this was also the first time in uh you know my life or your life that you lived on your own and that you're left the family home and that's a lot to

adjust to to suddenly not have that structure not have parents by and you know that are telling you what to do or to giving you a sense of direction everything suddenly it's all about you you're supposed to be an adult from one day to the next and that can be tough and that's why you know there's that temptation to

just stay at home and play tekken yeah that's right and oh dear this this the student house i lived in at university was was uh just a nightmare i mean i mean it was great it was great i had a really good time yeah at the same time it was also appalling i can't believe the way we used to live you know

like no one ever did the washing up i know um the living room was always a total mess um and i mean that's another story for another time maybe but uh yeah dear idea i think we had very similar experiences yes it sounds like it so i had a grizzly bear as a roommate you had a grizzly There as a roommate,

which must have been very interesting.

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All right, so then journalism.

So now you are a journalist and how long have you been doing that then?

um I started working as a journalist in early 2013 I'd say but I was in journalism school uh started in 2010 I went into journalism school here in Paris at a French journalism school called the SELSA which is part of technically part of the Sorbonne even if it's like a different institution okay okay

and so then you came out of that and you did you instantly get a job at france 24 uh not instantly um i did it as part of my master's degree i had the opportunity to do an extra year and go on exchange in new york and do a semester at a um journalism school there called the uh the city university of new

york school of journalism uh cuni and um i did i went there i did that i managed to get into that program and while i was there i met uh a teacher who put me in touch with the correspondent for cnn in paris and basically i started when that was my first job was being an intern uh as a producer assistant

producer whatever person to just the person that helps yeah it's the lowest rung of the ladder helping the cnn correspondent with uh with his reports in paris and and that was my first uh my first job and then after the internship was done I continued working for them as a freelancer and then quite

quickly I started working as a freelancer at France 24 as well yeah and then at some point they said hey do you want to actually present was that it what was your first actual experience of using your voice and presenting and being on camera or something like that I think so for a while I was an assistant

producer so I was just helping helping the put together the program uh so like finding footage uh you know organizing everything we're gonna what we call a rundown in in journalism is sort of the order of all the stories that you're gonna uh you're gonna go through in in a bulletin so i was i was working

sort of behind the scenes for a while and then the first step was writing becoming a desk producer so so that's basically where you You write scripts and you edit video, often based on agency footage.

So news agencies are like companies like Associated Press, Reuters or Agence France Press that their job is basically to do the news gathering and then to send sort of the raw information, raw footage to other news organizations who will repackage it and put it to air for the consumers to enjoy or to

take in. And as a desk producer, you sort of take this information sent by the news agencies and this footage, you edit it together, you write a script, and you voice that script generally for a minute, 30, two minutes.

And so you never appear, your face doesn't appear on air, but your voice does appear.

So I worked on my voice before I worked on appearing on air as a presenter.

so you were the guy going you know uh conducting a meeting in a forest is a rare occasion you know rare events in politics especially right and and what what was so there you are putting it all together and then voicing it as you say which is where you sit in front of a microphone yeah and record the voiceover

yeah what was what was that like um that's a really interesting uh sort of exercise as a journalist, especially because France 24 is a 24 -hour news channel, so you're on pretty tight deadlines.

And generally, the expectation is between the time the editor comes to you and says, I'd like you to do a story about, I don't know, this terrorist attack in Somalia.

We've got some footage.

We've got some soundbites of eyewitnesses.

We've got a soundbite of the police chief explaining the situation.

a minute 30 go and you're supposed to sort of do that within two hours between the moment of being told to do it and the moment uh the moment to air is two hours and so it's a very quick of of like having a look at we have this is a very technical there's a lot of lingo uh anytime these news agencies

send this footage of let's say a terrorist attack in somalia there will be an associated what we call a dope sheet and the dope sheet is a piece of paper or a document that has a list of all the shots that are in the footage and describing what's in the shots and who's in the shot and who's speaking

and a transcript of the sound bites and what we call sound bites is when people say something to camera um and so you kind of go through these dope sheets you organize your thoughts you write a script generally all within an hour you get the script uh sort of what we in france at france 24 the parlance

is to say validated by the editor -in -chief and then you get to editing and then they the editor checks your video edit sees everything's okay both from a technical standpoint and you know editorial questions sometimes sometimes it might be like okay this this shot is a bit too graphic or you need to

blur this or that and then it goes to error and that's uh and that's uh you have to do this several times a day as part of a shift you might do two or three a day uh or often sometimes more uh and it's a it's a pretty high intensity job so at the beginning were you able to do that uh to deadline sometimes

you miss a deadline and what you learn is that you have to communicate effectively about missing the deadline you'll have to go and see your editor i'm sorry this is a more complicated story than i initially thought or I'm not getting the footage that we need, so can you give me more time?

And you actually find out quite quickly that it's better to communicate and ask for an extension than to not say anything and just see that the team on air is counting on your package two minutes from air and when it's not going to be ready.

So that's also a big part of the challenge of working in a 24 -hour news channel is you can't do anything if you don't communicate effectively between all the people on the team.

Yeah, so don't just sort of sit on your own, kind of panicking silently.

No, there's no point.

This is not school.

You're not going to get docked marks for being late.

The point is for everything to run smoothly.

So if you take an extra hour, you take an extra hour, that's too bad.

You'll get better as you do it and you'll get faster.

Yeah, teamwork. You have to tell everyone and then they'll be able to change things to allow for the fact that your report won't be ready or something like that.

Exactly. Gradually, every day, you get better and better at it.

And what you learn too is that everyone knows how to adapt.

Everyone was working in this very high -stress, fast -paced environment.

And everyone knows how to adapt to unforeseen circumstances and changes.

That's not what we deal with.

It's breaking news.

This happens every day almost.

So people are very good at adapting and being flexible generally.

If they're not, that can happen too.

And it's unpleasant.

Because then you're working with a difficult person.

Yeah. that or yeah but also like it's a it's a balance you need to strike a balance between because sometimes if someone's difficult it's because they have high standards and you don't want to give up on the standards either so like it's it's complicated yeah yeah interesting but yeah teamwork yes absolutely

um so what about then the first time you were on camera oh boy i think my first time on camera was presenting a sports bulletin uh so uh so that's you know uh You'll have the main anchor who's presenting the main news, and the show starts with him saying the headlines, and then generally you'll have other

segments within the bulletin.

Maybe you'll have the sports guy, maybe you have the business guy, I'm the business guy.

And my first time on air was as a replacement sports presenter, and I have never watched it back, because no matter, I think Barbara Serra mentioned it, like anytime someone's on TV for the first time, they all have that same deer in the headlights.

look and suddenly it's like because also suddenly you're you have to wear a suit you have to wear a tie you've you know you're all made up and you got like hair gel and like all that stuff and you're in this very strange environment because you're in a studio with these hot lights and these massive

cameras some of the cameras are moving the big thing that always surprises people is the prompter because um so at France 24 presenters write their own scripts which is you know uh not necessarily always the case sometimes presenters reword scripts written by producers so that they can focus more on interview

prep other things as and it's not to say that they're not writers is that they basically there's a different allocation of resources france 24 is a bit of a smaller budget operation so you write your own scripts and you have a prompter so you can read the script you wrote for yourself that's where there's

like a screen which projects the script exactly it's kind of like projected onto glass yeah and the camera is behind the glass so you can look at the camera but read your script at the same time exactly yeah and uh and at france in other organizations someone uh sort of moves that prompter for you at france

24 you have a pedal that you press on oh really to make that sort of prompter roll down so that you can keep reading basically the text rolls down yeah depending on how you push exactly and so you push too hard it goes too fast and if you don't push hard enough it doesn't move and so you got to handle

all of that as in addition to being on tv for the first time yeah there's all this technical side also obviously you do a couple of you know uh sort of rehearsals or dry runs but nothing there's nothing like the real thing so then you just start doing it and you get better and you start slowly being

more comfortable losing that deer in the headlights look and deer in the headlights yeah yeah yeah that's just an expression listeners i don't know if everyone's familiar with it but a deer in the headlights also a rabbit in the headlights it's just like yeah if a car is driving along the road and an animal's

in the road at night and the animal just kind of has that look on its face where it's just frozen like that.

So yeah, it's the deer in the headlights.

It could be very awkward for people watching.

Actually, my wife was looking at me that night.

She just, I mean, she was very happy for me to get this opportunity and everything.

But I think at one point, again, with the prompter, the pedal wasn't working or something, I lost the prompter.

And then I, so that's why you also print out papers with your notes.

but like then trend that transition from prompter not working down to the notes and then you're maybe you're not in the right spot in your notes and then you know there's panic setting in and i think she i remember her telling me that she she just uh she just took the remote and shut it and then threw

the remote in the air i was like i don't want to watch this it's too awkward oh gosh yeah you see that on the news sometimes the news reader will be just reading you know casually looking at the camera and then sometimes suddenly they start looking down at their papers and start shuffling through their

papers and you think uh -oh there's a problem with the prompter yeah yeah okay not to say that you know like some and some presenters are very good at switching from notes to prompter to improvisation and over time you you you get better at at just be at basically trusting yourself to be able to continue

without your notes basically which can be a bit of a crutch it's a it's very impressive it's a very impressive sort of set of skills very particular set of skills it is very impressive being able to do that and especially those moments where presenters have to speak spontaneously for example comment

comment commentating on something that's happening like for example the royal wedding or or you know the the coronation of king charles or something and you've got like the best presenters who are basically talking almost non -stop for five hours while looking at quite often quite boring uneventful footage

of cars driving along roads and the the commentators have to just keep going and keep talking it's very impressive that the way they are able to do it and keep it coherent and uh logical and clear and stuff uh sometimes it doesn't work and uh presenters end up rambling and it goes into like an unintentional

comedy yeah yeah do you know do you know alan partridge the character um yeah i know i know i think he's the perhaps maybe the most famous fictional englishman in the world like every english person or british person i know brings up partridge partridge at one point in in the conversation he's just

this incredibly sort of dominating presence in in the english culture yeah definitely yeah in the uk not so much in the states or internationally but in the uk alan partridge is just like absolutely a household name everyone knows who he is and he yeah he just like occupies this very interesting position in our

culture where he started out as a parody of newsreaders in fact sports reporters at the beginning and then newsreaders and then TV presenters he presented a sort of a parody chat show and then we got a kind of a sort of documentary kind of thing following him in his life and so we got to get an image

we got an insight into his daily life and stuff and he didn't just become a parody of newsreaders but a parody of just of a person a certain type of English man of a certain age.

And it's just an incredibly compelling and funny character.

And, yeah, everyone can kind of relate to it in England.

Which is weird because it's a mix of he's quite pretentious and he's self -important.

Absolutely. But there's nothing backing it up, right?

Yeah. He has no qualities, no particular set of skills about anything.

He's not particularly smart, but he has this sort of undying belief in himself.

Yes, it's kind of like a sense that he should be on primetime television.

That he has this, yeah, this, yeah, this, yeah, this, what's the word I'm looking for?

I don't know I can't think of it but he has this sense that he absolutely should be prime time television and it's as a media figure I mean that makes fun of the media because you know there is a certain amount of self importance and arrogance and ambition self -serving ambition that you get from people

in the media who just basically their priority is to just be in the spotlight but also there's a deeper sort of psychological aspect to it as well which is kind of like he's he's a sort of a toxic male in a way that he you know just wants everything he just wants everything to be about him and so it's

a the the guy who plays him steve coogan the actor and the guys who write for him steve coogan writes and and acts as as partridge but he's got a couple of other people writing for him they use him as a vehicle to kind of make fun of um certain kinds of like right -wing bigoted males that voted for Brexit

or something like that.

But it's even broader than that somehow because Partridge occupies this interesting space where he is political, but he's sort of not political as well because his politics is often defined by his attempt to stay relevant in the public eye.

Like he's essentially a small -minded Daily Mail reading conservative, but he knows that in order to be acceptable in the media, he has to have a certain sense of sort of wokeness about him.

He's basically Piers Morgan.

Yeah, he is absolutely like Piers Morgan.

So Piers Morgan is definitely a target for Coogan and he's definitely making fun of Piers Morgan and a few other people like Richard Madeley is a TV presenter that you might not know.

Outside the UK is probably not famous, but Richard Madeley is.

it's unbelievable how similar to partridge he is but other people too like jeremy clarkson from top gear and all the other top gear guys and anyway i just mentioned alan partridge because you know um partridge is an example of a sort of very mediocre uh broadcaster who thinks he's he deserves to be

the best he's like a d grade broadcaster stuck inside the body of an a grade broadcaster right so he's sort of like or or something like that right he's got the belief the belief that he believes he's an a a class broadcaster but he's a d bread yeah his his natural home is a sort of cable tv news channel

or a local radio station or something like that that's his natural habitat but that's the thing there are some fantastic local radio station anchors who know what they're doing because that's you know i'd say local like your local radio is the best like I mean that's uh you know yeah yeah I don't mean to

to uh criticize local radio or something but uh anyway anyway so I just said that because because uh Partridge is an example of what happens when a uh a broadcaster isn't doesn't have those amazing skills and ends up kind of rambling into sort of nonsensical madness you know and it's often very very

funny I think that's kind of what part how Partridge started which is like you would be it was it was a parody of a certain type of thing that we'd all seen on tv which is a reporter talking and you realize they've got three minutes the producer is telling them you've got three more minutes you've got

to keep talking and they end up talking about something they reveal something about their personal life and it just gives you a little glimpse into like a ridiculous life that this person has those those moments are so tricky uh the the little bits of sort of time allotted for banter or chit -chat at the end

of a news hour or something like that.

Those can be really tricky because you don't know what might come out, and sometimes you're too comfortable.

I present the business news every day, and I can't remember what happened, but I mentioned some particular stock and how it was not doing very well just because the company itself was going through these challenges.

The presenter just said, well, I hope you're blah, blah, blah stock.

You don't have too much blah, blah, blah stock.

I just sort of blurted out, like, I don't have any stock.

Which is sort of a weird thing you want to hear from someone who's supposed to cover the business news every day.

Suddenly the curtain was pulled back and a more informal, realistic version of you popped out.

It was very incongruous.

Again, it wasn't conventional.

Suddenly the conventions of that news broadcast were broken.

In a way, though, it's probably a very good thing.

It means I have no conflict of interest.

It means that I can report objectively about most companies in the world because I don't have a stake in their financial health or not.

So actually, you know, that was a great thing that I said.

Yeah, yeah, good. Also, it's true.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

All right, so these days you are presenting on France 24 regularly and presenting at the moment this program called People and Profits, but also you do other things as well.

Yeah, so basically every day as well on the morning edition of France 24, I present the business segment, where I'll sort of go through some of the big business stories of the day, or business or economics, I think sometimes business makes it sound like it's just all corporate news, or Apple's doing

this, or NVIDIA's doing that, or Total Energy, and that can be the case, but sometimes it can be more economic news stories about inflation or about how to, you know, or social stories, you know, like the textile industry in Bangladesh and the situation for workers there and how much they're getting

paid, you know, the companies that are paying them, all that stuff.

So it's a very sort of wide range of stories.

What's the story that you've covered recently?

Have you covered the Olympics in Paris?

We did an episode of People and Profit on the potential sort of like economic benefits of hosting the Olympics.

We had a researcher who's studied this on as well.

And we also had one of our reporters went to a factory in Brittany in Western France that is making plush toys based on the Olympic mascot with the official Olympic branding.

And what was interesting about that particular factory is that basically they're using the Olympics as a way to try and boost the idea of made -in -France manufacturing, which we've lost over time to places where labor is cheaper.

And so now the question is, can the Olympics help sort of boost manufacturing in France?

And there's a lot of problems with that because, you know, labor is still more expensive.

And also over time, we've lost know -how, expertise to places like China where they just are so good at doing that kind of stuff now that it's hard to compete.

So there's some really interesting stories, economics or business stories associated with the Olympic Games.

Yeah, I did an episode recently called Is Paris Ready for the Olympics?

I basically just read an article about it and talking about how, you know, it's quite a challenge to get it set up and there are potential problems and so on.

And, you know, just sort of talked a bit about the subjects of how people feel about the Olympics and whether it's actually beneficial, you know, whether it really does bring economic benefits, whether it helps people living in the city or not.

in paris people don't really feel very good about the olympics at this moment and we're recording this by the way in may so it's it's still a few weeks away like the olympics is about eight weeks away it's in july 27th of july 27th of july so i think that's the opening ceremony yeah a couple of months

away from us now this might be published a little bit closer to the actual olympics themselves and things might might have changed a bit but what do you think I feel like those who benefit the most from the economic aspect of the Olympics are the large corporations that sponsor the Olympics and that,

you know, get the rights to sell drinks and beverages at designated Olympic sites.

And, you know, perhaps it's a good thing.

The interesting thing about the Paris Olympics is they made their whole pitch is like, we've seen the Olympics in Rio, we've seen the Olympics in Sochi, and we've seen how much money is spent on what they call white elephant projects.

So, large, you know, infrastructure projects, stadiums, things like that, that don't actually have, don't make sense from an economic point of view.

Where they'll be great for the two months of the competition, but then they won't have any use and they'll be a money pit, basically.

And many of the Olympics in the past have been like that.

Athens, the Athens Olympics in 2004, I think so.

Yeah, 2004, which was a centenary Olympics, they built a whole stadium and they're still paying that back.

I think the Montreal Olympics in 1976, the Olympic Stadium, which they built there, covered stadium, state -of -the -art back then.

That's still something that they haven't fully paid back or, I mean, I need to check in.

But it's been a real money pit, basically, a place where you lose money.

so uh paris as opposed to that they are only for the large majority only using existing infrastructure the only new thing they built is a pool in saint denis or obervilliers the olympic pool that's the only new piece of infrastructure they're building for the games and they'll say they're saying that they're

going to reuse this uh basically as a community pool where you know schools in the area can go and everything it'll it'll have value that's what they're saying and the other things of the olympic village that they're building like those where the athletes are going to stay and all that all that will be

repurposed as uh housing afterwards which is important in paris there's a there's a there's a bit of a housing shortage especially affordable housing so the reason that one of the reasons the city would want the olympics despite the way that they must know that a lot of parisians are not very happy

about the idea of all the disruptions and stuff but one of the reasons that paris would go for it is because it gives them a way to invest in the city in various ways yeah and it's a it's a good impetus to you know to build new metro lines to beef up the you know and like that's the whole challenge

right now we're seeing a lot of construction around paris because they're trying to get everything ready for the olympics and hopefully they will but that can be a good thing you know that can be a good thing like there's a there are real problems in paris in terms of having access to the city to the city

center from the suburbs that you know basically people rely on these four or five suburban train lines that are often overpacked that are often falling uh you know that often have technical problems so um so you know they're they're extending some metro lines they're they're building new uh new metro

lines it's all part of this this is a plan that existed beforehand but i think the olympics helped sort of like put new momentum in all this kind of drives the changes and gives a specific deadline which allows everyone to say right we've got to get this done before this certain date and for example

i think the city has said there can be no scaffolding in the city uh during the olympics so all the big building work and cleaning works that are being done on major buildings all have to be done by this certain date and the olympics can be used as a yeah as a sort of a way to really focus people and make

people get things done on time because things drag on don't they you know often but yeah at the same time the olympics is controversial because of course there's a lot of investment that goes essentially into the into the uh hands of those large corporations it doesn't always trickle down into you know

the local communities in every time yeah yeah um all right so this might be the last thing we talk about because we could go on and on and on for ages but you lived you mentioned that you lived in china for for three years yeah just over three years just over three years can you tell us a little bit

about what that was like where did you live I lived in Beijing okay um yeah moved there in 2018 um I moved there to be basically to work as a journalist uh and uh I was the correspondent for France 24 there in in French and in English uh but I also worked for other outlets on different projects um so I

was I was um I was my own boss I was independent there um so I moved there in 2018 and i came back in at the end of 2021 um after covid so yeah i was there i was there during covid and uh and yeah once covid happened i i basically couldn't leave uh it's not that i couldn't leave it's just that i couldn't

go back in yeah if you'd left china you wouldn't have been able to come back foreigners would not for a really long time foreigners unless with very specific sort of derogations or uh sort of uh yeah a very like a high level authorization you you couldn't to go back in basically um and so yeah i was uh

i well the question was uh how was it or what was it like what was it like living in china uh big lots of people um yeah yeah that's it's really hard to answer that question because it's such a massive place uh with uh with so much history with so many different parts so many different people and I

loved my experience there that doesn't mean it was always a good experience or an easy experience but I really feel like I have a better understanding of the world because China has such a huge place in that world as this world's second biggest economy and as a sort of a country that's offering or presenting

a different a different model than the one that we're we've been accustomed to growing up in western developed countries the the american model and now um you go there and it's uh it's quite confronting if you're if you've been uh brought up uh with a certain set of values to see uh to see a country

like china um that's developed and in a way you know that it's everything like there's nuance to everything and it's quite complicated but in a way it's a success story um and still basically being an authoritarian regime you know dictatorship's not it's really like this is where we get into the complicated

do you have to watch your words because you because you work for france 24?

I mean um no I think I think I've been these are things that I've I've shared and like um I I'm no longer the beijing correspondent and um I guess I'm I don't know I I think it's I think it's all right yeah okay I think it's all right no I think I'm watching my words because I want to be truthful and I

want to be fair yeah um and I I think it's fair to say that it's an authoritarian regime that controls China, that there's no individual rights aren't don't exist to the extent that they exist here in Europe or in the United States or in the UK.

And that doesn't mean that people aren't satisfied.

You meet a lot of people who've, you know, you know, really benefited from what from from the decisions that have been taken there.

So that's really confronting for someone like me who's grown up with that belief in individual rights.

And it's also confronted that that belief now.

It's also sort of reinforced that belief now after the fact.

Yeah, I see. It's reinforced the belief in individual rights after the fact, even though you have a nuanced view of it, which acknowledges that some people are perfectly happy with it.

But obviously, some people certainly aren't.

You know, it depends who you are and what you do.

In the same way, a lot of people are unhappy and dissatisfied with where democracy has gone today.

Like there's a lot of issues there.

Yeah. I think it's important to acknowledge the nuance in any of these situations and to avoid these sort of broad strokes or large sweeping statements about this kind of thing.

And it's also important to be able to have a conversation in which you acknowledge the nuances and stuff.

That we're getting sort of political now, which is obviously going to happen because, you know, we're talking about...

It's hard to talk about China without being political.

Yeah. But I also am curious about just generally the experience.

So there's lots of different...

So you mentioned it was confronting, meaning it was a sort of a shock, a sort of culture shock, I suppose.

Yeah. And you talked about the sort of political culture and the way that the country is run, which is obviously a massive thing.

But what about other cultural aspects?

I mean, things like, you know, what's it like just walking down the street, going to work or just getting lunch or something like that, you know?

Yeah, well, the layout of the city of Beijing is so different.

Like, Paris is a dense, compact city where it's eminently walkable, you know, and then public transport is really good that way.

Beijing is like a modern city that's been sort of built to sort of spread out a lot more and there's like public transport a lot of that as well but these massive boulevards very sort of I guess communist if you think about it and these massive boulevards these like huge sidewalks everything is much

bigger so you get the sense that this thing that looks just around the corner is actually like a 20 minute walk because that's just the next intersection but just the scale is so much bigger so so you realize quite quickly walking is not the best way around you'll lose a lot of time so quite quickly

i i i got myself a bike and and then suddenly everything felt like it was like it was more accessible and all that and so and then suddenly and you have huge bike lanes and you get to take on the city and suddenly that the city opens up when you're on a bike or a scooter and it's really lovely you get

all you know in spring you've got a A lot of these ginkgo trees that are just lovely and a lot of...

Beijing is a bit...

There's a bit of sort of activity in the street, but it tends to be a little bit hidden.

So sometimes it can lack a bit of character, but...

Because stuff's going on behind closed doors in a way?

Unless it depends on the neighborhood.

Like in some of the more older neighborhoods that you go in these hutongs, the alleyways, it's all this sort of network of smaller little passages and pedestrian streets where there's lots of little restaurants and shops and all that.

And that's quite teeming with activity and all that.

That's quite nice. And there's lots of great food and all that.

But then other neighborhoods are more modern.

And then you'll see that, you know, things are in malls more often.

And that's a bit too bad.

And I think there's a sense that maybe the idea of development is malls, or the idea of a modern city is to have malls.

And also, a collateral benefit to all that is it's much easier to monitor a mall from a security standpoint than it is to have street -facing shops everywhere and have more chaos that way.

So that's sort of like one of the downsides of how it's happened.

But no, I mean, it's a fantastic thing.

You really feel like when you go to China for the first time, you feel like you had a blind spot your whole life.

Meaning that there was this whole, there was an elephant in the room and you hadn't seen the elephant.

And the room is the planet.

And the elephant in the room, listeners, just in case you weren't aware.

And I wonder if people who are still listening, I wonder if anyone who's still listening doesn't know the phrase elephant in the room.

Anyway, but the elephant into the room is you're having a conversation and there's a subject that no one is talking about, but it's an incredibly obvious subject and a hugely important thing, but no one is talking about it.

Like, for example, if, you know, a discussion about politics in the UK in 2016 and a discussion about politics in the UK at any time now where people are talking about the state of the economy and the elephant in the room is Brexit.

Like, hello, Brexit has obviously been a really bad idea and it's been bad for the economy.

But no one brings it up.

No one mentions it.

Because if you do mention it, then you end up getting stuck into a sort of divisive debate.

And people want to avoid, you know, evoking the, you know, the disagreements and the misery of that.

And so people just don't talk about Brexit.

But it's obviously a huge big thing.

So that's the elephant in the room.

And it's, you know, the idiom, I guess, is obvious.

when you imagine talking about just having a, sitting down and having a cup of tea and there's an elephant in the room and it could destroy everything, but no one's talking about the fact there's an elephant in the room.

But not that China is a thing that could, oh God.

But in the sense that China was the elephant in the room in the sense that it was this big, really important, really significant place, but you'd never really thought about it that much.

Well, I feel like it's undercover compared to its weight in world affairs.

you know that even like a lot of what we do here uh would take on new meaning if we if we had more if we had if we if we had in our minds uh more often what's happening in china so if we think if you compare it to the united states which is very loud very brash very attention -seeking the u .s is like

hey guys look at me all the time you know like yeah typically the kind of thing about the u .s is so funny is that people can name the you know like the senator from wisconsin or Or, you know, are able to say that, oh, you know, Sarah Palin was the governor of Alaska, or Fetterman is the guy from Pennsylvania.

Like, they know all the intricacies of this polity, of this system of governance that's not theirs.

You mean like foreigners?

Yeah, foreigners are so in tune with what's happening politically in the United States, and know little to nothing about what's happening politically in China, which is also one's a transparent system.

The other's not. But that's also the case.

People know about congressional politics in the US and aren't able to say whether Germany is a federal state or not, or know nothing about German politics, even though technically we're closer to Germany.

anyway the point is that that uh you know compared to the china like compared to america which is very sort of uh visible and um present in our lives uh to a large extent certainly in this part of the world uh china on the other hand is hugely significant hugely influential and for example all you need

to do is look around and go oh these microphones made in china the cable made in china you know all this stuff our phones are all made in china made in china is written on almost you know on so many things that we have in this room or in any anywhere you know that it but it's like a little bit more

low -key um some some of the examples here with regards to the environment you know we were we're working really hard here to to reduce our carbon footprint as like oh should we take the train or or a plane which definitely should take a train maybe we'll just won't go to bali anymore or something like

that you know like it's like but meanwhile you got over a billion people in china who have a much bigger impact and their network their electric network is still mostly still dependent on coal and so you got to keep these things in mind and so now china's doing a lot to try and and curb that but like

that's something very important to keep in mind less political but you know when i moved when i traveled to china for the first time so this was before i moved there you go to beijing and you realize suddenly that as a western tourist in a far -flung place like China, generally you go somewhere like

Southeast Asia or I don't know and you are used to being catered to as a tourist, being that your needs as a tourist is what people want to meet or what people want to meet because you're the source of money and you're the person who will be able to give people a livelihood by spending money locally.

So there's an industry of tourism.

like i mean france is a great example where you can come and there's like actually a whole system a whole structure a whole industry built around helping the tourists come in providing accommodation providing food providing attractions and things to do and it's like it's like kind of like disneyland or something

exactly um yeah but but china's not like that well if you if you go there as a british person as a french person you realize quite quickly that most of the tourism industry is geared towards local tourists Chinese people visiting other visiting Beijing visiting the capital right and all the tours all

the signage is in Chinese because that's the bigger part of the tourism market of course and so there's not as much of an incentive for people to learn English or for signs to be in English but you're just because you're not that important yeah in the grand scheme of things that's like that was a blind

spot that's a revelation that's a you know that's being put down a peg which is always good you know yeah that's a good you see it as like a uh just on an individual personal basis you're not making some big criticism about china here just to be clear you're actually just describing the experience of going

there and feeling completely out of your depth or feeling kind of a bit lost like a fish out of water because you realize that the whole system is it doesn't really don't matter you're not that important really in the scheme of things which is always true but yeah it is in fact but i know exactly how

you feel because i mean i i lived in japan but japan is obviously completely different to china uh but i got a taste of it because when i was there there wasn't a lot of english in signage you know and uh you i would often feel quite lost and out of my depth and sort of feel like oh my god i've and also felt

like i stuck out like a sore thumb meaning i just looked very different to everyone else um what about people how did people how did people treat you just kind of like people in your everyday life did you did you did they treat you as a special person as a foreigner or were you not because like to compare it

to japan often as a when you come as an english person you'd be you'll be treated really well a lot of the time i mean not always depends but a lot of the time people are very sort of happy to meet you and they're very sort of people are very interested in you and stuff like that i would even sometimes

have people stop me in the street and say oh you know where are you from you know and like because they'd been to australia for two weeks and you know 10 years ago so they're like oh i you know and they have to tell you that i went to australia are you australian no i'm from england oh wow you know

But is it similar in China?

Yeah, I think especially, like, it really depends.

Like, I mean, generally quite nice.

Everyone very friendly to foreigners interested in talking to you, finding out more about you.

You know, wanting to, a lot of people wanting to practice their English, especially in big cities like Beijing.

Sometimes just curiosity of seeing, like sometimes in Beijing, especially as you have many visitors from other parts of China, where they might not see as many visitors you'll you know you'll see you'll ask people ask for your picture just because you're a white person or i remember biking in the south

and like and i think i was i did a biking trip in yunnan in the south province in the south of china and going through some um you know smaller towns or even villages and like having kids just like point at me and like point at my beard because like beards aren't necessarily a lot of men don't necessarily

have beards there and like wow this is the other way i got a special kind of white guy here i like my guys like collecting pikachu cards like like pokemon cards or something i got this one this very valuable one right there um so so in that sense like really friendly and uh and you know wanting to make

you feel welcome and a lot an intense pride of where they're from as well i'd say uh but then there's the other aspect of it as as a journalist then suddenly if you the the whole thing is completely uh sort of uh what's the word i'm looking for the tables are turned or um skewed once you say you're

a journalist basically because then there's fear then there's oh this is going to be trouble for me no matter how political the story is on an individual so what you're you're going into report on some local business and you say what's it like with the how's the weather been affecting you so even before that i

i'll stop you i'll make the phone call being like i'd like to come and visit you you to talk about this thing let's let's call it a weather event yeah let's Just something neutral, like a weather event.

Like there's been extreme weather and how's it been affecting you?

Yeah. Something like that.

Just a neutral thing.

So that's really tough because quite quickly you'll get to government response and help.

And so the government will want to, local authorities will want to control whatever you cover about that.

I'll give you an example about a non -political story where you don't necessarily expect interference.

I did a story about winemakers, women winemakers in this one province in central Western China called Ningxia.

And this was a commission from a program at France 24.

They wanted to find out what it was like for women to work in that industry in China.

So it's quite a novel story, quite weird.

People don't expect wine to be made in China.

and people expect you know and there's a another added angle to this is like oh there's there's quite a lot of women in this industry so I make a phone call because I can't it's quite far away so I make a phone call to a couple of wineries and not wineries vineyards yeah and and they say at first like oh

yes it'll be great you can come when we and when harvesting season happens And then quite quickly, I get another phone call.

They're like, oh, but could you make sure you call the provincial propaganda department, so the communications or the information department of that province, to get prior approval?

And so I said, well, I'd rather not.

I think, I mean, it's just between the two of us.

I don't see why the provincial propaganda department has anything to do with your private business.

It would be better for everyone if we did.

Because they're worried about how it might impact them.

That's exactly right, because the government is so present in everyone's lives that if you're seen to be speaking to a foreign reporter, then people are going to ask questions, so they just want to be on the safe side with the government to make sure that no red lines are crossed in terms of the...

And the issue here is that in that particular region, there is a sizable Muslim minority in Ningxia province.

It's not far from Xinjiang where there's the Uyghur population, which has been extensively covered with the sort of re -education campaign taking place there.

And the U .N. saying over a million people have been going through these re -education camps.

Re -education camps.

Some people going as far as using the word genocide or cultural genocide to describe what's been happening to that population.

So that's sort of the background.

So a foreign journalist going to this other province where there is a Muslim minority, even not to work on that particular story, suddenly there's this pressure to be in line with what the government is asking you to do.

And so that means when we showed up, we had every interview we did, there was these three or four random guys that were around just keeping a track on things, keeping an eye on things.

That means that we were told to go and stay at one particular hotel, not another hotel, because that's potentially the one where they can keep an eye on you.

That also means that the night at the hotel when we were about to go to bed, we had local police come by, ask us to come down to answer more questions about what our itinerary would be and where we would be and what we would be doing.

A lot of this is just intimidation.

A lot of this is just telling you that they're looking, they're watching and that you better not cross any red lines.

And that's what it's like working as an—it can get so much worse as a journalist, as a foreign journalist working in China in terms of this sort of intimidation and in terms of these sort of attacks on media freedoms, basically.

The reality, though, is you're in a country where media freedom doesn't exist in at least not the way that we see it here.

Very interesting. What do you think when people say that essentially it's the same in France or America?

I say that's bullshit.

You can really say what you want with, I'm not going to say no consequence, but there's a framework here for you to say what you want to say and to defend yourself in court.

Right. That does not exist in China.

And I think there's a lot of false equivalencies made about, you know, in this whole conversation over, you know, the excesses of vote culture, all that is like, no, I mean, this is what this is what a free society looks like.

It's an it's a society that argues and fights all the time.

But that's that's the point.

That's how you know you're in a free.

You have free speech is when people vehemently argue at each other about different different stories.

Yeah. So when everyone appears to be saying the same thing and singing from the same hymn sheet, that's probably the sign that there is, you know, the problems with free speech.

Okay. I got serious there.

We got serious. We got serious there.

Yeah, yeah. That gets me a bit angry that actually.

No, I see. I see because, you know, you've got an actual experience of being there and sort of seeing it and so on.

And, yeah, I know, I understand.

That doesn't mean the French government doesn't try and interfere, but it's much harder for them to, because we have safeguards.

We have checks and balances.

We have recourses to defend our rights, which are inscribed in the Constitution.

There's a system in place.

These are all very important things and things that should be protected as well.

Of course, there's, you know, things we have to remember that we that we have.

Anyway, but just, you know, I've got Chinese listeners.

I've got plenty of Chinese listeners.

Well, I'm very, you know, let me know what you hear back, you know.

Yes. It'll be interesting to get responses from them.

I wonder how some people will respond.

But again, I really loved it.

And I had a great time there.

But I think I have to be honest about my experience there as a reporter.

Yeah. And I think I think I was pretty fair as a reporter.

I think I covered some positive stories that described that, you know, that show the country in a good light.

I mean, that's not the point of the journalist.

It's not having a positive, negative stories.

is the point is to tell the truth um so and the truth is complicated yeah absolutely okay right i don't know quite know where to go from here we got to this serious point but that's all right you know that's fine thanks a lot for coming on the show thank you for having me um and uh we're gonna we're

gonna continue the conversation but we're gonna stop the recording now but we're gonna we're gonna now talk about um this is just this is gonna be off the record but we're we're gonna to discuss doing some comedy together we're considering uh doing a sort of 30 minute 30 minute show a sort of two -man show

but not on the stage at the same time so now i'll do you know one of us will do 30 minutes the other one will do 30 minutes i'm thinking i'm wondering as well if i can also maybe turn this into some sort of live podcasting opportunity if we're going to get a venue together to do some comedy that i could maybe

also use that chance to after the comedy do a podcast recording of some kind because uh you know i like to do that sometimes do live podcasting it can be really good fun it's just a question of finding is finding the right place and time but anyway listeners you can listen out for announcements about that you

know when if and when we organize it maybe when this is published it's already been we've already set it up and stuff we just need to find a venue yeah and then we need to like get some get an audience of people together uh but that could be fun yeah all right well anyway charles thanks a lot for coming

it's been great to have you here well thank you so much for having me on and uh yeah uh can i uh if you if people want to follow what i do yeah yeah of course yeah please uh you can follow me on uh on twitter sorry on x now unfortunately um and my uh you can look up look up charles pellagrin but my

handle is ch as in the ch from charles pilgrim as in a pilgrim that goes to different places uh and that's also my handle on instagram uh that's for my sort of stand -up and personal account and then i also have a professional journalistic account it's charles pellagrin f24 on instagram okay i will put

links in the description folks so you can check out charles's stuff his serious journalistic stuff the more personal stand -up comedy stuff uh and charles does lots of stories and things funny things about uh having kids yeah and uh very funny stories so you should check that out that would be good all

right nice one charles cheers thanks luke okay so that was my conversation with charles pellagrin and uh you know you can leave your comments in the comments section as usual i'm curious to know you know what you thought while you were listening to that and the stuff at the end where charles talked

about china i hope that no one is kind of what I don't know.

I hope no one gets offended or anything.

I mean, would they?

Could they? Maybe they will.

I don't know. I think Charles was just, you know, being truthful about his experience of working there as a journalist.

But of course, you know, it's a totally different system, isn't it, in China, a different ideological system.

And, you know, so there are there are definite differences there.

anyway, you can leave your comments in the comments section, can't you?

And just give your thoughts if you want to.

I hope at least you found it interesting to get those insights of what it's like to work in China from a different perspective.

Yeah. All right. Don't forget the comedy show.

How could you forget, considering I've been talking about it so often on this podcast, but Friday is the date of the show.

And then I won't be mentioning it anymore because it'll be in the past.

You know how time works, right?

I wouldn't be promoting something that happened in the past that, yeah, unless you had a time machine, you wouldn't be able to attend, obviously.

Oh, dear. But so, yes, 8 .30, au soleil de la butte, which is a phrase that I can't pronounce very well, but it doesn't matter, does it?

Can you? I don't know.

Maybe you can if you're French.

Anyway, Au Soleil de la Boe, 32 Rue Muller in the 18th Arrendissement of Paris at 8 .30.

Charles and I will be doing our show.

Charles is doing 30 minutes of stand -up.

I'll be doing 30 minutes of stand -up.

And if you come down, you can enjoy the show.

And Charles has got some very funny stories about being a dad and about all sorts of things that have happened to him in his life, about his, uh, his identity and stuff.

So you can enjoy that.

And I'll be doing 30 minutes of my stuff.

I'll be talking about all sorts of different things.

Um, so come along and you can actually see me doing standup.

You can actually see me standing up for a change because if you ever like watch the video versions of these episodes, you just see me sitting down and standing up is kind of fairly rare occurrence, isn't it?

Happens every now and then.

So you'll, if you want to come and see my legs in operation, then come along and see me doing standup comedy and hopefully have a bit of a laugh as well as just, you know, enjoying my, my knees doing their job.

Um, all right. And yeah, as I said before, I'll be doing a podcast recording in the room afterwards.

I've been saying hopefully, and I might be doing, you know, I've been saying things like that, but I think it's definitely going to happen.

Uh, so the plan will be yeah actually the program um is uh 7 p .m there's the open mic night which means that some people will be coming and doing stand -up in english and it's an open mic night so these are people who are kind of like fairly new to stand up or people who are trying out new material um

i might do i might do some i might do a set at the open mic night uh we'll see um and then after that at 8 .30, Charles and I will begin our show.

We'll probably have someone doing five minutes at the beginning just to kind of say hello and set up the show.

And then either I'll go first or Charles will go first.

And then, you know, and then the other one will come after.

Okay. And then there'll be a little interval to give you a chance to get a drink and stuff.

And then I'll do my podcast recording in the room.

And I won't mind if you have a pizza or something while I'm doing that.

I won't mind. And I actually don't know what i'm going to do in the podcast recording i might just do a ramble or i might prepare some stuff we will see we'll see what happens i'll play it by ear but it'll be good so come on down if you can if you can't come then you'll be able to enjoy the podcast

recording i won't be publishing the 30 minutes of stand -up because as i've said before um you know for stand -up comedy i like to try and keep the material unpublished so that i can use it at shows because once something has been published online, it's kind of up there.

And then you kind of, you have to let it go sort of.

All right, so cool.

There you go. Yes. Now I think the next episode of this podcast will be a rambling episode because I've got, you know, the way it works.

I publish episodes that I prepare and then every now and then I need to kind of have a ramble in order to just deal with stuff like deal with podcast admin, deal with a few comments that have come up and also just to talk about things that have been going on.

For example, I haven't been doing episodes about the Euros, Euro 2024, although by the time you listen to this, the Euros will be finished.

I'm recording this on Wednesday, the 10th of July.

Yesterday, france got knocked out of the euros in the semi -finals they were beaten by spain so spain will be in the final and that's going to be on sunday and england are playing the netherlands this evening at 9 p .m uh central european time so i'm looking forward to that um england played against um

who did we play against switzerland at the weekend and well we won we won on penalties I have to say the penalties were great.

We scored all our penalties, which is a refreshing change, because normally England don't do very well in penalty shootouts, and so many times in the past we've been knocked out of international competitions on penalties.

But we were really cool with the penalties and every penalty taker took a great penalty.

Very, very confident, very cool, very calm and very effective.

So some great penalties.

And our goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford, saved one of the Swiss penalties.

So we won and went through.

I mean, the performance was a little bit better than, you know, England played a bit better than they have done in this tournament so far.

Which is quite promising.

let's see if we can keep that moving and put on a good performance again against the Netherlands I hope for England to be in the final of course that would be nice but I mean you know we've been quite lucky I think this tournament with the draw meaning the teams that we've played against as we've gone

through we've been fairly lucky in that regard the Netherlands are a solid team of course so it's going to be a tough game and if we make it through to the final we will have a big challenge to beat Spain because Spain are very impressive this year just very dynamic very fast and dangerous as well so anyway

I'll probably do a rambling episode for the next one if I get the chance if I have time, because I've got stuff I need to just deal with, just things I want to talk about, like maybe the Euros and other things, the comments and stuff that people have sent in that I feel like I need to respond to.

The Rick Thompson report, for example, I don't think we're going to have another one.

The election result, the elections happened last week, and the result was exactly as my dad predicted, meaning that the Labour Party won by a landslide.

And so basically, I spoke to my dad this weekend.

He said, I don't think we need to do another Rick Thompson report.

And I didn't press him.

I didn't kind of try to persuade him to do it because he does those podcast episodes as a favour, really.

And he's basically retired these days.

so I don't want to, you know, put too much pressure on him or try and persuade him to do something like that, which is essentially asking him to work for free, isn't it?

So normally I'm fairly sort of, what's the word for it?

I'm fairly relaxed about it and I'll mention it, I'll say, do you fancy doing a Rick Thompson report?

And if he's up for it, we'll do it.

But this time he said, oh, I don't think we need to.

So I got the impression he probably would rather not because he's, you know, he's retired.

And plus he's still, even though he's retired, he's busy.

He does other things.

He's writing his third book and stuff like that.

But basically, he was right.

And the result was as we expected.

So we've got a Labour government now and Keir Starmer is now the prime minister.

And so the Labour government will have a huge challenge ahead of them to try to you know it basically fix a lot of problems in the country um anyway hopefully there'll be a rambling episode coming next in which i'll be able to talk about a lot of these things and other stuff okay uh i think i should probably

stop talking now because that it feels like the end of the episode in fact it is the end of the episode isn't it it is it is okay speak to you next time then all right everyone good hopefully i'll see some of you at the show on friday you can come and say hello and um you know take a selfie with me

if you want to because people do that you know when they when i know it's weird i'm like a little bit famous when people meet me they say oh um i listen to your podcast can i take a selfie with you and i'm like yeah okay i feel like a famous person for a moment so anyway that sort of thing might happen

on friday so i might see you there in which case i will see you there but for everyone else uh just you know have a great weekend and uh i'll speak to you next time on the podcast okay so for now i will just say goodbye bye bye bye baby Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast.

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[Navigating Bilingualism, Journalism, and Cultural Perspectives: A Conversation with Charles Pellegrin]-[891. The Bilingual Journalist (with Charles Pellegrin)]

📋 Summary

Introduction: A Cross-Cultural Dialogue

The Conventions of News Reporting

Bilingualism and Identity

Journalism: The High-Pressure Environment

China: An Elephant in the Room

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript