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You're listening to Luke's English podcast.
For more information, visit teacheluke.co.uk.
Hello listeners, welcome back to Luke's English podcast.
Today on the podcast I'm talking to Barbara Sarah,
the Italian journalist who reads the news on television in the UK.
She's a very interesting guest and has lots of interesting things to say about the way her identity and career have been shaped by her relationship to the English language.
We're going to talk about reading the news in the UK when you sound like a foreigner.
Lots of questions around identity and accent and all sorts of other things that Barbara has experienced in her time as a broadcast journalist.
I think you'll find it very interesting as a learner of English looking to improve your English as much as possible in different contexts, both personal and professional.
Now, before we go on, I just want to give a little announcement about a Leopster meetup which is happening in Vietnam later this month.
Do you remember Leopster meetups? They used to happen quite a lot.
I think COVID-19 pretty much put a stop to them, but they used to be Leopster meetups happening in various places.
There's going to be another one. A Leopster meetup, a Leopster, just in case you don't know, this is a listener to Luke's English podcast, LEP.
That's Luke's English podcast. A Leopster is someone who listens to the podcast.
If you're a regular listener to this show, then you're a Leopster. Congratulations.
A Leopster meetup is really a chance for listeners to this show to get together in some location, normally a bar or cafe or something.
Just chat in English, talk about this and that meet, like-minded people and socialise in English.
It can be a really good little way to build a community, find friends with whom you can practice speaking English.
You might find people from different places who have a different first language, so you'll be forced to speak in English.
It's basically a really good idea to socialise in English.
This one is being organised by Zdenek Lukas, who you might know from Zdenek's English podcast.
He's also organised lots of meetups in the past and Zdenek likes to do things like different board games and other fun things to practice English.
Zdenek is organising a Leopster meetup in Danang in Vietnam on Friday 17th May.
It's going to take place at Gordon's Pizza, which is in the An Thuong area of Danang Vietnam.
Friday 17th May from 9pm, if you're interested in attending the meetup, just let Zdenek know.
Send him an email. Just to say, hi Zdenek, I'd like to take part in the meetup in Danang.
Just something like that, just let him know. Send him an email. His address is teacher Zdenek at gmail.com.
Teacher, I think you know how to spell that. Zdenek is spelled Z-D-E-N-E-K.
Teacher, Zdenek at gmail.com. Just let him know if you'd like to take part in that meetup happening in Danang in Gordon's Pizza Friday 17th May from 9pm.
Right, so back to this episode and back to my guest today, Barbara Sarah.
Barbara Sarah is an award-winning Italian journalist who spent much of her career reading the news in the UK on various high-profile, well-established English language news networks, including the BBC.
The BBC channel 5, Al Jazeera, English and Sky News. So she's a newsreader, you know, when it's like six o'clock or ten o'clock or something,
it's the news and you have a person sitting behind a desk reading the news. In various different sort of ways,
it's also reporters, people who are out on location reporting the news as well. So this is what Barbara does and she's done it in English, in the UK on various news networks.
Now, Barbara has quite a specific relationship with English. It's her dominant language, but not her native language.
And she's going to explain what that means in this conversation. She has a certain accent in English, which does place her outside the UK somehow.
So how has this affected her career as a newsreader and reporter?
Broadcast journalism is associated with a certain kind of model of spoken English in the UK that will be what is often called BBC English.
And traditionally, the role of newsreaders, this role has been synonymous with that kind of high-level, high-status form of English.
So what has Barbara's experience been? What is the story of her English? How did she get to the point where she was ready to actually do this job?
What kind of challenges has she faced while reading the news in the UK with a certain accent? And what does this tell us about learning English?
What it means to improve your accent? The relationship between accent and identity? The definition of native and non-native speaker?
The status of different English accents in the English speaking world and more. So that's what we're going to be talking about.
So I think it's time to get started. So here we go.
So maybe the good place to begin would be to ask about your background and your linguistic background.
Where are you from and how does English come into your upbringing?
Yeah, I mean, thank you for starting with that because that sort of gave me the idea to start working on language as well.
So I'll tell you about the linguistic background, but basically I'm a broadcast journalist.
And I have worked over the past 20, 25 years for the major broadcasters.
It was an internet CNN and then BBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera, English and now on Back at Sky News.
And because I sound, I mean, I inhabit this weird world where native speakers can tell them second language and second language English speakers sometimes think I'm native, but actually they don't really and often I sleep, you know, my moments.
So I would often get these emails from fellow, you know, second language English speakers, you know, younger journalists wanted to get on air and they'd ask for advice.
I realized after a while that I was lying to them because I would get into the phase of saying, oh, you know, you've got to think, actually outside the box, be ambitious, you know, be creative, be curious.
And then actually I realized that the real question I had to ask any of them before, you know, in the first 20 seconds of the conversation was, how good is your English, first of all?
And second question, can you kind of pass as a native speaker? And I realized, actually, that to all these young journalists that were getting in touch, unless I asked those two questions and unless I was brutally honest about the reality of that, I was effectively, you know, leading them down the garden path, which is exactly the kind of expression that I try not to use when I was speaking the second language in the speakers.
You know, I was giving them false solutions or at least not being honest about the difficulties. So I am a native Italian speaker, my parents were both Italian, I was born there, I lived there until I was about nine years old and then my family moved to Denmark and I went to an international school.
And you know, anyone who's been to international schools knows it's a bit of a mix. And so that kind of set the imprint to how I sound. First of all, I learned English as a child, not a young child, I have very, very clear memories of not speaking English, actually.
And I remember walking into that class, you know, when you're nine, you're not that young. And I remember walking in that class and feeling that strange sense of alienation, when you literally can't understand a word that's being said.
And I have to say without trying to make everything fit neatly, I do think that that sense of alienation always gave me an empathy with being with being with being different and with there being genuine barriers to feeling part of something.
So I think that shaped my career in many ways, apart from the linguistic, I think it shaped the sense behind it. And then linguistically, I mean, I'll give you all the missing bits to the, because you'll get it and the audience will get it when people ask me, where's your accent from?
So native Italian, but I learn it in Denmark. So actually, I learn it surrounded by people mainly, Danes who speak it as a second language. But the woman who taught me, because often in international schools, you have someone who follows you for the first few months to help you with the English specifically was American or Canadian.
And I think you can hear that and I think that is still there. And then it's the retroflexive R, which I can bore you about at length. And I don't even do.
We like that kind of stuff. Exactly. That's why I'm here. I'm so excited about having that conversation. And so I think it's a mix. I think it's international English. And I think a lot of people who are second language English speakers actually actually learn it in an environment that's not an English speaking country.
And it's completely different. If I had come to the UK age nine, I'm pretty confident. I would sound almost, you know, completely British. There might be something slightly perceptible of the Italian, but actually I think if I'd come to the UK age nine, then I would have, I think I would probably sound British now.
But I didn't that wasn't what happened in my formative years and the years where I learned English. So I wasn't this international school from the ages of nine to 19, you know, and linguistically that's by 19. Let's face it. It's it's set, you know, what I call the sort of math settings are fixed.
And so I learned them in this weird way where you know the kind of I had this American or Canadian teacher that I think probably, you know, put that little imprint. But then in truth, I also learned English surrounded by people that spoke it in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.
Sorry, where were they from? Are these your friends and classmates? I mean, you know, so there were quite a lot of bricks. They tended to leave when you got to secondary school because quite a lot of them would come back to the UK for boarding school.
But in the early years, quite a lot of bricks, some Americans, but then a lot of people that didn't have it as their first language, you know, Israelis, Germans.
I mean, Spaniards, Portuguese, other Italians, although we would all speak English together. Obviously lots of Scandinavians. But you know, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, you know, it was an international school of Nigeria. You know, you name it. It was it was like that. And I think all of us.
In a way, you do conform, don't you to a kind of international English. This is the 80s and 90s where culturally, I would guess there was an American dominance. And so you ended up watching a lot of American stuff on TV and.
It sounds simplistic, but it was cool to be Americans. It was cool to try to sound American and we're all listening to American bands. So that played a part. But really it's a mix. And I think what is slightly odd in my voice is as Danish as it is Italian. I don't actually think I have an Italian imprint.
I think what is all in my you know that you don't want to mean by all that's like slightly weird thing that people go where she from. Yeah, I think that's Danish as much as anything because I never spoken English with Italians.
When you are in the you live in the UK, right?
I've been here for 30 years. Yeah, no, you'd know. Yes, from the way I sound. Well, when you meet British people, for example, in some situation, you know, you just have a dinner party or something or you know meeting new people.
And they first start talking to you. And there's that moment where they kind of think to themselves. Well, what's the reaction that they have? What are the things they say to you about?
They you know, they say, where are you from actually? And they they ask you that question, where do people think you're from? What do people react to your English?
It's interesting. More than where are you from, which I also think has become a little bit of a toxic question. And interestingly, I think the whole issue of accent and language and nationality. And you know, the sort of toxic, toxic, toxic, toxic, but asking where you from. It depends how you ask and why, right?
So so interesting people will say, where is your accent from? Right? So I can mock it up if I have to and I used to have to. So I can say I'm driving my car instead of driving my car. Right?
And for a while, I was forced to when I worked in British broadcasting to be honest, I've stopped doing it because actually I like to signal to people that I am slightly different that there is something that I am what I am that I'm someone of a different heritage.
So they will ask, you know, where's your accent from? And then I launch into the slightly boring and lengthy making them wish they'd never asked.
And then they'll say, oh, I know that in a way they're they're lying because it's not over, you know, they don't they know one has ever guessed Italian without knowing that I am a town, which I think is interesting.
What do they normally guess? Can I ask if they can see me? I will get a lot of like Brazilian Argentinian or Canadian.
Americans know I'm not American. Right? So they can see me and I know this is a podcast. So let me give like the audio description. I have a Mediterranean coloring, right? You know, all of skin dark hair, dark eyes and a mannerism, which I think you could call I don't know Latin, you know.
So then they would say that I think people are just genuinely confused, but anyone who has an international background will know, you know, we don't sound all of us who have learned it in different places that will have different influences and you can't just put us in a box. It just doesn't work.
Yeah. So you develop this kind of international English with the sort of imprints of the different influences that you had in those formative years, nine to 19 that you talked about.
And so there you are, you're you're you're fluent at that point, right? When you get to about the age of 20, you're looking at what to do next. You went to the UK and studied there. Is that is that was that the next step? Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, all my studies were in English.
And I mean, this is going to annoy all the younger listeners, but back in the day, UK universities were free.
And also London is a very mysterious and incredibly appealing destination. And you know, I left it when I was very young. I love Italy. I always try to go back, but I'm not going to pretend that when I go to Italy, I fit in.
I mean, I have an accent in Italian as well. So, do you really? Oh, gosh, yeah.
A regional Italian accent or a sort of a foreign Italian accent? A sort of foreign. Well, first of all, I have linguistic issues with Italian in the sense that I am much more I have much more linguistic
and linguistic austerity in English because I've always used it for work. So from the age of nine, all my academic studies were in English, I don't see no the books I read, the friends I had, then obviously I did uni in English, then I started working as a journalist. I also work in Italian as a journalist. I actually write books and articles in Italian as well as English.
But I could put it this way. I could never write in Italian without having an online Italian English dictionary open in front of me, but I can write in English without having the Italian English
dictionary just because I fixed. So, what's your first language? And are you a native English speaker on non-native English speaker? And what does that, what does that term even mean native English speaker? So I think second language English speaker in native English speakers are almost there's almost a difference there as well.
To me native English speaker is, was it either your mother tongue or did you learn it as a child? So, and to me really is, do you remember a time when you didn't speak English? And to me, if you can't remember a time when you couldn't speak English as far as I'm concerned during native speaker.
It's like my son, for example, I'm raising him in two languages, right? So you could argue for six months of his life, I tried to only speak to him in Italian. Does that make him a native Italian speaker? Of course not because he was growing up in the UK and it's his language. But he would be truly native in two languages in a way that I wasn't because he will never remember not speaking Italian and he will never remember not speaking English.
You know, you will never remember having to learn how to pronounce the TH sound. But I am very proud of my voice. Thank you. Glad you're not. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I feel the ovation.
And so, so to me, it's native, but second language is trickier because I mean, certainly English is my dominant language, you know, and has been for decades. And it is, it would be unfair of me to pretend otherwise also because and forgive the arrogance.
But I do get a lot of messages of people saying, you know, their ambition is to have an English like nine because they see me reading the news and I have to be honest, you know, it's been my dominant language since age nine.
Yeah.
And so, so it's my second language. I'm not a native speaker, but it is my dominant language and I use it for work in a job where language is everything.
So, you know, you're sort of in between the kind of the broad definitions of the of the two things native speaker and non native speaker, you sort of don't quite fit into those basic broad definitions, you're kind of somewhere in between almost, although you have said that you don't consider yourself to be a native speaker.
But yet is your dominant language, you've worked on your English, though, as well as just sort of learning it as part of your upbringing, you have since actually had to work on it in a focused and considered way, right?
Absolutely. In fact, I just remembered I should bring my bone prop to show you. You know what a bone prop is?
A bone prop.
I've never heard of it. A bone prop is something that you put between it. It's mouth exercises to sharpen your diction.
Right. Well, I've never heard of it called a bone prop before. For me, it was always just called a pen.
Because, yes, every now and then I do get my learners of English to put a pen between their teeth or in their mouth or something like that to help them practice their pronunciation.
It's called a bone prop. It's a bone prop. It can be a pen. It can be anything that's roughly an inch long that you put between your teeth.
Put it here and then you freak. Because it makes it harder to speak, because obviously your mouth is in an unnatural position, it works out your tongue and it's meant to help with your diction.
I hope it does because I've been doing it for years and I'll always try to do it.
I have time. When I read my scripts before going on air, I will read my scripts with a bone prop in.
I'm sure a lot of it is psychological at this point, but I'll do that.
Let me just go back to how that came about.
I started working. I came to the UK, the uni, then I did a post-gradual journalism, and then I tried to get jobs.
When I actually went to a case, whenever I talk about language and some of the difficulties, I just want to make it very clear that I don't put this in the discrimination box.
I don't think that I was treated badly. I don't think it was because I'm foreign. I mean, it was because I'm foreign, but not because we don't want foreigners on air.
I think language, if you are a broadcast journalist, I mean, it's your everything. You cannot compromise on the clarity and the message.
Then if you become a TV presenter, because I never had issues when I was a reporter, but when you become a TV presenter, there's so many different things that make audiences relate to you.
Language is one of them accent. It's elements of trust. It's elements of feeling that you're one of them, that you're their voice, that you understand their problems.
I just want to make it very clear that this isn't some woe is me. I was treated so badly story.
It's just the reality, I think, of when you use language.
Anyway, I was lucky. I started getting jobs at the BBC and obviously before or fair, but then I really wanted to be on air, so I started doing, can I do the weekend reporting shift and all of that.
Then I started presenting. One of the bosses said, look, it could work. This was BBC London.
For people who don't know, BBC London is like, there's the main six o'clock news in the UK that the whole country tunes into back in the day when people would tune into a TV program at 6 p.m.
And then, so 6 to 6.30 was the national program. 6.30 to 7 was the regional program. So if you're in New Yorkshire, BBC Yorkshire, whatever you were, and in London, it's BBC London. And I started doing that.
Not the main 6.30 program, but I would do the other injects either during the day or actually the evening one after the 10 o'clock news, which bizarrely gets even more viewers.
And I think that's where the problems started. Now, look, I obviously wasn't a, this is a long time ago. I wasn't as polished. I think I must have had that, you know, rather than the headlights kind of look, because you know, you always do when you start.
But looking back, you know, you could see, you know, so I don't think I was taken off air because they thought she's terrible.
I was taken off air because viewers started complaining.
And I remember this one email that came into the BBC Newsroom, because remember, this is like 2003. This is before Facebook, right?
So just, just bare that in mind. So people used to email in it. I'll never forget this email that came in and it said, I don't pay my license fee to have the news read by a foreigner.
And again, for those, I know.
You know, now I laugh at the time. It was a bit like, because it pited a lot of insecurities. But, you know, I get with that person meant.
And I don't think that person was wrong. Right? I just, I don't think that person was wrong because.
Because news is about trust and trust is tribal. And what my voice will tell you specifically in the UK, right?
That I am not of the tribe. My voice will tell you, I mean, the one thing my voice will tell you straight away, I was not born in the UK.
You know that. That's the one thing that any brick can deduce the second day here. And if you're doing something like a news program, if you're presenting the news and you're talking about, you know, like the privation and poverty or, you know, A&E waiting times or not being able to get an appointment with your doctor, you know, these are all, you know, schools or old people's homes.
These are all like really local issues actually. And you need to feel, I think when you're watching the news, that that person understands you.
It may be a lie because maybe the person reading news, you know, it's quite cushy and they're cushy, well, pay jobs and actually has no idea what it's like to be homeless.
But, but it has to be a sort of idea that they can have the empathy with with certain situations.
And I think, you know, sounding foreign is a barrier and it's not anybody's fault. You know, I don't think, look, that comment really hurt. I'm not going to sit here and pretend it was like, you know, the best time of my life ever.
But, but nor do I think, you know, I don't think that person was racist or anything like that. I think that person had a point, maybe put it in quite a brutal way, but had a point.
So, anyway, so the BBC take me off air quite uncerimoniously. But one thing that annoys me is that it's London.
I do think London has a different dynamic, but we're just going to gloss over that, you know.
Yeah, because you would, you'd maybe hope that London was a bit more metropolitan and cosmopolitan and that people wouldn't have that kind of view.
But then London, it includes many other areas around London. It's not just sort of like central London, which is probably the really cosmopolitan place.
It's also lots of other sort of more suburban areas too.
And very nice. This is 2003, right? It's different.
I think now the recent, the recent, recent census has London at 40% foreign born for zero.
One.
And again, foreign born. Not ethnic minorities, not minority religions. You know, we have to be care, you know, we can't just mix everything in one.
There's a lot of overlap, but this is foreign born. Now many of them will have come as children. So they will sound British. But you know, it's kind of.
So anyway, so that happens. And I'm like, oh, so I started looking for jobs elsewhere and then actually blessed them sky.
Well, blessed them. Thank you, but sky hire me as a junior reporter.
And they were very clear. They're like, look, we, we're going to train you up. But we see you in foreign positions, which is great.
I mean, I did it at the death of Pope John Paul II, then from that to the Michael Jackson trial, which was a very funny juxtaposition of stories from the Vatican to, you know, Hollywood.
And then from there, I get spotted by the then head of channel five and they were looking for a presenter. And he said, look, I've seen some of your stuff.
I think you, I think you are a presenter. Why don't you come and present on channel five news? So I'm like, amazing. And I do that. And then at that point, we're national, right? Channel five is national.
So listeners at this point in the story, channel five, 2003, 2004, right? This is, but this point because I've done a couple of years as a reporter at sky. So this is 2005.
Okay. So we're in the region in the, in the period when there were quite a lot of channels. If you had a free view box, which was like a kind of a digital box, I think that you could, that you would connect to your TV.
But still many homes around the country still basically had just five channels.
Five well established TV channels and a bunch of extras if you could sort of like connect a box to your TV. Or if you had a fancy new TV that could, that had it in, in built.
And so five channels BBC one BBC two, then ITV and channel four. Those two were the commercial channels, but still sort of part of the sort of national broadcasting sort of network still kind of.
Public service.
Still part of the public service broadcasting system. And then a fifth channel channel five, which which at that time when you were contacted by them, we're still fairly new.
So it was about a year old. Yeah. And sorry, not a year or no, no, 10 years old nearly because they launched in 97, you know, famously in front of the desk.
Yes, I sit down. We stood up.
Yeah, okay. Just that little bit more informal. But, um, but the point is, yeah, it was a national TV channel and their news was national news.
So it was broadcast around the whole country.
Yeah. And at T time, it was the six o'clock. Well, a channel five, it was five. But so the evening news, you know, the one that you'd watch when you came home from work was BBC one at six, ITV channel four channel five.
So actually there were four, you know, prime time news programs in the early evening. And I would present one of them.
So actually was, you know, when I look back, it was, it was quite a big deal. And it didn't work there either. So after about three months, I get cold and by the boss.
And again, I like it when people are honest and he said, look, Barbara, you know, a third of the viewers don't really care about your accent.
A third of the viewers think, you know, it's kind of like cool and different or maybe, you know, cosmopolitan, whatever. And he said, but a third of viewers really object to it.
And they, and it's a barrier. And he was honest and he said, I cannot have a prime time presenter that a third of the, that that a third of the viewers feel alienated by.
I mean, ultimately that's what it is. He was kind enough not to use those words for which I'm grateful. But that's what it was.
Yeah.
And so this is to that. And at this point, I'm like, oh, you know, I kind of like, I've seen the pattern. You can only bang your head against the wall so many times.
And by the way, in the middle of all of this at Sky News, when I was reporting, that's when I started the voice training because even with reporting in the first three months at one point again, I was called into an office and said, look, I listen to you.
I hear CNN. I don't hear Sky News. And that was the boss. And I said, well, no one ever said anything. And I can try and change it. And he said, I don't think people can change their accents. And I did the whole like, let me try.
And he did let me try. He gave me another very drama in all of this. And he did let me try. And they sent me to a voice coach, a wonderful woman called Valerie Savage, who passed away a couple of years ago. But genuinely when I say that woman changed my life and career, she did.
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And so we did a lot of voice coaching. And she did two things. She made me sound clearer.
She gave me better tempo, so better use of my diaphragm, so I don't run out of breath.
Also knowing how to control. Because when you're on air, you get a lot of adrenaline, which is the worst thing that should happen when actually you just need to sit there and feel really relaxed and chilled and all.
Let me bring you the news.
I'm actually the adrenaline. It's often, you know, makes your vocal chord shrink. It just all sorts of things. And so she taught me a lot of that, which is just basic broadcasting, basic speaking, actually.
So she's the one to tell me how to use the bone prop. We did a lot of tongue twisters. I mean, I still do them now.
I like Lily, literally, literally, I like Lily, Lily likes me, Lily likes Lonely Pop's lemonade and lime drops. Or what to do to die today at a minute or two to two, a thing distinctly hard to say.
Yeah, I messed it up there. And hard to do. So the L's, the T's, she really listened to what was, she used to call it, Flabby in my voice. And she sharpened all of that.
And then she also tried to knock the dreaded retro flexive R. What is that then? So I'm driving my car. Car driving car. I'm driving my car.
Yeah, car car. Yeah, it's that it and I mean this and I'm not it's the bending of the R backwards. So my name is in Italian,
or Barbara, Sarah or Barbara, Sarah. So the Italian one first. Yeah. Yeah. And the American was like Barbara, right?
But you say American, but a lot of people think I'm Scottish because the scots that they are the west of England has the R and crikey, Devon Cornwall.
Right. You're a donin, Devon. Barbara. So I speak to that Barbara, Sarah again. The Irish. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Most people to be honest, most people in the world is just, you know, just the English.
You were like, no, we will not pronounce our ours. I don't care how many other people are doing it.
And but it is actually the thing that I think because I think the rest of my speech pattern actually is quite British. I mean, I joke about the UK not having had any imprint on my voice, but that's not true. I think the speech patterns are used. The expressions are used.
Often it depends about the vowels the way that I used that. I don't Americanize that much. But the R was so difficult for me. That's the one thing that just made me sound unnatural and unauthentic.
And they sort of really wanted me to do that at sky. And again, this is sky a long time ago. I'm back at sky now. I mean, they seem happy. They're still, you know, so they seem happy with the way I sound. But the time it was a problem.
So that it was going from saying car to saying car. That it was that change. Right. So you were that you didn't have the Rotic Italian R at all. It was just a slightly, you know, as you said retroflexivar. So our teacher.
I'm a broadcaster. I'm a broadcaster. You know, and I can do it. It just feels fake. It feels fake to me. It's also a lot of work. You know, and I am, you know, actors change their accents all the time, you know, some to, you know, greater or lesser extent success. But they do.
But I think it's different. If you are either on stage saying the same lines night after night or if you are on a film where you can do it a million times, you can have different takes. You know, I do live TV news.
Very often, you know, there's any breaking news. Forget the off cue. It's just me. And I'm often talking about things that I don't know anything about and not being funny. But when COVID broke, I don't know the difference.
And then they can an epidemic, you know, so you're just being unleashed on things. You don't really, you know, they you're kind of briefing yourself on.
And I do everything in a second language. And I do think that bilingual brain is different to the monoling will bring to add that are and for one look. Am I going to pretend to be what from the home counties? Is anyone going to go?
I mean, who am I fooling? And so when I then left British broadcasting because when when channel five also didn't work, I could have gone back to sky as a reporter and they, you know, they've always been great amount to say if there was one network that really invested in me and understood the diversity of this issue way back then.
It was kind of news. I have to say that, you know, it's interesting. Yeah, I mean, and then they couldn't they couldn't pretend there weren't issues and they didn't do that.
But they gave me a chance. But then I decided to kind of go into international news and went to Al Jazeera.
I'll just English obviously. I don't speak Arabic and there I slowly reclaimed my my R and then I think it took me about a year and a half and one day I just woke up and I'm like, why am I bothering?
I want an international Arab channel. No one's going to go, oh wait, but internationally the British accent still has an extra cloud. So there were reasons.
What's interesting about there's many things interesting about this. But one of the things that's interesting about this is the, let's say the context in which you were trying to use English.
Right. What was it that and that context defined what you were trying to do with your accent. Right. So it can context is everything. So I'm just thinking of my listeners who are just sort of on a similar journey.
You know, they're on a journey to improve their English as far as they can get it. And they might be facing decisions about what they should be doing about their accent.
You know, and what to what extent should they be emulating a British accent to what extent should they be trying to remove the influence of their first language on English. And what is their target accent now for you in that period.
It was trying to sound British in order to be accepted by a British audience accepted by a British audience exactly because you know, as you said, it's a tribal thing they want to hear their news being given to them.
In their voice. So it was that context that really made you push your English into a British direction. But then when you move into international news, that wasn't really necessary anymore.
And you could, you know, speak with that retroflexive R because it's international news and sort of global English. It's sort of less important that kind of specific British accent is less important.
Even though as you say, having a British accent does give you the extra bit of clouds, that extra bit of status or something. But that's just interesting that context and the purpose that you're using English for is a big factor in in the decision that you take about how to develop your accent.
Yeah, I'm going to, I mean, it's introduced status. I think the word used was status just now. I call it privilege. Like to me speaking English in whichever way is a privilege.
It's about one and a half billion people in the world that speak it. I think a billion speaker is a second third or whatever language. There's a reason why we all learn it. Yeah.
I would not have my career if I didn't speak English, speaking English is like having the key to the inter-connected global world. But then there's a hierarchy. You know, not all accents are created equal. And even to the British or American ear, you know, there's certain accents foreign accents.
I hate to say this. There are more comical than others, you know, that are often ridiculed. And I think even in the hierarchy of native English accents, the sort of posh, but not too posh southern England accent is at the very top.
The way that you speak, look, and I mean, I think you sound strange to say, I think you're a beautiful voice for you to because it's clear and because it's almost like the template, you know, that is the clear look at it this way.
The British accents are accepted in the States, in news, but actually American accents are very, very rarely accepted in news in the UK. There's something about the British accent that to me is the one that has the most authority.
I'm not getting into the historical reasons or, you know, is it right? Is it wrong? You know, I could never deal with those issues. I have to be practical in my career.
So to me, that context still exists, but the advice that I would give to people is, you know, all these people go out to sound English, I want to sound British.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but chances are you will never sound British or American or Australian or Canadian. You're going to sound like a version of what you are.
And you're going to keep the accent that makes you you and in these days of diversity, of authenticity, of be yourself, why are any of us trying to be something that we are not now clarity.
That's a non-negotiable. So I think it's a tricky balance between yeah, sounding like yourself, but the bottom line is there is a correct way of pronouncing English, right? Which I suspect is why so many, you know, listeners tune into you because they know they'll get that.
So I think it's great to get the correct pronunciation and maybe try and get the flow and the expressions, but don't drive yourself not trying to sound like something that you will never be because it's not what you are.
So I have to learn. It's all about having an international conversation, I work in news. We need a variety of voices. You know, don't talk to me about diversity if everybody sounds the same.
And the way that I sound the way I sound, yeah, it makes up, but you can tell that I started studying in English young. So what does that mean? That the literature I studied was from the Anglophone world. That the history I studied was from an Anglophone lens.
So everything, even geography was and it sounds crazy, but actually there's still a point of view that you can take in studying geography history of art, history of music, everything was done from the cultural Anglophone lens. Nothing wrong with it, but there's more ways to look at the world. And so diverse voices are, I think, essential.
So accept your accent for what it is and let you know, just let it tell the story of who you are, but working on clarity is a very important thing because I mean, you know, it always comes down to intelligibility and identity, right?
So these are the two factors really in pronunciation and the identity issue is all the things you've been talking about. But then ultimately intelligibility has got to be the thing to focus on. And so that's probably got to be the measure of success in terms of accent, if you're trying to improve it.
So just get to the point where people understand exactly what you're saying when you're saying it. And so, I mean, like what you did, you were able to work with someone who identified the areas where perhaps there was some lack of clarity.
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And there's a lot of English course where people almost pretend like I've seen a lot of ads where it's like sound British in six weeks. Of course, people are not honest about that. No, there's there's a whole level of sort of
Well, how can I put it without it being inappropriate, I suppose. It's kind of like exploitative advertising and marketing because there's a huge need, a huge demand for
you know, people learning English know that they need to improve their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their
their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their
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Babs, a citizen of the world and it is the total opposite when it is the total opposite when it makes mistakes in English right because English is the privileged language right because English is the privileged language right right so there is an embarrassment to making mistakes in English which can happen to you know incredibly see you're accomplished very successful people you know see you's a big companies and so there's that insecurity that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that people have and that
because you know you'll have accomplished whatever and then you're totally penalizing yourself by having you know for example giving an interview in English I totally understand why so many politicians not from the Anglophone world refused to give interviews in English because it's it's like you know you're doing with your hands tied unless you have fantastic English.
And so to me it's it's that it's the embarrassment. I mean the one advice that I would give I would say first of all that it's personal and it depends on your background.
So for example I knew going back to the retroflexive R that when I can make the sound that is to go from to car was just not something that was necessarily going to make my life easier to go from to car easier.
And so I made my life easier you know it's just easier for me to keep the R and if people think I'm Scottish or Irish or American or Canadian you know what so be it.
So I think for everyone it's different look anyone who can afford personalized education it's not cheap but it's great my one advice though go in and tell the teacher what you want because otherwise they will do a cookie cutter version
where they kind of try to make everybody sound the same so you could just go in and say listen listen to me speak what are my weaknesses so my weakness was the L it was weird it was the T because I would say I'm getting on the tube and not I'm getting on the tube right.
And actually English people say true the whole time with me it impaired clarity right so having one on one if you have the kind of job where this really matters and if you feel that this is a something block for you then then go for education right if you can afford it look why not.
But my advice would be be clear with what you want and what you don't want my advice would be you want to be a clearer more effective more confident communicator you do not necessarily want to try to pretend to be something that you're not and never will be and quite frankly shouldn't really try to be you know that would be my my advice I guess.
Very good okay now what.
I don't know if we can get into the you know I have this newsletter news or the fine accent.
Yeah tell us about your news.
Go ahead tell us about your newsletter and your course as well.
I'd be really interested to know what your listeners think of this because I have this theory or something like opinion I formed that there's no such thing is international news people always go in the international media there's English language news right.
I mean around the world it's slightly different but certainly in the kind of like West and I mean outside of the UK or even like in the Middle East Africa few have to ask okay international news.
Most people would think CNN I think they think the BBC with the world service I think they think the New York Times the Guardian the economist the FT right now what do they all have in common their English language but actually what do they all have in common well they're British and American right.
And so even a network like CNN will have CNN domestic in the US and then it has CNN international now I started as an intern at CNN international so I know I worked for other networks but I mean I have all the respect in the world for you know with the world what they become you know they did with the template right.
But the mother ship is American the bosses care about the American channel same thing with the BBC I mean the BBC's world service is a powerhouse you know I mean it's it's everywhere in the world does a lot of good I mean it's finance in a slightly different way to the license fee but the BBC has always had a massive international footprint but ultimately the BBC is the national broadcaster in the UK finance by the license fee.
This matters this matters in the people that they choose for example to be their big presenters because you could have someone that presents on national BBC and then also presents on the world service you would not have a foreign sounding world service presenter as easily just jump into national news right.
And because national news is always what's important the bosses and again this isn't malice this isn't discriminated this is just the way it is linguistically are going to push and create stars or you know create the faces every channel needs their faces right.
And it's the same everywhere and to me that changes the international narrative mean the angle of phone footprint on it is enormous and other people I work that I'll just here for a long time so believe me I know about.
I don't want to get into that being a colonialism news and different narratives etc etc but a lot of it is just simply linguistic you know what I mean like yeah yeah yeah so you mean the kind of perspective of these news channels most of them being from the UK or USA that world view is expressed express itself through an accent or a type of language.
No I think it's the stories it's the slant so I mean you know and look I think all these organizations are also trying to push diversity but again they look at diversity from a national point of view right so in the UK we have you know size of ethnic minorities you know even those words you know there's a lot of overlap you know religion can overlap with the city.
There's this people that are first generation others that are third generation but you know in the UK certainly a broadcast like the BBC and all others try to reflect that and so in in turn that would reflect their international output but you are still reflecting something that is national and you know I mean I am Italian yes and I your average Italian no right and you can say the same for anyone is here you know that has more than one heritage.
Ultimately we've all been brought up educated in and live in the angle from world it is absurd to think it has an effect of us and effective as even sounds you know I again I don't think that this is done on purpose I just think in news in journalism you cannot negotiate or compromise on the linguistic level you cannot hire someone who does not have perfect command of English because you know you have to use language
you know writing a headline for the sun newspaper is actually one of the hardest things that you can do.
Yeah I think all click story and you have to turn it into simplistic and I mean in a negative way I mean it actually in I admire it way
simplistic language that is correct and you know hits home and makes people by the paper and there needs to be a joke in there to if it's the sun upon a pan if possible usually yes yeah so what what's your newsletter again
news with a foreign accent I kept it very much like buzz would it stays on the tin so it's on self stack news with a foreign accent I sent so a lot of it is linguistic and then a lot of it is how language affects culture in the way we see things so I do a lot of work or neo-fascism I'm of Italian heritage obviously Italian said well you know I'm mostly sort of created the word fascism so I look at things and it's not that you have a different final opinion on the fascism that's not it but just a little bit of the way we see things so I do a lot of work or a neo-fascism I'm of Italian heritage so obviously Italian said well you know I'm mostly sort of created the word fascism so I look at things and it's not that you have a different final opinion on the fascism that's not it but just a little bit of the way we see things so I do a lot of work or a neo-fascism I'm of Italian heritage so obviously Italian said well you know
just a different approaches from people's different you know national experiences so that's the newsletter and my course though which is very much I mean if you go and find me on Instagram you'll sort of find it but my course launches in April I sort of open it twice a year this is the second time I'll ever open it it's been very interesting it's aimed at people who speak English really well but it's the cultural thing and it reaffirmed how people are really embarrassed by this because one of the things I offered in my course one of the options
was group sessions and so as I individual sessions group sessions or just the online thing people went for individual sessions which obviously were more expensive or just the no one went for the group session because I think people feel it's embarrassing you know and you feel quite exposed so that was quite interesting
okay well so people can find you on Instagram yeah Barbara Sarah journalist Barbara Sarah journalist on Instagram I'll put links in the description as well for the
substack news letter and the course as well but very interesting to talk to you Barbara and to hear about your story and all the sort of kind of interesting linguistic and cultural things that that makes us think of
so great and you're on sky news what is it every evening no no not at all freelance because I do a lot of other things but sky news is sort of my news home right so I'm so yeah so I tend to do the
evening start tental midnight often weekends with the paper review so if you tune in you go where does that woman come from then you'll know it's me yeah so yeah
okay fantastic all right lovely have a fantastic day in London it's been it's been a real pleasure I have to say to to be able to get into these issues which you know mean a lot to me and yeah I think
affected me as they do so many other people so thank you so that was Barbara Sarah thanks again to Barbara for being involved in this episode and what an
interesting guest what interesting things she was able to talk about relating to her experiences and her kind of status as an English speaker not quite a native speaker but also not someone who speaks English as a second
language she has that sort of distinctive accent which is certainly clear absolutely but it does place her in certain sort of region outside the UK
somehow somehow just very interesting to hear her talking about the pragmatics of what that means in her particular industry of reading the news and what it was like for her to read the news on the UK on on UK TV in front of a British
audience and seeing their responses and stuff very interesting stuff and as I said before links are in the description for Barbara's website and her email list and so on thanks again to Barbara that was really good I really
enjoyed that and I hope you did too you can always leave your comments in the comments section what did it make you think of what was some of those sort of thoughts conclusions realizations that you had during this
episode where do you stand on the whole question of accent and the sort of accent that you should be trying to learn you know to an extent it depends on the context in which you'll be using English anyway leave your comments I'm always
interested to know what you have to say about these things so a few other announcements I announced the LEP meetup which is going to happen in denang in Vietnam on the when I can't remember now on the 17th of May from 9pm at Gordon's pizza in the and the
long area of denang with stenic you can just email stenic if you are interested in going teachers denic at gmail.com I've got a couple of other little announcements to make first of all so my podcast host is called a cast
a podcast host is basically the sort of the service the website that you use if you are a podcaster so I log into a cast I upload my episodes into a cast and add all the details
the show notes and the title and so on and then a cast publish my podcast on the internet and it's captured by all these different pod catchers you know things like Apple podcasts on your phone or pocket
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publishing publishing service for me they're also responsible for my premium content on a cast plus if you're a cast plus member just sign into your account in order to manage your a cast plus
subscription and listen to my premium podcast on one of these other platforms not Spotify because it's not a normal podcasting app and to do that you just go to teacher
Luke dot code dot UK slash account to sign into your a cast plus account where you can manage your premium subscription. So a cast is my host and they've they've actually prepared a global English language survey to help inform me as a podcaster and also a cast as the sort of planning publishing entity that it is to inform us about you the audience OK
it's a very quick survey done using type form it's a very quick type form survey and basically we just want to know about your listening habits how you discovered the podcast other bits and pieces just generally to improve our understanding of who my audience really are.
So to improve the service and just to get a better understanding of exactly who I'm talking to the more information that we have like this the more able I am to kind of picture who I've got in in sort of listening to me out there in podcast land.
A few minutes of questions it can really help a cast it can really help me it's completely anonymous no data is collected at all you don't enter your email address you don't even enter a name you just answer various multiple choice questions so it's totally anonymous and no data is collected if you're interested in taking the survey you'll find a link to the survey in the description of this podcast as I said it'll just tell you a few minutes just to answer a few questions just so that we get a better understanding of who all these ninjas are that are listening to my podcast.
Completely anonymous no data collected also before the end of this episode OPP and when I say OPP this is a sort of code meaning other people's podcasts so every now and then I get invited on other people's podcasts to talk about you know whatever it is the other podcast hosts would like to ask me about.
And I've you know I've been on other people's podcasts a lot you know you may have heard or notice my appearances on other people's shows I was on all is English not long ago talking about American and British English and other different podcast channels and so fairly recently I was interviewed by Alistair Budge on his show which is called English learning for curious minds actually I think the interview wasn't published on the podcast but it was published on his YouTube channel where I was going to talk about the podcast.
And I was also a YouTube channel where he also publishes episodes of English learning for curious minds that YouTube channel is called Leonardo English so I was interviewed by Alistair on Leonardo English and he asked me all about living in Paris and what it's really like to live in Paris and all of the ins and outs all the cultural aspects of that.
And Englishman in Paris you'll find a link to it on the page for this episode on my website. I might as well just put a link in the description as well in the episode show notes so Alice the budget interviewing me about being an Englishman in Paris you can listen to that on his show also a Lena Muto no no who was a guest on this podcast a few episodes ago talking about her work as an English teacher and then a teacher trainer and then a sort of a kind of guru for
teachers who are looking to bring their their work online and to create courses and attract clients and so on so Elena Muto no has her own podcast where she talks to English teachers about various aspects of the sort of the work and the business of being an English teacher especially in the online arena.
Her podcast is called online bound with Elena Muto no no and she interviewed me for an episode of that and she asked me lots of searching questions all about the sort of the trickier business related aspects of running a podcast and how I come up with content and the challenges I've faced about sort of marketing the content and trying to make a living from what I do.
So if you'd like to hear all of those things you can listen to my appearance on Elena Muto no no's online bound podcast.
Okay links in the description and there will be some more coming up as well more appearances on other people's shows you can basically if you want to see other appearances on other people's shows you can check a playlist on my YouTube channel.
The playlist is called Luke on other people's shows and also check the episode archive on my website especially the older sort of older days older previous years whenever I was on someone else's show I would create a link to that in the episode archive and the episode archive is just full of everything it's just absolutely almost everything I've ever done I've probably put into the archive at some point and you can find it at teacher Luke dot code.
UK slash episodes.
Okay and that's the episode archive and you'll find episode all the episodes of the podcast but also other appearances that I've made on other people's shows over the years for example when I was on the level up English podcast with Michael or when I was on rock and roll English with Martin and lots of other lots of other things who else
I can't think of the top of my head right now Aussie English I was on that one plenty of others you can just check the archive to find them okay so that's the end of this episode thank you very much for sticking with me all the way through until this point I hope that you found the episode to be interesting and
inspiring and motivating stimulating you can leave your comments in the comment section that's all for me this time speak to you in the next podcast but for now goodbye bye
bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye
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