A video displaying the linguistic chops of one television reporter is generating millions of views on social media.
The compilation, shared Monday on Twitter by Washington, D.C.-based journalist Philip Crowther, shows the polyglot reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, on the country’s ongoing standoff with Russia.
The video begins with Crowther detailing the situation in English, before switching to his reports for other networks in Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and what he says is Luxembourgish.
As of midday Tuesday, the video had been vixjmtzywewed 11.7 million times.
"And the owl was too stunned to speak," the official Twitter account for the language learning platform Duolingo said about the clip.
Crowther, an international affiliate reporter for the Global Media Services department at The Associated Press, was born in Luxembourg. Along with being fluent in French, Spanish and Portuguese, his biography says he is a native speaker of English, Luxembourgish and German.
Crowther has released similar videos of his dispatches in the past, including reports on the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the Tokyo Olympic Games, and a memorial service for George Floyd in June, 2020.
In a series of tweets in late January, Crowther also spoke Catalan and Arabic.
His six-language coverage of U.S. President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021 also earned him a professional excellence award from the Association and Club of Foreign Press Correspondents.
Six-language coverage from #Kyiv with @AP_GMS. In this order: English, Luxembourgish, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German. pic.twitter.com/kyEg0aCCoT
— Philip Crowther (@PhilipinDC) February 21, 2022
And the owl was too stunned to speak.
— Duolingo (@duolingo) February 22, 2022
Even #Luxembourg is helping to evacuate people from Kabul. I told as many people as possible about it, through @AP_GMS. In this order, from #Islamabad: German, Luxembourgish, French, Spanish, English, and Portuguese. pic.twitter.com/3ysjMrSDhl
— Philip Crowther (@PhilipinDC) August 25, 2021
The #Tokyo2020 closing ceremony in six acts and in this order: Portuguese, English, French, Luxembourgish, Spanish, and German. pic.twitter.com/xWKHmv3TPy
— Philip Crowther (@PhilipinDC) August 8, 2021
Recent work covering George Floyd’s memorial service in #Minneapolis for @AP_GMS in six languages. In this order: German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Luxembourgish, and English. pic.twitter.com/DBw8zSGkzs
— Philip Crowther (@PhilipinDC) June 12, 2020
I used the @AP_GMS prompter for the usual 6 languages in #Kyiv, leaving out English to stay within the 140-second limit. I added two more at the end. Catalan came out sounding too much like Portuguese. Arabic was phonetic. Let me know what you think, language lovers of the world. pic.twitter.com/1zCeK4Q97N
— Philip Crowther (@PhilipinDC) January 29, 2022
Here’s the video that led to the award of one of five Professional Excellence Prizes from @ForeignPressUSA this year:https://t.co/0EaqoTI00M
— Philip Crowther (@PhilipinDC) December 6, 2021
