The BBC defence correspondent’s language skills have taken her around the world on assignment

I couldn’t have done that job without the language. Most people in eastern Germany had learned Russian rather than English as their second language behind the Iron Curtain, so it would have been impossible for me to work there as a correspondent without German in the early 1990s.

Equally, I wouldn’t have got the job as BBC Paris correspondent without functional French. During my interview, I was asked to do a “live” obituary in French of a leading politician, talking about how he would be remembered. Those dastardly BBC interviewers certainly tested our language skills. It was a real challenge, and I was very glad by the time I staggered to the end of it. More.

See: The Guardian

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