DARPA Funds Game To Teach Arabic To Army

finnhart writes "According to a [free reg. req.] New York Times article, DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has funded a project at the University of Southern California's School of Engineering to create a 'virtual camp' in which US soldiers can learn to speak Arabic, as well as learn local customs: 'All discussions with the villagers will have to be conducted in Arabic, and Sergeant Smith must comport himself with the utmost awareness of local customs so as not to arouse hostility. If successful, he will be paving the way for the rest of his unit to begin reconstruction work in the village'."

Comments

Learning a language is not that easy

[Dr. Weird]

Is it really possible to teach the soldiers enough Arabic -- basically in their free time -- to communicate with the "villagers." Seriously, people spend years studying foreign languages, and usually only come out with mild fluency.

Admittedly, a few words can be learned, enabling simple communication. If this is all that they have in mind, this is perhaps a feasible objective. But the quote makes it sound as if the soldiers will be truly communicating in the language. The article hedges it a bit more, focusing on problem specific communication, but I don't think it is fairly labeled 'discussion.' That is, I doubt that there will be very many fruitful 'discussions' *cough* interrogations *cough* if they must occur in Arabic.

Anyway, what the hell is a virtual 'cave'? 'Camp' is the term used in the article, and I still don't understand what either word has to do with things. Help!

~Dr. Weird~

Re:Learning a language is not that easy

[Dr. Weird]

Never doubt the power of knowing just a little bit of another language.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. It's just that the article oversells it. "Discussions" and all... makes it sound like they are going to chat about Bertrand Russell and Dewey over a cuppa and scone.

Start silly personal story It reminds me of a time I was in Italy for a couple weeks. Knowing virtually no Italian, I mainly got by on butchered French and the fact that many/most of the Italians there spoke English. A handy bit of custom to know: Pepperoni on a pizza is not a salami, or other kind of meat. Rather, upon ordering a pepporoni pizza, one receives a pizza with peppers! Beautiful, and highly recommended.

I am an American, and have been fortunate enough to spend some time abroad. I thoroughly enjoyed the local flavors. Not to mention the humiliation that most foreigners know at least as much about U.S. politics as I do (and much more about U.S. sports!). :-D

~Dr. Weird~ (P.S. Where are you?)

CAVE?

[cyranose]

I presume by "virtual cave" the poster refers to the CAVE (CAVE Audio Video Environment), which is essentially a small room where most or all walls show computer-generated imagery (rather than using, say, a head-mounted display). I imagine USC has one or two for research purposes.

However, there's nothing in the article, the press release, or associated video clip to indicate this has anything to do with the language training. It all seems to be happening on a standard computer monitor. I'm a big advocate of CAVEs for all sorts of things, but I'm not sure what price-performance advantage it would have for language training.

Make's sense

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

DoD wants to be nice to Iraqis now.

PR took a bit of a hurt when americans almost realized that their country's armed forces might actually be able to do wrong.
To reaffirm the infallibility of all US actions in the eyes of the public, the Pentagon has instigated these little PR stunts. And to avoid future embarresements, all the dirty work will be done by iraqis from now on.

Everybody wins, except the guy at the bottom.