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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'."
Obviously if you only have a short while in which to learn a foreign language its vital to learn just a few key phrases.
However, my experience of trying to learn foreign languages is that teachers always teach you the most inappropriate phrases first. For example, the first things I learnt to say in French was, "I speak French". Not much use being able to wonder round saying "I speak French" and nothing else.
Latter our French teacher seemed to have some obsession with the opening and closing of windows. While this was, at that point, a complete waste of time it did prove to be rather useful some 15 or so years latter when faced with a copy of French MS Windows. I'm sure the curriculum has been adjusted to ensure that no mention of windows is now made.
So I suspect the US soldiers will be trained with the Arabic version of the following useful phrases:
- I speak Arabic
- My name is sergeant bob.
- What time is it?
- Where is the nearest supermarket?
When more useful phrases might be: