Comments on: Interesting opportunity/responsibility for return missionaries with a foreign language

By: Amira

Amira — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 03:42:22 +0000

But those missionaries aren’t learning much Arabic. Older couples rarely learn much of the foreign language, and there are very, very few, if any, younger missionaries being sent to those Middle Eastern countries even though their mission technically covers that area.

By: annegb

annegb — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 08:15:11 +0000

Yeah, that’s right. We have some friends (I mean, Curtis, yeah) who were on a mission in Jordan. They actually taught and converted some Iraquis who went back to Iraq to teach their families. I know them personally.

Well…I know who they are personally. I know their daughter-in-law pretty well. They go around and give talks about it here in southern Utah.

By: Chad Too

Chad Too — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 08:33:25 +0000

Our school district is starting a “Strategic Languages for Law, Public Safety and Homeland Security” magnet school next fall. It’s specifically aimed at those who look to careers on a police force, in fire-fighting, or who want to work in the FBI/CIA or Homeland Security.

Electives in law, criminology, fire-training, and intense language coursework in Spanish, Russian, or Chinese will be offered alongside the required curriculum. It’s expected that Arabic will be available in short order.

By: ltbugaf

ltbugaf — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 14:24:42 +0000

Everyone else in the world speaks more than one languages.

Bryce, are you sure you want to stand by that statement?

By: Curtis

Curtis — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 08:29:19 +0000

But there are missions in the middle east. My friend was just called to Greece not too long ago. His territory covers Jordan, Sicily (sp?), Egypt and Lebanon. He is not allowed to actively seek out investigators in some of these areas but is allowed to teach investigators. This is the Athens Greece mission and it is pretty meager, only 50 missionaries total in the mission.

By: Bryce I

Bryce I — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 01:19:50 +0000

I worked on a project that was funded by a DARPA grant geared at building handheld translation units for field use in Afghanistan (speak English into the box, out comes Arabic/Farsi/Pashto and vice-versa). Needless to say, the boxes (more like big palm pilots) didn’t work all that well.

One of the main challenges in the case of Pashto was finding native speakers. There aren’t many resources for Pastho by way of dictionaries, grammars, etc. There’s a small community of speakers in San Francisco, but very few of them were willing to work with the military to help develop these boxes. I imagine that this is the case for many of the languages of interest to the military.

The real problem is that Americans are stupid and lazy. Everyone else in the world speaks more than one languages. We sit around and expect everyone to speak English.

By: Floyd the Wonderdog

Floyd the Wonderdog — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:53:39 +0000

Sweet!!! This may be my chance to visit North Korea. The only draw back is that I might have trouble infiltrating. I’m 6 feet tall and blond.

By: annegb

annegb — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 09:26:30 +0000

I’m pretty sure China is going to try to take us over, so I think we should all learn Chinese. I honestly think all the Chinese restaurants that are coming here are a plot. Maybe not all, but most. We have six here in Cedar, I think. I ask them, they all tell me they came from mainland China. I ask, “how did you get out?” And they never answer me.

I’m really glad we have missionaries in Taiwan because they can interpret and help the rest of us.

By: Amira

Amira — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 05:06:46 +0000

Arabic and Farsi are far from the only languages that would be needed. I am pleased to see the US government seeing that there is a lot that can be done here.

A returned missionary would still need a lot more training to be able to be really useful to the government. But I’d rather see an RM get further training than the government continuing to use people who have gone through the military’s language training- there are essential cultural experiences that are lost in the military training.

By: Craig

Craig — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:23:45 +0000

From the tenor of the press release, it seems that the powers that be are beginning to realize the ethnocentric tendancies of Americans. It also seems that the stress on foreign languages is not just for the Arabic/Farsi languages. There is a call for all foreign languages. I was especially sensitive to the fact that the government might help with money towards those studying languages.