Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Adventurer]

First Ears, Then Hearts and Minds
Facing Shortage of Arabic Interpreters, Pentagon Seeks a Technological Solution

By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 1, 2006; D01



For science-fiction buffs, it's probably a common-sense solution. Two months after arriving in Iraq, a second lieutenant with the 16th Military Police Brigade was handed the Phraselator, a hand-held device that promised to digest his English phrases and produce a prerecorded Arabic translation with an Iraqi accent.

But after a brief test last year, the soldier gave up the gadget, deciding that, while helpful in some instances, it wasn't useful to his unit, which conducted raids and provided convoy security. He had even tried to teach himself Arabic using the device but decided that it was no match for the complex language. Even such simple phrases as "What is your name?" are spoken differently in Fallujah than in Baghdad, he found. "This may have been the reason why many of the Iraqis . . . did not appear to understand the Arabic phrases & words" stored in the device, according to a report prepared for the Army.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/31/AR2006103101246_pf.html

[bucheon bum]

the # of dialects in arabic is mind-blowing.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I hope the Phraselator is better than that useless babelfish that some of my students use.

[Ya-ta Boy]