Everybody should learn Arabic so we don't even need translaters, and this is because it looks like we are going to be involved with things Arabic for a long time. It can't be that hard to learn, considering that 3 year olds on the streets of Baghdad and Cairo can speak it.
it looks like we are going to be involved with things Arabic for a long time.
Not to come off sounding like Ed Begley jr., but if we had an alternative fuel source, like solar, we could let that festering hell hole that is the arab world sink back into it's petty tyrannies and total irrelevance. Little more than apes for the Israelis to keep in line.
(Actually, that second part doesn't sound much like Ed Begley jr. at all, does it?)
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree totally with you. We really are going to be busy with Arabic speakers for a long time to come. So long, in fact, that American schools should immediately make plans to begin teaching Arabic in our schools in order to make it easier to understand these people and what they are up to (especially terrorists). I'm serious about this; I think you are, too. We cannot afford to remain so "cut off" from a major world civilization, some of who members have lethal issues with us.
What do you say, educators? What do you think?
Inshallah!
I agree that we should learn the language, but it's not as easy as you think. And the older you get, the harder it is to learn a new language.
Some of us have enough trouble with english, let alone Arabic.
OTOH if I were a young person looking to make my way in the world I'd learn Arabic.
Three-year-olds have a much easier time learning any foreign language. It's a lesson I remember from Psychology 101 back in my undergrad days. The brains of young children are geared to picking up languages (which is how American children learns to speak English while listening to the incohrent babble of adults).
When you get older that you lose that ability.