US: Soldiers slow to fill out online foreign language survey

[Francis Hult]

<http://faculty.coehd.utsa.edu/fhult/> 
Stars and Stripes

 

Soldiers slow to fill out online foreign language survey

 

Since May, more than 70,000 soldiers have complied with an Army request to disclose whether they can speak a language other than English.

 

More than half - 39,000 - said that they could, most often reporting some proficiency in Spanish, German or French, the old high-school standbys.

 

But if that seems like a high percentage of any group of Americans able to speak a foreign language, that's because it probably is.

 

Many soldiers who speak only English, it appears, aren't bothering to do the online survey that the Army hopes will help it to broadly assess the foreign-language skills of the fighting force and also tease out the few soldiers who might speak an obscure but pertinent tongue.

 

Full story:

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50231

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