# Mutli-lingual US Army
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 23, 2019, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094 "2019-08-23T09:53:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/1 "2019-08-23T09:53:13Z")
Anybody have any opinion on how the Army/Navy/Marines is making out with the Spanish speaking intake, and what the plans are?
I ask after hearing an Army officer speak of the difficulty he had doing his job but not being literate in Spanish.
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### Author:  [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/2 "2019-08-23T10:05:34Z")
What exactly are you talking about? “Spanish speaking intake”?
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/3 "2019-08-23T10:16:44Z")
> [@Melbourne](#):
>
> . . . the difficulty he had doing his job but not being literate in Spanish.
And what exactly does this mean? How are those two things in contrast?
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### Author:  [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/4 "2019-08-23T11:04:28Z")
I can’t imagine spanish being the only language giving service members difficulty.
When I was in I served alongside a guy from Pakistan, a Korean, lots of Puerto Ricans, lots of folks from Mexico and some of the central american countries, several indians from India.
There are lots of folks with english as a second language serving in the US armed forces. Never seemed to be a problem, since most of them spoke english better than native speakers (the guy from Pakistan sometimes had problems)
I wonder what problem the person in the op was having
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/5 "2019-08-23T12:26:33Z")
If the issue is documents in Spanish, they should always be accompanied by a translation to English. But neither doing the translation nor verifying it are an officer’s job; maybe if they’re in Personnel, but then and since no single officer can be expected to be able to read every version of legalspeak and schoolspeak in the world, they need to have resources available to do that.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/6 "2019-08-23T12:45:23Z")
> [@Melbourne](#):
>
> I ask after hearing an Army officer speak of the difficulty he had doing his job but not being literate in Spanish.
I do not find this believable. Per AR 600-20 Chapter 4 Paragraph 13, English is the operating language of the Army and everyone is expected to speak it on the job.
There are tons of Spanish-speaking people in the Army. I never once heard any of them using Spanish on the job. You might hear it during lunch or a break period, but never on the job (unless your job specifically requires you to speak it, say to civilians or military personnel of a Spanish-speaking country).
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### Author:  [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/7 "2019-08-23T13:33:57Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> If the issue is documents in Spanish, they should always be accompanied by a translation to English. But neither doing the translation nor verifying it are an officer’s job; maybe if they’re in Personnel, but then and since no single officer can be expected to be able to read every version of legalspeak and schoolspeak in the world, they need to have resources available to do that.
What documents? Are you talking about personal documents like marriage certificates and such that administrative personnel might have to deal with? We’re talking about the US Army. Getting married to foreign spouses is almost a cliche. Regardless of whatever “Spanish Intake” the OP is on about, it is in no way going to change the amount of foreign language paperwork that military human resources clerks have to process. And, like you said, all foreign language documents require an accompanied English translation.
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/8 "2019-08-23T14:00:38Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> Per AR 600-20 Chapter 4 Paragraph 13, English is the operating language of the Army and everyone is expected to speak it on the job.
I’m all about workforce diversity, but THIS has got to remain unchanged. There are some environments where the ability to communicate efficiently trumps inclusion.
Only talking about it because I’m not certain OP has communicated efficiently enough to give his own thread a noticeable direction.
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### Author:  [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/9 "2019-08-23T14:07:53Z")
Yeah, OP really needs to clarify what he’s on about. English fluency and literacy is a requirement for the armed services, and the ASVAB is only given in English.
I’ve worked with plenty of ESL servicemembers, sometimes communicating can be a challenge but it’s never affected the mission.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/10 "2019-08-23T14:18:30Z")
If the OP means the Army needing more Spanish-speaking personnel, well, that’s what [Monterey](http://www.dliflc.edu/) is for.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/11 "2019-08-23T14:20:24Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#):
>
> I’m all about workforce diversity, but THIS has got to remain unchanged.
It’s unchanged, nobody is talking about changing it, and I challenge the accuracy of the OP’s anecdote that suggests otherwise. English is going to be the official language of the US Army forever.
Having said that, there have been English-second-language speakers in the Army since it was founded, and that’s also never going to change.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/12 "2019-08-23T14:31:24Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#):
>
> What documents? Are you talking about personal documents like marriage certificates and such that administrative personnel might have to deal with?
Since the OP mentioned “literacy” (that is, the ability to read) and “intake” (the inprocessing of people into an organization), any documents involved in such a situation which for some people may be in a language different from that of the organization. I’m just reading the OP and interpreting it as close to literally as possible.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/13 "2019-08-23T15:14:14Z")
I _think_ Spanish-speaking intake means recruitment in the Hispanic community, or something. And I don’t think anyone anywhere is arguing that employers - the military or otherwise - should be expected to accommodate employees who don’t speak English.
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### Author:  [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/14 "2019-08-23T15:41:03Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> I _think_ Spanish-speaking intake means recruitment in the Hispanic community, or something. And I don’t think anyone anywhere is arguing that employers - the military or otherwise - should be expected to accommodate employees who don’t speak English.
I think actually some people _would_ think US employers or even the US Army should have to accommodate non-English speakers. Especially if they were threatened with being called ‘bigoted’ if they didn’t. 🙂
However practically speaking I believe most military recruits of Hispanic background grew up in the US or spent some years here, including in school, and it’s unusual IME (living in a heavily Hispanic area) for young people who have been in the US for long not to speak English well enough for basic work purposes.
Lots of people in this area who came to the US as adults, or young people who just arrived with their families, don’t speak English well or even at all (which is also somewhat true of people from Korea in the heavily Korean area not far away). But by and large those aren’t the people joining the military.
Unity of language is a highly important (if not absolutely necessary: Canada, Belgium, etc) feature to have a unified country. The military should never IMO and private employers should be allowed not to be (though not prevented from being, private entities) multilingual. Again, I’m not sure at this point if stuff like that is really universally agreed on. If it still is, I’m happy to be wrong in thinking it might not be.
OTOH obviously in some cases people are bugged by the fact that other Americans speak another language _besides_ English: no real reason to be bugged by that IMO. Or they are harsh on people who grew up in other countries and have trouble learning English in relatively closed immigrant communities where they don’t have to. That situation IMO is not ideal, but it’s not new (in my town long ago there were schools with instruction in Italian), and it can be hard to master a language and simultaneously carve out a new life otherwise. Also some people’s brains just aren’t wired for ever mastering another language as adults.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/15 "2019-08-23T15:45:11Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> If the OP means the Army needing more Spanish-speaking personnel, well, that’s what [Monterey](http://www.dliflc.edu/) is for.
I am a little baffled at the OP; I’m sure there’s some basic proficiency required before you can even enlist, and if you’re going to need language skills, they’ll send you for language training.
I wonder if it’s more one of those situations where there are a bunch of spanish speaking enlisted guys talking among themselves and this officer just can’t understand them when they do that.
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/16 "2019-08-23T15:53:07Z")
> [@bump](#):
>
> I wonder if it’s more one of those situations where there are a bunch of spanish speaking enlisted guys talking among themselves and this officer just can’t understand them when they do that.
Or (and we’re way in the weeds on this, hoping for some OP clarification) talking amongst themselves on a worksite in non-English. If they’re just kicking it in the barracks then they can speak in Klingon if they want to. But if it’s about a language barrier impeding military business, then some outprocessing of folks for whom English is the problem needs to happen.
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### Author:  [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/17 "2019-08-23T15:59:21Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#):
>
> Unity of language is a highly important (if not absolutely necessary: Canada, Belgium, etc) feature to have a unified country. The military should never IMO and private employers should be allowed not to be (though not prevented from being, private entities) multilingual. Again, I’m not sure at this point if stuff like that is really universally agreed on. If it still is, I’m happy to be wrong in thinking it might not be.
I would dispute that; I think it’s fantastic that America has no official language, I think it shows great maturity and also that we can have a strong country with a unity of _ideals_ and not just cosmetic unities, like race or language. I also think it’s amazing that the military can call upon servicemembers of a wide variety of backgrounds to translate when needed; what other Army in the world (outside of Pakistan and maybe India) has as many native speakers of, say, Urdu as the US military? That’s a huge strength.
I also think it’s possible to hold this belief that the US government shouldn’t require English fluency, and also believe that the US armed forces should. Those are not contradictory positions.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/18 "2019-08-23T16:27:36Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> If the OP means the Army needing more Spanish-speaking personnel, well, that’s what [Monterey](http://www.dliflc.edu/) is for.
I was there! I was a 98G2LKP, studying Korean from 1974 to 1975. I used it on the job I was later trained for. For a Kansas girl it was heaven, my barracks room looked down the hill to a great view of Monterey Bay. I could hear the sea lions bark at night,and the way the fog would sometimes cover the water, hiding it.
And BTW, when I was in basic training, some girls in my platoon were held back for the next session, because their lack of fluency in English was holding them up. They were all sisters and cousins, from Puerto Rico.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/19 "2019-08-23T17:04:17Z")
By contrast, you don’t need to know French to join up with the Foreign Legion (you are presumably supposed to be literate in some language, though). I assume you learn pretty quickly during basic training…
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2019, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mutli-lingual-us-army/839094/20 "2019-08-23T17:49:11Z")
> [@steronz](#):
>
> I I also think it’s amazing that the military can call upon servicemembers of a wide variety of backgrounds to translate when needed; what other Army in the world (outside of Pakistan and maybe India) has as many native speakers of, say, Urdu as the US military? That’s a huge strength.
The Pakistan Army’s working language is errrrr…_English_!
😛
😃
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