The Independent reports that London police are to be given language lessons to help them deal with members of the public who don’t speak English. This is a laudable idea but what about the practicalities?
In the multi-cultural melting pot that is the nation’s capital, it is the sort of question that is bound to arise once in a while for London’s 31,000 police officers: how do you say “Which way did he go?” in Arabic? Or Polish. Or Spanish. Or Bulgarian. Or Vietnamese. Or Farsi. An increasing number of London’s beat bobbies will soon be able to answer such questions without reverting to a dictionary, or Google Translate.
Ignoring the erratic use of question marks and the improbability of a dictionary or Google Translate being available, let alone being of any use in pursuit of a fleeing villain, we are left with the fact that police are likely to be asking rather than answering such questions. And that means that they will face the classic phrasebook problem of being able to ask a question without understanding the answer.
The courses, which offer 40 hours of learning over six weeks, aim to offer a level of knowledge comparable to a GCSE, with vocabulary tailored to the needs of policing.
If that is true, either they have found a revolutionary new teaching method or GCSE is a ridiculously low level. Or the two are comparable in the way that chalk is comparable to cheese. Forty hours of language teaching, especially in a difficult language such as Arabic, Polish, Bulgarian, Vietnamese or Farsi, is practically nothing. A normal language school course is about 120 hours a year with about five years for Spanish speakers starting from scratch to be ready for Cambridge First Certificate.
What will they be learning? According to the Independent:
Spanish
How many drinks have you had today? Cuántas bebidas alcoholicas tomaste hoy?
Drunken Spaniards apparently being a common problem in London. Unlike Spain, where public drunkenness is practically unknown.
Put your hands on your head. Pon tus manos en tu cabeza
Stay back! Quedense por atras!
I am curious to know why the first two sentences are in the familiar tú form while the third is in the polite usted form. Also, Spanish does not use the possessive for parts of the body. It should be Pon (or Ponga) las manos en la cabeza. There should also be accents on alcohólicas and Quédense and inverted question and exclamation marks (¿ and ¡) at the beginning of the first and third sentences respectively. These are small points in themselves but I assume that this is copied directly from the police teaching material.
Italian
No, don’t worry, there is no mafia in London, we have very few drive-by shootings. Non ti preoccupare; non esiste la Mafia a Londra. Ci sono pochi sparatorie da macchina in corsa
A Google search for < drive-by shooting Italy > produces no relevant results for Italy. There are lots for the USA and even one from my home town of Crosby, Merseyside. But none for the Italian Mafia.
’Ello, ’ello, ’ello. Salve, salve, salve
Do the British police really say this? (For non-British readers, this is a cliché representation of the way British police officers speak.) And do Italians really say salve?
Russian
Yes, I agree, London in the snow doesn’t look that different from Moscow. Da, soglasen, pod snegom london ne tak otlichaetsya ot moskvy
Come along quietly. Tikho, tikho, poshli so mnoi
Put the handcuffs on. Nadet' naruchniki
Really?
Arabic
What did the suspect look like? Kaif kana shakl al mouttahham?
This is the point at which the police officer needs to understand the answer.
We would advise you to keep your iPad out of sight. Nansahuka biaan tatruk al ipad ba’idan a’an al-anzar
I am surprised to see ipad in the Arabic translation. While I cannot be sure about commercial names, I do know that Arabic has no p sound. When I lived in Saudi Arabia my name was transliterated into Arabic with the symbol corresponding to a voiced b, making my name rather like beater.
I repeat, it is excellent that the police should have language skills. However, something is going wrong with the way in which they are being taught. Or perhaps with the way in which the Independent has reported this process.
Premature April Fool?
Posted by: dw | 02/04/2013 at 18:17