English in Saudi Arabia

Video Transcript

“Saudi Arabia, that was kind of a little unique there. We had two exercises going on at same time, same area. So the aviation, we were able to do the same thing we did in United Arab Emirates, for having the pilots facilitate for translation needs to the mechanics, fuel handlers, and the ground personnel. Now on the other side, we had a friendship with a heavy ground force unit. So their ground forces, maybe a few of them were proficient in English, so what we had to do is we brought in a National Guard and Reserve linguists that facilitated a lot of the needs for us there. They were out with the gun trucks, the Humvees, all the units that were out on the situational training lines, to facilitate the translation needs there. What that kind of introduced was, [it] gave us an idea of, ‘OK, what's required for, OK if we have a battalion, company, platoon, just what's the ideal number of linguists that you would need to make a mission happen or to facilitate any kind of integration forces that you have.’”

In this video, an Army major discusses speaking English in Saudi Arabia.