Written question asked by Patrick Mercer (Conservative) on Tuesday, 24 October 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 26 October 2006. It was answered by Derek Twigg (Labour) on Tuesday, 7 November 2006 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Language Skills

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which foreign languages are taught to military personnel.

Answer: The following foreign languages are taught to military personnel:"Albanian""Albanian Gheg""Arabic""Arabic (Egyptian)""Arabic (Iraqi)""Arabic (Gulf)""Arabic (Levantine)""Arabic (Moroccan)""Baluchi""Bosnian""Bulgarian""Chinese (Mandarin)""Croatian""Czech""Danish""Dari""Dutch""Farsi""Finnish""Flemish""French""Georgian""German""Greek""Hebrew""Hindi""Hungarian""Indonesian""Italian""Japanese""Kazakh""Korean""Kurdish""Latvian""Lithuanian""Macedonian""Malay""Nepali""Norwegian""Pashtu""Polish""Portugese""Portuguese (Brazil)""Punjabi (Pakistani)""Romanian""Russian""Serbian""Shona""Slovak""Slovene""Spanish""Spanish LA (Latin American)""Swahili""Swedish""Thai""Turkish""Ukrainian""Urdu"Languages are required to support Defence's operational, international liaison and defence diplomacy outputs. The level of attainment varies according to need, ranging from low level colloquial skills to foil interpreter standard.

Secondary information