Mr. Kharadze's ignorance of Russian, the language their captors insisted on using with the Georgian prisoners, caused him further problems, they said.
America had the Bradleys and the Abrams, but it knew next to nothing about Iraq, and soon ignorance -- of the language, tribal alliances and family and clan networks -- left U.S. soldiers ambushed and outwitted in the deadly alleyways of Falluja and Najaf.
Still, it's strange to see some English-speakers who wear ignorance of the local language as a badge of pride.
More nuanced coverage has emerged in recent years, but as the Olympics approached, along with 30,000 journalists, Williamson worried they would create a perfect storm: swarming reporters with tight deadlines, limited resources, and ignorance of the local language and landscape.
With his experience both of Japan (1931-34) and China, he was slotted into propaganda for the BBC, first concerning Japan, and was then put in charge of the Chinese section - though it's interesting to learn of Empson's almost complete ignorance of the Chinese language.
Coulter titles the piece "America Nears El Tipping Pointo," presumably to make a virtue of her ignorance of the Spanish language.
Their value, however, is lessened by the writers' ignorance of Náhuatl (the Aztec language at the time of the conquest), their lack of understanding of the Indian way of thinking, and their deep hostility to the native religion, which they considered to be inspired by the devil.
R.T. DAVIES Silver Spring, Md. Ms. Stasio responds: Like all my impromptu conversations in Moscow, this effort to communicate with young soldiers was a source of some hilarity to the group -- no doubt because of my total ignorance of their language.
