Dubai Police's Chinese-speaking cop helps tourist

Force says officers are learning a variety of languages to help visitors from far and wide

Dubai Police can now communicate in many different languages

Dubai Police can now communicate in many different languages
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A Mandarin-speaking Dubai Police helps a tourist who lost his belongings in a video designed to showcase the range of languages that the city's officers can speak.

The officer converses with a visitor who has lost his phone and wallet, directing him towards an unnamed police station in the Bluewaters Island area.

"Do you speak Chinese? Great!" the visitors says.

"Dubai Police are always there for you", the officer adds in Chinese at the end.

Most officers have traditionally spoken English in addition to the Arabic they need to serve on the force, but have branched out to cater for the millions of tourists that visit the Emirates each year.

As far back as a decade ago Dubai Police had a dozen officers that had completed a Chinese-language course, and the force had added to that in recent years.

Chinese and Russian are particularly in demand as fluency in English in those countries is relatively low. Officers in Dubai's Deira and Bur Dubai areas, which are home to large a Asian population, often speak Hindi or Urdu with proficiency.

Dubai’s top six source markets for 2019, before the pandemic began, were India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Oman, China and Russia which together accounted for more than 7 million visitors.

In March, Abu Dhabi Police released a video with five officers in turn speaking in English, French, Urdu, Russian and Mandarin with impressive fluency, after completing language courses as part of their training.

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Updated: August 03, 2021, 9:32 AM