Based on the accounts in the article, it seems that Britain was unprepared for conflict with Japan, and the crash language program basically failed.<p>Years ago, I read in a book or magazine article that the British Imperial service was actually quite strong when it came to language instruction. In Malaya, as I recall, they were able to teach officers Cantonese, Hokkien, and other Chinese dialects that are quite hard for non-native speakers to master. I assume that the diplomatic service was similarly effective when it came to training their officers in the languages required to carry out their overseas missions.<p>So, British officials were able to learn foreign languages, including obscure Asian languages used in their colonies. Yet Japanese was not considered a priority, even though Japan had been regarded as an expansionist regional power for decades (which every Western colonial power was aware of, thanks to Japan's concessions in China, its puppet state in Manchuria, and other militaristic activities/ambitions in the 1920s and 1930s).