Language Issues

[Brian.gellman]

Kevin,

I am an MI officer, and when I was a cadet, well before the current wars, I was thinking the same thing you were. I took Russian. Here is my advice to you:

1. Don't take Russian or any other language that you will not be able to practice. Despite three years and a Russian minor, I lost all if it within a couple of years because it is extremely perishable when you have no exposure to it.

2. Your logic of picking a language to set yourself apart makes sense in theory, however in practice, selection boards tend to be very short sighted and are only thinking about today's requirements.

3. As an MI officer, you are not required to have a language, and unless you are really good at it, it is unlikely you will use more than a few phrases (which can be learned in country).

4. I took Russian and German. Do you know how many countries speak those two languages? Maybe 4? My advice, take a look at the most common languages in the world. English, French, Spainish and Arabic. If you can speak two if those four, you will be able to communucate in probably 70% of the countries in the world.

5. Chinese? A good consideration due to the expected influence they will have on the future world. However, see comments above. Hard to maintain. Limited applicability.

6. Chose a language program that includes a road trip. The best thing you will get in any language course is learning the culture, and that can't happen in a classroom.

Hope this helps.

Brian

[82redleg]

Language training is important, but I don't think it factors into your branch assignments.

Also, unless things have changed recently (like the last year), you can't directly assess from ROTC into PSYOP- you branch something else, do well, and after 2-1/2 years or so, you are selected by the ARSOF board to attend the PYSOP course.

Talk to your cadre about the system- its unfortunate, but there are ways to game the system. To do that, you have to know how it works. My info is 14 years out of date now, but there are trends you can play, based on your individual scores, because each branch can only take so many top 1/3, middle 1/3 and bottom 1/3 scoring cadets.

[Stan]

Hey Kevin,
Having learned four languages over the years I would echo John's advice: Learning any language will be a benefit for not only your MI career, but the remainder of your life.

I would take Russian over Chinese, although both are good choices and will serve you well. I disagree with Brian - There are more than 170 million Russian speakers and 2 million living in Germany alone (just a tad behind Arabic speakers in the world).

We could argue that there are five times more Chinese speakers than Russian, but keep in mind that the geographical distribution of Russian is far greater being the second language for many people in Europe and the former East Bloc.

Good luck with whatever you decide !
Regards, Stan

[SJPONeill]

Chinese - while opportunities for using in China itself may be limited there are many places around the world in which there are Chinese-speaking communities where stability type ops are likely/possible although I'm in no position to offer an advice as to which form of Chinese e.g. Mandarin, Cantonese, etc...

The other advantage is that you would be the only guy on your block able to actually be able to read the instructions for any of your home appliances...

[Brian.gellman]

@Kevn,

My argument against Russian isn't about the sheer number of Russian speakers in the world, it is about how easy it is to maintain and it's worldwide applicability. Just yesterday I interviewed an MI Russian linguist, and despite being his control language, he talked about how hard it is to maintain. Yes, there are many countries in the works that once was forced to speak Russian, Afghanistan included, but I would argue that speaking Russian will not endear you with many of those populations.

Regarding applicability, you are correct, the numbers speaking Russian are significant, but they are still somewhat regionalized and focused in a part of the world where we certainly have interests, but I suspect limited involvement. I expect a greater involvement in Africa (assuming we maintain our current foreign policies). French would be more useful. I personally have found Spanish to be an extremely useful language and very easy to maintain due to the prevalence if Spanish here in the States.

So my advice is learn a language with great utility worldwide, enough regular access to maintain. My experience has been that once you learn a new language, it is easier to learn another when a mure relevant and timely language presents itself. Don't try to predict an odd language, go with the high probability langauges. Good luck with whatever you pick.

[Brian.gellman]

Sorry, last post was meant to be @Kevin, but in response to Stan's comments. As you will see, there are multiple views on this topic.

[Abu Suleyman]

As a former Army Chinese linguist I will make a few arguments for chinese, that you may not have thought of.

1) There will always be a demand for Chinese, no matter how many linguists there are there will never be enough.

2) The Chinese are always very gracious and there are Chinese communities everywhere. While this is true to greater or lesser extents with any language, the near ubiquity of "Chinatowns" throughout the world means that with Chinese, you have a foot in that door. More importantly, as you have hopefully learned with your other languages, knowing the language goes a long long way towards respect, and that is especially true with Chinese.

3) China has a ton of movies, many of them good, and most of them available through Netflix or online, and sometimes even Redbox or Blockbuster depending on where you live.

4) Chinese food is really good, and it can be a lot of fun going to the places that your Chinese speaking partners know.

5) You will never get a tattoo that says something you don't understand, because it looks cool, and you will know what all the idiots around you have tattooed on their backsides.

6) There are a lot of really good students from China, who it is very useful to know. If you know their language, they will seek you out. (This is not about 'asians are smart' or anything like that, just that many of the best students from China come to the US for an education.) I have had several very well known visiting professors seek me out for assistance, and help me in turn, only because I speak Chinese, even though I am a grad student.

Then I have to give the one drawback.

1) Chinese is easily the hardest language I have ever learned, and I speak six including Arabic. This is because there is no alphabet of any kind, and there are 60k+ characters. That is a lot. However, that is also the reason for a lot of the things that I was talking about in the plusses. If you climb a big mountain, you will get rewarded with a great view.