Language Issues

[Van]

Kevin,
You're doing the right thing in pursuing a language. Some thought on how to pick one;

1) Pick a language spoken in places you'd like to go. If you don't like cold weather, don't study Finnish (Finland is a great place, but only has about three months a year that aren't bitter cold). My next project is studying Bahasa (Indonesian). There are terrorists there, there is snorkeling to die for, and they grow coffee and chocolate; my kind of place. This leads into...

2) Pick a language that is needed. Latin is a great language for a number of reasons, but only spoken in Vatican City, not of great utility to the DoD.

Which language? Mandarin, Korean, Urdu/Hindi, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Afrikaans, and Arabic are all fairly obvious and needed, but Chinese dialects, Central Asian languages, Pacific Islander languages and less common Pakistani and Indian languages are needed. A slightly obscure language would really make you stand out from the crowd. (In most somewhat metropolitan areas) you can find a club to help you.

Check out relations between languages before settling on one. Dari and Farsi (by reputation), Serb and Slovene (by personal experience), are closer pairs than Spanish and Portuguese. On the other hand Mandarin and Cantonese are fairly far apart despite being both 'Chinese'.

I understand the reservations expressed by others about the lower density languages, but it is good to hear conflicting positions. I'd skip on Spanish as the Army has many people who grew up speaking New World Spanish, and the need for additional speakers is not great. I'm not sure I agree with the earlier comment about left over Cold War Russian linguists; they're retiring rapidly, and most are at a point in their lived where field time is less attractive (or practical) than it used to be.

I'm not sure I agree with 120mm about "Your goal for being an officer should be to lead soldiers, not do a job or speak a language." The Army is a big place and needs a lot of MI officers who aren't in traditional troop-leading positions. If you're dead set on being an MI officer, go forth an conquer, but know that it might be a challenge to get to where you wish to go. I can completely understand someone whose Army career aspiration is to be a '2' or 'asst. 2' for 20 years. It's hard to do, but I understand the desire, and if competent, that officer is no less valuable than one that commands a battalion as the apex of his or her career.

@120mm - this will circle back to the old dispute about "all officers are leaders first, last, and always" vs. "balance of staff and leadership officers" if we're not careful. A whole seperate rant...

[Surferbeetle]

Kevin, You're doing the right thing in pursuing a language. Some thoughts on how to pick one;

1) Pick a language spoken in places you'd like to go.

Pick your languages for you and you alone; they take substantial time and effort and since life is short, you want to be working on something that you love.

SF, CA, FAO, MI, DoS, USAID, and OGA are some governmental pathways where an extra language or two will help you to complete missions plus the time and effort you spend on mastering them will be financially rewarded (language pay for language slots). In the private sector the banking, hotel, transportation, and energy industries seem to care about those types of skills.

Gaining and maintaining your skills: get the 500 verbs book for your language (ipod app or hard copy), take college courses, hire tutor's, pay for immersion opportunities...seek settings where you can regularly practice speaking, download foreign news podcasts, read BBC online (it's printed in various languages), read local papers (internet), read, read, read. Shortwave broadcasts are still around as well (dawn and dusk are the best listening times). Spend some bucks and get a satellite tv package with foreign channels of your choice A summer or semester abroad is a great thing and will change your life. If you haven't signed an ROTC contract yet consider a year abroad...teach english somewhere and get paid to learn....

[John T. Fishel]

Most US born native speakers of Spanish come from one of two sub-cultures - Puerto Rican or Tex-Mex. Both dialects have been strongly influenced by the US mainstream culture. In colloquial Puerto Rican Spanish, for example, the formal "you" (usted) has almost entirely disappeared and been replaced by the informal "tu" form.

An anecdote to illustrate the signifcance: Some years ago I was leading a SOUTHCOM civic action site survey in Honduras and one member of my team was a female CPT from Puerto Rico. The Honduran military who were supposed to join us on the survey had failed to show and I had recruited a Honduran LT to provide a Honduran face to the team. The CPT began to interrogate him as if he was a raw recruit constantly using the "tu" in one of the most liguistically formal cultures in Latin America. So I intervened and got her out of the discussion and later chewed her out (in private) for using the "tu" with him (which was clearly insulting). She, of course, had no clue that she had done anything wrong and I am not sure that even today she would get it.

Moral of the story: Relying on "native speakers" without any training in the sub-cultural implications of their language is dangerous at best. Or, as Churchill put it when speaking of the Brits and Americans, "One people divided by a common language."

Cheers

JohnT

[Wyvern]

Van brought up a good point about Indonesian; it's quite a useful language to have, particularly in light of increased ties between the American and Indonesian militaries.

Moreover, it's not too hard to learn. I'm not too sure about "standing out from the crowd", but John T. Fishel put it well: no matter which language you pick, do it well and get it right.

[120mm]

I'm not sure I agree with 120mm about "Your goal for being an officer should be to lead soldiers, not do a job or speak a language." The Army is a big place and needs a lot of MI officers who aren't in traditional troop-leading positions. If you're dead set on being an MI officer, go forth an conquer, but know that it might be a challenge to get to where you wish to go. I can completely understand someone whose Army career aspiration is to be a '2' or 'asst. 2' for 20 years. It's hard to do, but I understand the desire, and if competent, that officer is no less valuable than one that commands a battalion as the apex of his or her career.

@120mm - this will circle back to the old dispute about "all officers are leaders first, last, and always" vs. "balance of staff and leadership officers" if we're not careful. A whole seperate rant...

My point is two-fold: First, when you are assessed for branch, the drunken poo-flinging monkeys will put you where they want, not where you want. Therefore, "planning on going MI" is not a solid battle plan if your choice is to become an officer. So when you go to QM school, your plans to be Chinese linguist will be largely foiled.

Secondly, commissioned officers on active duty get to do their actual core competency job for very few years of a 20+ year career. The rest of the time, they get to do some completely unrelated staff job. I have not met a single "Do-er" who is really happy with their career as a commissioned officer because of that fact.

That is the origin of my "commissioned vs. Warrant Officer" argument.

[John T. Fishel]

120mm, after the assignment gods have selected you for QM (for reasons known only to them) and you've spent the required time in grade and made it through selection to CPT, you now have the opportunity to ask the army to put you into SF, CA, MISO (formerly PSYOP), and FAO where you have a good chance of (1)getting the kind of job you want and (2) using the language - or another foreign tongue

Cheers

JohnT

[120mm]

120mm, after the assignment gods have selected you for QM (for reasons known only to them) and you've spent the required time in grade and made it through selection to CPT, you now have the opportunity to ask the army to put you into SF, CA, MISO (formerly PSYOP), and FAO where you have a good chance of (1)getting the kind of job you want and (2) using the language - or another foreign tongue

Cheers

JohnT

I know, but why put up with that butt-pain, if you really just want to do the job?

I know the whole professional officer credo and all that stuff, but I must lack the character necessary and spent my 28 year career either a) fighting to get to a position to collect intel, b) collecting intel c) wishing I was collecting intel while avoiding doing completely worthless to anyone staff-work in a visibly half-*ssed manner, all the while poking fun at more professional staff officers.

Looking back, I should've gone W.O. or enlisted when I had the chance.

[Stan]

Looking back, I should've gone W.O. or enlisted when I had the chance.

Drew,
If it's any consolation coming from me, you'd have made an excellent (sneaky and conniving) NCO

[Tom Odom]

an excellent (sneaky and conniving) NCO

Now that's redundant...

[Ken White]

Can't be the first adjective without being highly proficient at the last two...

[Tom Odom]

Can't be the first adjective without being highly proficient at the last two...

Actually you can't be Stan without the following four as in excellent, conniving, sneaky, NCO..

He is a package deal