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Critical Needs Languages For US Diplomats | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work |  | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4713 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 25 04 February 2012 at 2:07am | IP Logged |
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Hey all,
I thought this could be a fun and informative discussion for others and a good resource for future learners! So, I've taken the Foreign Service Officer test before and did well enough to get quite far in the process. The State Department just upgraded and changed how they do some scoring for languages. Now, to get the biggest bonuses (all of these get .4 except Arabic gets .5) requires getting two an S-2 level on the ILR scale! Meaning this: Limited working proficiency : *able to satisfy routine social demands and limited work requirements *can handle with confidence most basic social situations including introductions and casual conversations about current events, work, family, and autobiographical information *can handle limited work requirements, needing help in handling any complications or difficulties; can get the gist of most conversations on non-technical subjects (i.e. topics which require no specialized knowledge), and has a speaking vocabulary sufficient to respond simply with some circumlocutions *has an accent which, though often quite faulty, is intelligible *can usually handle elementary constructions quite accurately but does not have thorough or confident control of the grammar. So, the languages on it change slightly from time to time overall, but here is a list of current languages that bring the biggest bonus (the only real changes in this ever are a few dialect changes, ie different dialects of Arabic are more emphasized in certain years): Arabic (egyptian or modern standard) Azerbaijani Bengali Chinese (cantonese or mandarin) Gujarati Hindi Kazakh Korean Kyrgyz, Nepali/Nepalese Pashto Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajiki) Punjabi Russian Singhalese Tamil Telugu Turkish Turkmen Urdu Uzbek So, I thought it'd be kind of fun, and potentially helpful for future learners, to divide these languages up according to which could be learned through self-study! Now, anyone applying to be a Foreign Service Officer would be an American citizen, so all the learning of these would go off the assumption that they are native English speakers and would be using programs with English as the base language! The only languages on that list I've ever studied were Russian and Cantonese. I am certain that a motivated learner of Russian could get to the S-2 level listed above based off of all the resources I know exist out there. I am not sure on Cantonese because I was enrolled in the course while living in Hong Kong, and obviously, immersion changes things. So, for someone who won't be able to live in the place of target language and get their immersion on, which other languages/dialects on the list above to you think a motivated self-learner could get to S-2 with on their own considering the kinds of resources that are out there. Clearly, motivation is often the greatest indicator for future success, but, let's assume that whoever is choosing these languages genuinely wants to learn them! I really look forward to everyone's input! Edited by ericblair on 04 February 2012 at 4:09am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4713 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 2 of 25 04 February 2012 at 2:14am | IP Logged |
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http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale2.htm#2
That is a link that gives a bit more detail on the S-2 level if it helps! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4891 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 3 of 25 04 February 2012 at 3:34am | IP Logged |
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I actually have a "wish list" of available programs for some of these. I only looked at
the main ones I would use: Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, FSI, & Assimil. I think doing these four, plus a grammar book, would bring you to S-2. I also looked into Linguaphone, but I've never done that (too expensive), so I don't know how to assess it. Here's what I found: Egyptian Pimsleur I, Michel Thomas 3 levels, Assimil Travel "Guide de Poche." verdict: you could get a very solid start, but not reach S-2 Mandarin Pimsleur I-III, Michel Thomas 2 levels, FSI "Modular" course, Assimil with Ease, Linguaphone AllTalk and Complete verdict: if you have the time and money the resources are out there. Farsi Pimsleur I verdict: I feel like I'm missing something, that there must be more than this! Russian Pimsleur I-III, Michel Thomas 2 levels, FSI "FAST" course (no audio), Assimil with Ease, Linguaphone Complete verdict: Like Mandarin, if you have the time and money the resources are out there. Turkish Pimsleur I, FSI (2 Volumes), Assimil with Ease, Linguaphone PDQ verdict: S-2 might be possible. Edited by kanewai on 04 February 2012 at 3:36am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4713 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 25 04 February 2012 at 4:08am | IP Logged |
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Nice, that is a good way to look at it, thinking of resources that you feel are
successful in languages you've already learned. I have also heard that the Penguin Russian Course is simply phenomenal. There is a Turkish Assimil program with English as a base? I didn't know that! Is it one of the older ones that has been discontinued? A quick search on Amazon didn't even turn up used copies :( I thought it'd be cool if this got a lot of responses that I'd go back in and edit the first post with links to different suggested things! For Farsi, unfortunately, I think you may be pretty close to having them all listed! It seems there is a real lack of material for all those languages, especially coming from English (meaning, maybe there are good programs for it in Arabic or French or something). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4713 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 25 04 February 2012 at 4:26am | IP Logged |
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Also, I am interested to see what resources some forum members may know for some of
these languages that seem, from my perspective, more obscure with regard to English based learning material: Azaerbaijani Bengali Gujarati Kazakh Kyrgyz Nepali/Nepalese Singhalese Telegu Turkmen Uzbek Unfortunately, I have the sneaking suspicion that all of those will fall under the "can't be learned on their own" category :( However, I'd be quite alright being proved wrong! It has happened before many times, haha. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4713 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 25 04 February 2012 at 4:47am | IP Logged |
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Okay, and on this site there is a link to 30 lessons of Pimsleur for Dari and Pashto!
http://www.uso.org/dari-course.aspx http://www.uso.org/pashto-course.aspx Obviously not enough to get to S2 on their own, but still very cool that it is there. It is amazing what resources are out there on the web and in old threads on this site. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4713 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 7 of 25 04 February 2012 at 5:05am | IP Logged |
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Also, it is interesting to see how these languages are classified by the DLAB, which is
part of the Department of Defense. Languages are split into 4 groups, and the languages listed above to the big bonuses are only present in category's III and IV: Category III language: 105 or better (Dari, Hindi, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, Urdu and Uzbek) Category IV language: 110 or better (Modern Standard Arabic, Pashto, Chinese) I think it is interesting to see how different branches of the government view things, haha. There are other category IV languages (Korean/Japanese) that only get the .17 bonus from the State Department! So the interplay between difficult and bonus is intriguing. For example, MSA is all that gives a .5 bonus and all the others listed give a .4 So, is MSA 25% more difficult to learn than Hindi? Obviously, this is all very subjective and one would be a fool to embark on trying to learn one of these solely for the job benefit. But still fun to think about! Though I am not familiar with many of these, I'd have to think that in a vacuum with similar resources for all of them, Russian and would be a lot easier than the others if only because the script is fairly similar! Though, maybe some of the others have simpler grammar than Russian or something. Edited by ericblair on 04 February 2012 at 5:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4891 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 8 of 25 05 February 2012 at 1:04am | IP Logged |
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I usually look at the main website for Assimil.
But now I see that Turkish is only available in French and German editions, and Russian in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. For some reason I thought they had one audio, but lots of translations. I'm not sure now why I thought that. I've used French-based Assimil before. My French is weak, less than B-1 maybe, but I could manage the courses. It's actually pretty cool studying another language with a French base - I strongly recommend trying it. I think it would even be worthwhile doing six months of French just so that you could use it as a base for the less-studied languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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