Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5830 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical)
| Message 9 of 11 23 February 2010 at 7:33pm | IP Logged |
I am not quite that old yet, but both of those fields have some appeal to me, especially NGO work. If I was forced to pick today what I was going to do for the next ten years, it would almost certainly be NGO work related to education in the developing world. But I've still got plenty of education to take care of before I commit to anything for certain. And of course, I absolutely see my language studies as a part of the long-term plan.
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Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5751 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee
| Message 10 of 11 25 February 2010 at 7:53pm | IP Logged |
I work as a fundraiser for various NGO's. I don't know if you're just counting diplomacy and travel work but I'm definitely in the nonprofit sector. :)
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Duke100782 Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Philippines https://talktagalog.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4507 days ago 172 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin
| Message 11 of 11 18 December 2013 at 3:02pm | IP Logged |
I'm a diplomat and I'll share my peronal views based on my limited experiences. I think the foreign language
program in my country's foreign service can be improved. For example, in our officer's exam the foreign
language part was only 5% of the total grade of the written exam. There is no clear incentive for learning
foreign languages. I do think however that only if your understanding of your own country is paramount
should one consider then improving your knowledge of the host country and its language. I have to mention
though that I've seen that the Russian and American (of course) diplomats always have comparatively
excellent language skills. Though speaking the language of your host country will be a huge advantage, it is
possible to get by most of your official functions using interpreters. Proficiency in English is especially
important as a lingua franca.
Edited by Duke100782 on 18 December 2013 at 3:12pm
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