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Greatest & craziest jobs for polyglots? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6887 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes  3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 41 of 57 08 April 2010 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
My dream job and what I'm working towards... give me another 10 years and Seoul National won't seem so far away ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| horshod Pentaglot Groupie India Joined 5580 days ago 74 posts - 107 votes Speaks: Hindi, Marathi*, Bengali, Gujarati, English Studies: German, Spanish, Turkish | Message 42 of 57 06 June 2010 at 1:58am | IP Logged | ||
That would be awesome!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5638 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 43 of 57 06 June 2010 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
My grandma is fluent in English, German, and Russian, and she was one of the first female agents in the CIA. She worked as a spy in Austria during the cold war. She used to tell me stories when I was a kid about how she had to learn to drive in two weeks in order to get the job and how she had a purse with a camera hidden in it that she used to take covert pictures. She also used to complain about how Austrians would snub her because she was speaking "German, not Austrian" and would claim they couldn't understand her even when they clearly could! She eventually left the CIA due to political disagreement with the direction the agency was going. She also has a close friend who has worked as a UN translator most of his life and is fluent in five or six languages. I have no interest in working for the government, and simultaneous interpretation scares the heck out of me, so neither of these jobs would be my ideal polyglot job; but these people in my life inspire me anyway to become as fluent as possible and pursue my dream of using my languages for my job every day! I'll probably start as a translator but I want to write travel books, and use my languages to explore each place I write about. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5665 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 44 of 57 08 June 2010 at 10:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Did anyone here mentioned this: FSB (formerly know as the KGB) agent
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5766 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 45 of 57 11 June 2010 at 1:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Greatest job for polyglots? Either:
1. International jewel thief; or 2. Autocractic and heavy-handed World Dictator. Absolutely worst job for a polyglot: Mime. Edited by Spanky on 11 June 2010 at 1:26am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mcjon77 Senior Member United States Joined 6421 days ago 193 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), French | Message 46 of 57 14 June 2010 at 5:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Here is my polyglot pick for coolest job around.
United States Army Special Forces Solder (AKA the "green berets"). Every Special Forces soldier MUST speak at least 1 foreign language. Several speak 2 or 3. As part of the training process, any recruit that does not already speak a foreign language (or perhaps wants to pick up an additional one) receives several months of full-time intensive language training. To my knowledge, other than the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterrey and it's satellite campus in DC, the JFK Special Warfare Center (where special forces soldiers are trained) has the only full-time, permanent foreign language school in the military. Current Language they teach at the School include: Spanish French Russian Tagalog Thai Indonesian Persian/Farsi Chinese Korean Arabic Their primary missions (what sets them apart from other American spec ops units) are unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense. Unconventional warfare is training rebels in a country to help them overthrow their government. Foreign Internal Defense is training a government to help them defeat rebels. Army Special Forces are divided into numbered groups (like regiments). Each group has a certain part of the world as its area of responsibility, where they do most of their operations. 1st group covers Asia 3rd Group covers Africa 5th Group covers the Mid-East 7th Group covers Latin America and the Caribbean 10th Group covers North Africa So, if you are in 1st group, there are opportunities to deploy to the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, etc, and help train the military in those countries. Currently, Special Forces are deployed in over 70 countries around the world. It is not uncommon for an SF soldier to have been deployed to 20+ countries in his career. It is also not uncommon for a soldier to switch groups one or more times during his career. So, if you are tired of seeing all of Asia with 1st group, you might switch to 10th group and check out Europe. Edited by mcjon77 on 14 June 2010 at 5:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5443 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 47 of 57 16 June 2010 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I worked as a youth hostel receptionist. It was the most fun ever :D They hired me because of my language skills. Obviously (as mentioned before) anything in the tourist industry works, but youth hostels are special places :) I still remember the huge grin of relief from exhausted tourists from Spain on arrival when hearing that I spoke Spanish :)
Although as far as "cool" goes, it has the one drawback that it was the worst paid job I ever had :P 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6039 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 48 of 57 17 June 2010 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||
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My "day-job" is being a physician.
I can't tell you how many times I've used my language skills to break the ice with non-English speaking patients and soothe them. Several places I have worked have had large numbers of immigrants and or refugees. Nothing could be more frightening than being sick or injured in a country where one can't communicate. Having a physician smile and say even a few words in a patient's native tongue, puts that patient at ease, and that physician in far greater esteem than the countless other physicians who simply scream louder in English or simply demand an interpreter. Once I struck up a very basic Hindi conversation with a Hindi-speaking patient, and for the rest of the afternoon the patient's family followed me around calling me " Dr. Hindi-Walla". It was awesome! Equally helpful is not having to call in the Spanish or Portuguese interpreter at 2AM. ( or any other time for that matter) It is truly amazing how few US doctors have second language skills! .... Must have been all that time studying in Bio-Lab. My true love, and the area where language skills come most in handy is in International Medicine. The opportunities abound for well trained physicians to volunteer in just about every developing, non-English speaking country in the world. I don't get paid a cent for it, but the work is amazing. Again, most volunteers do little to understand the language or culture of the people they are helping. They rely on the translators and go home learning only a few words. If there is one area where speaking a language opens up doors, this is it! I can't tell you how many times I have been invited to peoples homes, taken on free excursions, etc., etc. because I simply spoke their language. Don't be a CIA agent. Be a volunteer. If you still think you want to do the CIA, read Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy by Lindsay Moran. She does an excellent job at illustrating how awful it is to work undercover and how badly the CIA takes advantage of desperate people! Edited by liddytime on 17 June 2010 at 3:38am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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