Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Critical Needs Languages For US Diplomats

 Language Learning Forum : Languages & Work Post Reply
25 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4  Next >>
ericblair
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4471 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 1 of 25
04 February 2012 at 2:07am | IP Logged 
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 4471 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 2 of 25
04 February 2012 at 2:14am | IP Logged 
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 4649 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 
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 4471 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 4 of 25
04 February 2012 at 4:08am | IP Logged 
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 4471 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 5 of 25
04 February 2012 at 4:26am | IP Logged 
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 4471 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 6 of 25
04 February 2012 at 4:47am | IP Logged 
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 4471 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 7 of 25
04 February 2012 at 5:05am | IP Logged 
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 4649 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 
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



This discussion contains 25 messages over 4 pages: 2 3 4  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 4.4063 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.