One of your fellow Afterburner Club members recently asked on Facebook if I had any suggestions on language-learning tools. This is a really good question!
As future officers and fighter pilots of the United States military, you will inevitably be deployed somewhere else in the world at some point in your career. (After all, part of the reason you want to join the military is to see the world, isn’t it?)
More and more people are learning a second or third language.
Foreign Languages are now a “core subject” in the public school curriculum and with good reason. They play an increasingly more active role in business and in government careers like the one you’re going in. So, given the fact that only 35% of the world’s population speaks English, it would defiantly be a good idea to learn the language of wherever it is you are going to be deployed.
Probably the best tool for learning a new language is in the classroom. If you are still in high school or college, you most likely are taking a foreign language like French or Spanish as one of your subjects. If that’s the case, then you’re already off to a terrific start. The big advantage of the classroom environment is that you have the teacher and other students around you to speak the language with and listen to.
If your teacher is worth his salt, he’ll have you doing this as often as possible so you can get the hang of the language right away.
If you are out of school or- even more poignant- already in the military and will be deployed out of the country soon, there are language-learning courses available. Rosetta Stone is generally considered to be the best of these. They have a program for just about any language in the world and they are available either online or at your local Barnes & Noble’s or Office Depot.
The disadvantage to this though is that you don’t get the teacher/classroom participation. But if you’re going to be in the country where the language is spoken anyway, trust me, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to practice. You’ll feel a little bit like a pig on roller skates at first, but practice makes perfect.
Given the current world situation, which languages do you think you should learn for your career? (More to the point, where do you think you’re likely to be deployed?) What do you think you can do to get started learning that language right now?
Jon Wilson says
I’m kind of into languages anyway, but I don’t speak any of them outside of English, really. I had some spanish in highschool, which I should learn again (especially since I’m from california and moving to arizona), and I’m finishing my third semester of german. But I wanna be one of those dudes, someday, who can speak like 13 different languages fluently. Some of the top languages on the list are Japanese, Finnish, Russian, Arabic, Icelandic. There are a couple of big ones listed, of course, but generally I feel like the more obscure, the better. =P
Frederick Middlebrooks says
I’m out of college but I’m currently taking a class to learn how to speak spanish. One thing that I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn a foreign language is to start by learning to read that language. Rosetta Stone has its benefits but works mainly through word association using words and pictures to help you learn vocabulary. Reading, however, gives context to the meaning of words and helps you understand the language and how it is spoken. Similar to flying, you can know the parts of a plane but that doesn’t mean you can fly one like someone who understands how those parts operate. I recommend starting with childrens books and using a translation dictionary (spanish to english, german to english, etc.) to help look up words that you don’t know the meaning of. Also watching spanish television, or whatever language you pursue, will help you develop an ear for how the language is spoken. Listening to radio or tv, however, only truly benefits you after you have started developing a vocabulary. Also for those who are needing to save money: children’s book in any language cost about $8. The complete series for Rosetta Stone for one language can cost in excess of $600. Weighing the benefits of my experiences with both methods, I recommend learning through reading.