# crash course in foreign languages?



## jb10 (Nov 2, 2006)

EDIT: Damn, this IS in the wrong section. I meant to post it in the one above, the questions about training. My bad. Would a mod be willing to relocate it for me?

Sorry!

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Good afternoon folks,

First off, I hope this is in the right place. I debated starting it in Getting On the Job. If you feel it would be more appropriate elsewhere, please just let me know.

My question is, has anyone here become bilingual a bit later on in life? Imean, after high school classes, after college, etc? Have you found that knowing, say, Spanish would help you in your job and in transitioning to new positions, and took it upon yourself to learn it?

I'm asking because I want to make myself a more attractive candidate for municipal departments and, hopefully, federal agencies sometime down the road. I figure being conversent in another language would be one way. My only fear is that I might be getting a little long in the tooth to pick up an all new language. I took a smattering of Spanish in high school, but that is loooooong forgotten. I'd basically have to start from scratch.

So, has anyone done this? How did you go about doing it? One class at a time at a college? Something like Boston Language Institute, a place that concentrates on just language? A learn at home thing like Rosetta Stone? Do those even work?

Any sort of insight would be helpful. Also, does anyone know about the crash course training that SpecOps guys and diplomats and such recieve? Is there a "civilian" equivalent of that?

Finally (almost done, I promise ), just how fluent do you have to be to even have your knowledge of the language be significant when going for federal positions? I know there's some standardized test you take, but are they looking for true linguists, or people who are somewhat conversant?

Thanks for any help you might be able to provide. I'm really thinking about doing the Boston Language Institute, or something similar in the Worcester area. But I thought I'd swing the idea by you all.

Thanks again, and stay safe.


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