#cryptologicallinguist

Hey ya’ll!

So when I first decided I was enlisting I knew I was going to be a Crypto Linguist. I just didn’t know anything about what that entailed. I just know I wanted the language that came with the job, I didn’t care about much else as I want to eventually submit an officer’s packet. But despite that, I still wanted to know any and all information I could. The thing is, this is not a common MOS so there was very little detailed info out there. 

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much about what Linguists do on the job as I’m still at the Defense Language Institute. I’m taking an Arabic dialect and MSA and it takes 18 months to complete the course. But I am more than able to tell you a little about DLI! 

I’ll start from the beginning. If you are active duty (like me) you will NOT be informed of your language while at basic training, nor will you get to choose, nor will you get to tell them your preferences. It will be a complete mystery to you until you can access your military issued email. DLI sent me an email about halfway through my time at basic. I gave my husband my log in info and he printed off the email and mailed it to me. Some drill sergeant’s will let you check your email, mine could care less about my intense desire to know my language. So. Be prepared before you go to basic if you want to know before you get to DLI. 

So you don’t like the language you were assigned (Reserves and NG get to choose their language in their contract). Well if you can catch the commander of Bravo Company in a good mood, your DLAB score allows it, and find someone to trade with you, you MIGHT be able to trade with someone. Maybe. Don’t get your hopes up. If you were assigned a category 3 language like Farsi, you won’t be able to trade out for a category 4 like Arabic, Chinese, or Korean. If you have some dreams of getting Japanese, German, French, or Italian as an enlisted soldier, let that dream die. It’s not going to happen. Those are primarily officer languages. 

When you complete basic you will be shipped to Bravo Company for the remainder of phase 4 (lasts 2 weeks) and phase 5 (lasts a month). Married people have to live in the barracks during these phases. Although, your family may move into housing before you as long as the housing is set up and ready for them to move in. Unfortunately, they cannot set up the housing on Ft. Ord, only the service member can. So they can’t move out there before you. If you are not married, you will be moved into the barracks of a different company depending on your language. 

If you are regular army you will attend “running start” for a few weeks to a few months before you start class. This is incredibly helpful and you should learn all you can before class. Utilize all the students there that are willing to teach you. 

Expect class to hit you in the face like a ton of bricks. I’ve been to college, I did well in college, but this is the hardest academic thing I have ever done in my life. The pace is just mind boggling. Some will do very well and not try at all, others will struggle and put in a ton of effort. This place is not a measure of intelligence, it’s really just a mind fuck. You will hate the bilingual people in class. Bilingual students, people will hate you. Not really, but kinda. 

You will be broken up into smaller groups. My class consists of 6 people. As for homework, it depends on the language and teaching teams. My team doesn’t give us more than an hour a night (BUT that is only because we need the extra time to study the mounds of vocabulary words that are dumped onto us every day.) I have a friend in Korean who has up to 4 hours of homework a night not including personal study. So, good luck with wherever you go. 

Go ahead in your books, study every night, get as much speaking practice as you can in. Don’t worry about looking like the ‘dumb’ one in class, ask every question you have. Utilize every teacher as though they are there for you personally. You’re job is to succeed, not to have all your peers thinking you magically woke up fluent in your language. Also, help out your battles, if you’re doing well pull your struggling battles along. If you’re not doing well, ask for help at the beginning. Also it is VERY important you take personal time away from your language. Dedicate time to yourself and get off post. There’s a bunch to do in Monterey, CA. Go see stuff. 

Each language has a different teaching style and book and curriculum. For mine, we have 4 hours of reading/vocab. After lunch (lasts an hour and 15 minutes) we have listening for an hour and then an hour of speaking. But like I said, each language and team has a different system, even different lunch times. I know another Korean student who only gets 30 minutes for lunch. Korean just sounds terrible. 

I personally LOVE Arabic. The culture and teachers are amazing. So relaxed and they genuinely care about how you’re doing. I don’t love Modern Standard Arabic though. It is incredibly difficult to listen to and to speak in. The grammar is murder. Students in MSA tend to do much worse in speaking than students in dialect. When you have a dialect you only have to read MSA, not listen, speak, or write in it. So if you can get a dialect, GET IT. Plain MSA is the worst. Plus you miss out on a lot of culture. But I may be biased. Haha.