Let me clarify…I’m soon going to get trained for a year full-time in Japanese by the military and all on my full wage. After which, I’ll be a qualified Japanese linguist which includes a bunch of travel. I’m sorry if this sounds like gloating but none of my friends actually get how exciting this is to me.
Today I passed the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) which is an extremely difficult test that tells the testers your innate ability to learn languages. I got within the top bracket (only because I found a way to study for it via a website) and so chose Japanese for my language.
So pretty soon I’ll be starting the course. If the community is interested, I’ll post updates of my experience and how they train us.
8 comments
Man, this sounds like an amazing opportunity, good luck to you.
Just don’t fail out of language school or you’ll be reclassified to whatever the needs of the military are.
I say this from first hand experience. Was in lab school and one of the new guys literally failed his last exam in Korean and was reclassed as a medical laboratory technician.
/* Not to be confused with an academic linguist, which I learned recently is completely different from a military linguist.
Make sure to study, those tests are difficult and they go at a fast pace and you get limited retries in the course
Congrats, that sounds very exciting
Not the DLAB?
Make sure you study and stay focused. Most boots are on their own for the first time in their life and spend their free time partying
That’s one way to reach your life goals in the US: do it on military budget.
To clarify, I’m not berating or belittling you.
You deserve to be excited. Share your excitement. Share your journey. When you succeed, share your pride.
I feel I can speak for mostly everyone here when I say: we’re excited with you.
I can’t wait for a new post in a year with almost identical title, except “qualified to” replaced with “have”
Good luck.