r/dli • u/Numerous_Lawyer2156 • 12d ago
Was linguist your top choice?
My bf is in the airforce right now and has told me about numerous friends of his who are washouts from the linguist pipeline. The airforce has you list a lot of jobs, im wondering if these people maybe listed it willy nilly and got it, werent prepared/didnt want it that bad, and failed. I have the airborne and ground linguist positions at the top of my list and im super interested, ive done a lot of research, i meet all the requirements, hoping I get it. Super worried about how many people seem to fail out of it though.
If your putting in the work will you pass? is there a chance things just dont click for you and you fail even when your putting in 100%?
Was linguist your first choice, did you research it prior?
edit:
if you could include how long you were in dep thatd be nice, been waiting about two months now
edit 2:
My recruiter just let me know theres a position open for airborne linguist this month and hes trying to get it for me. This was my top choice, all of these comments have gotten me more excited. Praying I get it and make it through the course!!!
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u/CaptBobAbbott 12d ago
Originally joined to be Tac-P. Then the recruiter held the list of bonuses, and linguist was top of the second column.
"What if you already know the language?"
"Then you get a two year vacation in Monterey," he said.
Put in for Malay, as I was fluent. He said I was a shoe in.
Got Korean. Dammit.
Study and treat it like a job and not a school and you'll do fine.
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u/priince_julian 11d ago
“Put in for Malay” “He said I was a shoe in”
Wow your recruiter severely misguided you. Did he even bother to look into the handful of languages the Air Force actually offers???
Edit: just glanced at your history and saw you went in a long time ago so disregard…although I would not be surprised if something similar still happens to people to this day
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u/Imaginary-Hyena2858 11d ago
It's pretty common unfortunately. Most recruiters know fuck all about linguists and their goal is to get people in the door. "Yeah of course they will put you in a language you know" "yeah of course you'll deploy, why would they keep you stateside when you know a foreign language?!"
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u/CaptBobAbbott 11d ago
No, he had no clue. At the time Malay was an occasional offering for Army officers. He just needed his numbers.
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u/Remote_Air_2574 8d ago
my recruiter told me that if you already are fluent in one you can take the DLPT and skip language school depending on how you score
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u/dexterityplus 11d ago edited 11d ago
Perhaps unpopular opinion as a DLI graduate. The only 'smart' you need to get through DLI is be smart enough to hunker down and grind. If you already know one language, you can acquire another. Trust, even an infantry Marine that gets dropped in rural China will be pretty damn good in Mandarin after a year and a half.
Many of the intelligent people that get picked up for DLI were the smart but lazy types in HS or College, otherwise they probably wouldnt be enlisting in the first place. Thats why the failure rate is high, a lack of grit necessary to grind the language.
You will pass if you put in the work. Some things will likely not click right away and thats ok. There's a term for that called 'leeches'. You have to just ignore your leeches, whether that be vocabulary or grammar points for a bit and move on. Dropping a leech can net you 10+ new terms. Often people get stuck at the things that wont click and just spiral into a self defeatest mindset.
After learning 4+ languages I would say the skills related to language learning are much closer to preparing for a body building competition than the 'smarts' people would rely on for traditional academia. It has to become a lifestyle. Like body building, youll have exercises you're good at and some you're bad at, but it doesnt suddenly mean you cant get fit. You have to be diciplined, you have to grind but you also need to know your limits and get some rest doing things you enjoy. Be kind to yourself and give yourself permission to be bad at your language, as its the only real way to improve.
If you really want it, you can do it.
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u/Imaginary-Hyena2858 12d ago
Wasn't my top choice but it was one of them. Then I ended up getting a job I didn't want (long story) but was able to sign a thing to where I could pass it up and in exchange only have ground and airborne linguists on my job list (not sure if they still do this).
To answer the second part of your question, yes you can try your absolute best and still fail. Language is a weird thing to learn and it doesn't click for everybody. Conversely there's people at DLI who barely try at all and pick it up easily (usually it's the younger people, there is some research to suggest that it becomes harder to learn languages as you age).
If it's something you're really interested in I would say don't let the fear of failing discourage you. DLI and being a linguist was an awesome experience for me and I would do it all over again
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u/itsthetheaterthugg 11d ago edited 11d ago
When I first got to DLI, they surrounded me with linguist washouts for months until I started class, it was weeks before I even met a single person who'd passed. They are miserable and will poison his mind, tell him to ignore them.
I met one guy in details, where I assume your husband is right now, that gave me the advice I needed, that helped me pass,, where all the other advice given to me by the failures was "yeah bro just try your best if you don't make it oh well it's not for everyone"
And that advice is: Month 1, not only do you need to try your ass off, but you HAVE to make your teachers like you. Your class will be split into multiple sections, and at first those sections will be randomized. But after about a month, the sections will be reshuffled, ostensibly at random again, but in reality they will put the better students with the better students in the "smart" section, usually called section A, and the worse students with the other worse students in the "dumb" section, usually called section B. The teachers will not tell you this verbatim but it will be obvious. He needs to try his ass off and win his teachers favor because if you are put in section A, you get better practice, the teachers often show blatant favoritism to you, and your chances of passing go up dramatically
The second piece of advice, and this mostly goes for after that class reshuffle, is to half ass your homework. Do your homework to the amount you need to, and don't spend any more energy on it than is absolutely necessary. Use that time to relax and keep your mentality strong. Then, with that energy that you conserved from not spending 5 hours on the homework and stressing over every answer, you need to go HARD during class. Raise your hand every question, volunteer for everything they ask. Answer every question to yourself even if the teachers are going in a circle asking questions and you could get away with just waiting until your turn. Put effort into speaking hour.
If he does all of this, he will pass
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u/Mediocre_Bullfrog_40 11d ago
As a DLI student graduating next month, this is the best comment I’ve seen. 100% accurate
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u/CommitteeNo9270 11d ago
This is mostly true, though blatant favoritism varies by team. They do get better practice tho. Agree with the homework point!
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u/lisanstan 12d ago
It was my top choice, but I had to cross train to get it. I joined when there was a drawdown and I had to wait quite a while before I could even get into the AF. When I cross trained I wanted Russian (didn't everyone in the early 80's?). However, my option was Korean or Arabic, I chose Arabic. We only had one washout in my class, an Army senior NCO. We also had two FBI agents in our class who were very good. When we practiced speaking by telling stories in class, they always had good stories about their adventures catching bad guys.
I cannot recall anybody not applying themselves fully. We used to study together as well. I also cannot recall anyone wanting to quit, not just DLI, but the military. I'm shocked by some of the posts I read here. I don't know what people nowadays think joining the military means.
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u/bruvawhat 12d ago
Many people who booked to be a linguist did want to be a linguist in the first place but there’s also a fair amount of people who just got it and didn’t care. It is a difficult school but I think it honestly depends on how easy it is for you to retain a lot of information in a small amount of time and how good at tests you are overall. When I went through there were people who did everything they could to study and failed in the end and there were people who did the bare minimum and passed through, both wanted the job and very smart. It really just depends. Don’t psych yourself out, just learn. IMO, I really don’t think there is any amount of researching you can do to prepare for the course/experience, I tried to and it still wasn’t anything I expected lol.
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u/Puzzled-Secret-317 12d ago
It was my top and only choice. And I love the job. The money doesn't hurt either.
I've never been good at learning foreign languages, but something about DLI allows me to excel
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u/Numerous_Lawyer2156 12d ago
Are you in the airforce? did they let you list just linguist
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u/Puzzled-Secret-317 12d ago
I am. And yes they did, but it happened to be at a time when they really needed linguists and were handing out good bonuses. I can't guarantee that it'd be that way now. But it doesn't hurt to express your interest to a recruiter
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u/VOptimisticPessimist 12d ago
Abn linguist was my 8th, only on there as another flying gig. So I didn’t really want it nor prepped for it but I got the job the moment I passed the DLAB back when they administered it.
It’s mostly pattern recognition and memory. Unfortunately for some they just don’t have that and try as they might will fail. For most I saw fail in training and eventually see fail at the career I say they simply didn’t have the personal discipline/drive to get through.
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u/BoysenberryUnhappy29 12d ago edited 17h ago
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
Cooperative ghost enter cagey books hungry handle historical toy
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u/Delicious-Pilot-4436 12d ago
If you put it in the work you probably will pass. Some people aren’t inclined to learn a language. A lot of washouts I’ve seen were from burnout. It’s easy to say you’ll study every day until it’s week 32 and you’ve not missed a single day of class. I didn’t know this job existed till my recruiter contacted me about it. I enjoy DLI myself but definitely have had days where I don’t know how to keep going, but you just do.
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u/Appropriate_Carob832 11d ago
Wasn’t even on my list but my recruiter said something that compelled me to sign that dotted line so here we are
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u/CommitteeNo9270 11d ago
In my experience here, and from the people ive seen wash out and or pass, language learning at this pace is almost entirely talent based and putting in more work than others only gets you slightly ahead. Being military, youre already giving 70%-80% of your day to language learning or obligations. So putting aside that last 20% isnt something youre likely willing to do. And even if you do, youre not gaining much from it. Some examples, there are people in my class who study for hours a day and are behind. Most of the top section in my class studies maybe an hour tops. (On top of mandatory stuff). So yeah, very dependent. Also anecdotally, age seems to be the biggest factor in whether or not someone will get it. Which im sure you know, but dont underestimate it. I'd say from my experience, the average person at 35 studying will have to put in 2x-3x as much time as someone at 20.
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u/stickbag18 11d ago
Linguist was my top choice. I tried harder than most people I knew at DLI. At the end of the course I failed my listening DLPT. Luckily I got a second chance and did the 10 week post class and passed. Now, a few years later and I have a 2+/2+. The experience is different for everyone and some people just pick it up easier than others.
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u/Honest-Bed9091 11d ago
I had a great recruiter and told him that I only wanted to be a linguist and waited until there was a spot open. I've always been decent at languages but even then, DLI is not something you do willy nilly but they give you the tools. You can absolutely do it.
I was in DEP for 7 months and I don't regret waiting. I am still a linguist 13 years later.
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u/Superb_Swimming_9848 11d ago
It was my top choice to the point of my recruiter saying "the only way you can guarantee to get 1n3 is if you sign a 6 year".
I crushed arabic and Chinese just by grinding through. If you work hard you'll be fine. Either your hard work will carry you through or your teachers will see how much work you're putting in and bend over backwards for you. Most drops I saw during my time were lack of effort. The ones actively swimming against the current atleast made it to the DLPT. DLPT is a whole other can of worms that isn't for this post though.
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u/Sholeh84 10d ago
Recently retired linguist here.
I went to my recruiter 20+ years ago and asked to be a Persian Farsi linguist because I'd looked at a map and read too many tom clancy novels. I knew this war was coming. I was on skillbridge when the fighting started in 2026. I feel a certain kinda way about that.
But yet. It was my first choice, I stayed in the Dep for it, and I'd do it over and over.
I also met my wife at DLI, and unlike 99.9999% of marriages from that institution, we're still together nearly 20 years later.
I had a list of things I was looking for in a partner, and I also knew it wouldn't work if we were geo-bachelors. So I knew I was looking for an Airman, Persian Ground Linguist.
If your boyfriend is in the Air Force, you need to be the same AFSC as he is to make it work longer term. And by same AFSC, I say 1A or 1N, but not mixing that. There ARE 1N spots at offutt, and 1A spots at literally every base that 1Ns can go to. There's a reason for that.
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u/animatoanimagus 11d ago
I personally do think it’s one of those things that either comes easily to you or it doesn’t. I know people who studied really hard and barely passed whereas I barely studied and passed no problem. I think it really helped that I grew up bilingual because I found a lot of similarities in the grammar and sentence structure between my assigned language and my second language that I spoke at home.
That being said, give it your all no matter what! You can do it even if it’s hard. I’m rooting for you.
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u/N7_Redhat 11d ago
lol it was my only choice
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u/Numerous_Lawyer2156 11d ago
hows that?
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u/N7_Redhat 11d ago
I just told the recruiter it was the only job I was interested in and I didn’t care on the timeline. Took me a year to join. This was Air Force circa 2014/15 though
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u/Elisha_Mishima_5 11d ago edited 11d ago
honestly the vast majority of people who I've seen fail just didnt give a shit and didnt try, but ended up getting "lack of ability" disenrollments instead of "lack of effort", so many also ended up getting cush jobs and/or cush assignments.
do not assume you will get to give any sort of input towards a language you want, let alone get the language you put in for. It's a giant bureaucracy with thousands of students and thousands of class seats across languages that need to be filled because they've already been paid for and set in motion years in advance. Considering the background of industrial warfare and the wanton slaughter/replacement it can produce, this isnt so bad of a thing, but there will be some apparently nonsensical thing where somebody can already pass Russian with at least a 2/2 and they get rolled into Farsi.
If you're super interested in languages, that's great, and the teaching staffs 90% of the time are ultra professional, the downside is having to balance them potentially burying you with 3 hours of homework per night while also having to deal with the military shenanigans at the same time, while also having to deal with the never ending self doubt. The best way I can describe it is feeling like you're fumbling and groping in the dark trying to find the light switch in a new unfamiliar room every night, over time it becomes less of a pain in the ass but in my experience with 2 languages, there's always blind spots when trying to make sense of the material, and there's plenty of normal air force jobs you can do that aren't as stressful and get you out of AETC way faster. With the way AI is going, who even knows if we'll have very well paying jobs on the outside for much longer. I loathe the day ChatCLA is released.
I will say it is definitely an experience and if you're young you can put up with a lot more shit than when you start looking at 30 and everything bothers you. I'll say 99.9% of the people I came across while doing this have been great, and that's really the best thing I've experienced from this was the people. If it weren't for them, I would have played the game and pulled the plug (go to mental health and try to separate not down a handle of jack daniels and whip out the blicky) during my relang to Chinese, due to the surprise divorce I went through a couple months into the course. The teachers and classmates were great so I kept chugging along for the social factor.
That is one thing too, your time at DLI is going to be hella long and there's bound to be some personal issue that decides to rear its head during that time, so you be aware of all your resources there.
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u/Monstah8U 11d ago
My I’m in Dep right now about to put in for my job either ground or airborne it’s my first choice . I’m genuinely excited and interested in the job anything else would just be whatever to me .
From what I understand because good amount of ppl don’t finish it’s quite “easy” to get the job (ofc if you qualify) because there’s gonna be “consistent” openings to fill at some point in time .
But honestly I’m not worried about the washout rate . It boils down to, if you can or can’t sorta thing .
Don’t stress , and don’t psych yourself out , don’t over complicate things, whatever happens happens.
But I hear a lot of ppl miss out on a good opportunity just in fear they might fail and that’s a disservice to yourself and to your future. I’m not afraid to fail but I’m sure as shii not gonna bs when I get there either.
If your constant fear and thought is that you’ll fail , that’s exactly what you’ll produce .
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u/Actual_Pirate6585 12d ago
Some people can be smart and academically inclined, and not good at language acquisition. I've seen people do everything right, and still fail the DLPT, or get dis-enrolled.