Best Foreign Language to Learn if you want to work for the US Government

[Belmar2009]

What do you think is the best foreign language to learn if you want to work for the US Government (either directly or as a contractor).

I.E. State Department, language specialist with FBI; CIA; Dept. of Homeland Security,

 

[Teflon_Mcgee]

Farsi, Arabic, or Mandarin

 

[Evzone]

As said before, Arabic, Mandarin or Farsi if you want to work in intelligence, but I'd also add Pashto to the list. If you want to do diplomatic work instead of intelligence, fluency in really anything is a leg up, but that probably is going to have a big effect on where they want to place you, so study something that interests you.

 

[thedude4242]

there are a lot more spanish speaking countries. who wants to deal with the arabs.

 

[Guoy Darko]

Is this a quiz with a right answer, or do you want to work for the US government?

If it's the first, I have no clue.

If it's the second: call them. It will probably depend on what department you want to work for. If you're interested in the arabic world and terrorism related topics it will be arabic. If you want to work via the US government with European relations, I can tell you first hand French is the most important language. If you're living in Europe and you want to work for the European union or something related, you have to speak French.

good luck.

 

[thedoc]

It definitely depends on the department but go with something unique like others have said, Arabic, Farsi, or Chinese. What I mean by unique is English, Spanish, French, even Russian and German are all related. If for some special reason you would need to, you could learn any of those relatively quick. But say if you learned Spanish and all of a sudden you needed to know Chinese, you would have a much bigger problem learning it.

 

[slaog]

What language do they speak in Isreal?

 

[Trader]

What do you think is the best foreign language to learn if you want to work for the US Government (either directly or as a contractor).

I.E. State Department, language specialist with FBI; CIA; Dept. of Homeland Security,

My friend got into the CIA because he knows Turkish - Arabic would help too. That is for counter-terrorism.

If you are working for the government for international trade, then Mandarin would be the choice.

 

[up_an_up]

The government does not care if you are fluent in Spanish, French or any other language traditionally taught in American schools. People fluent in those languages are a dime a dozen. The governent is desperate for people who can speak HARD TO LEARN, NOT TRADITIONALLY TAUGHT languages. Also, since we have spent the last 20 something years dealing with the Middle East, obviously a language from that area would be a good one to learn.

 

[Evzone]

What language do they speak in Israel?

Hebrew and Arabic are the official languages of Israel (20% of Israeli citizens are Arab), but English is widespread, and also surprisingly Russian is widely spoken in Israel as well since there were lots of Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union.

Definitely Arabic because nobody knows Arabic.

Well many more do now like many soldiers returning from Iraq, but it's still going to be valuable not just from a government perspective but international trade. Now if you really want to go out on a limb, learn Farsi or Pashto--you'll get a huge leg up for counter-terrorism or intelligence work.