Could someone confirm that Korean is the hardest language taught in the military?

I remember reading in a forum that everyone in DLI knows that Korean is hardest, even harder than Japanese.

Somebody wrote in About.com about the Navy:

Right now only 8 Languages are being taught (for Navy). Cat IV: Arabic, Chinese, Korean. Cat III: Persian-Farsi, Serb-Croatian, Hebrew, Russian. Cat I: Spanish. Those are your only "options" and I have not received my language yet, but I did give them my top 3 selections of Korean, Russian, and Arabic. Everybody is telling me this about my selection. Korean I probably won't get because I only have a 103 DLAB. Korean is the hardest language here, apparently it is 75 weeks long now, and they are trying to make it a Cat V language." (Could someone confirm the bolded part?)

About.com isn't something you want to rely on for accurate information about the military. Can't say what the hardest language would be. I have enough trouble with this one.

Gery, I have studied French and Hebrew, and can say that English it the only one I can claim to have close to have learned. I run another board, and a moderator on about.com attempted to use it to drive traffic to their site. Their moderators get paid based on the traffic. FYI, it is a medical non-profit site. The about.com info is not the best on any topic.

I was a Korean linguist in the Navy. Korean is not the hardest language taught by DLI--English is. Think long and hard about the phrase "I have got to get going if I am going to get there on time" if you weren't a native English speaker and were trying to figure out what it meant

Sure Korean is really tough; Korean linguists have always had lousy DLPT scores as a community, and the new DLPT, which I get to take in 7 months, is supposed to be horrific....waaay worse than any other language. But is it really harder than Arabic or Chinese? I don't think so.... We just always seemed to have the worst, and I mean THE WORST, language training program and test developers.

Would I recommend being a Korean linguist.....well, no. See my previous posts on the matter (use find). These days, I sure would be interested in Chinese, Arabic, or Farsi. Personally, I would go for Farsi.

I've been out of DLI for over a decade so I don't know if Korean is still 63 weeks or if they have changed it. Of all the Korean linguists I know of my generation, there is not one single person....not one....who chose to make it a career and is still on active duty today. We all voted with our feet. If possible, try for another language.

I remember talking to a Navy Korean linguist when I was on Treasure Island and he said most of what he does is listening to North Korean soldiers complain how cold it is and if they were going to have rice anytime soon.

Current DLI student. Studying chinese for 6 months now.

Korean/arabic/chinese seem to be pretty evenly difficult. Honestly I feel bad for the spanish guys the most. They have to reach the same DLPT lvl we do in 6 months not 18months.

The arabic bunch get the most homework by far. The korean bunch are at the top of the hill and very isolated, they do however out number everyone by alot. They have a very poor course layout in my opinion but they have the best peer-tudor program and study support in general.

Chinese is moderately difficult but nothing to write home about. The biggest advantage you have in any language here is being in the NAVY. We have soooo many less extra duties. Everyone else has rediculous PT expectations and honestly just too many time constrictions for them to just learn. The navy here has it easy! haha. Sort of.

Nice to hear the Navy learned from its mistakes. 12 years ago it was just the opposite...you were pretty much guaranteed to spend at least one weeknight on watch (4-8 or 8-12) per week on watch, and frequently you would be on watch more than one per week. Navy washout rate was more than twice that of the army or air force.

Now that I outrank everybody in the Navy DLI chain, which is still taking some getting used to incidentally, I see how petty so much of it was and how little of it served the charter mission of actually teaching sailors needed languages. Someday you too may outrank your current chain of command, and when you do, use what you know to save others from the idiocy you had to endure. As one LTC I really admire taught me...Mission First, but PEOPLE ALWAYS!!!!

Cheers!

I think this may be because of the invention of the much dreaded "X-Division". XDIV is made up of those waiting more than 1 month for their class to start or those who failed out of their language or got punished for something else. Basically it is LIMBO. These people are waiting to move on in their navy career, so these people stand 99% of watches.

Because of this everyone has 1 watch a month. I went 2 months without a watch at all. I cant imagine how 1 watch a week would have ever been a good idea haha. But, i will say that NAVY by far is the worst PT bunch on the base. We have command runs that are basically parades of embarrassment. People fall out left and right as army LTs drive by...

Because they give us so much freedom from PT and watch restrictions alot of sailors here completely neglect both, and have no idea how to do a deck log or run 1 1/2 mile.

I would recommend to everyone coming to DLI to not forget about being a sailor and a student. You WILL need both.

Could anyone confirm that Korean has been the language that takes the longest time to learn (75 weeks, longer than the other languages of the same category) and that it has been considered to be a category V language all by itself?

Maybe they have the worst teachers , as far as teaching Western thinking people a language that to understand you need to understand eastern thought patterns .

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The biggest advantage you have in any language here is being in the NAVY. We have soooo many less extra duties.

This was true when I was there in 2007 and 2008 also. The other branches would always have their people doing collateral duties that weren't related to the language. We had to PT 2 times a week as a group and once on our own. Watches were about once a month and sometimes it would be every 2 months. I was really thankful that I joined the Navy instead of another branch when I saw all the crap they were having to put up with. I guess it's a trade off. Do you want your people to know how to make their bed and vacuum or would you rather them know their language? The Navy has the highest pass rate our of DLI.

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The arabic bunch get the most homework by far.

I guess this depends what school you get put in. Maybe they upped the amount of homework when that saw that 80% of people were failing the DLPT 5. Our military instructor was the only one who really gave us homework and woe upon you if you forgot to do it. The guy made girls in my class cry more than once. One girl yawned in class and he went ballistic on her. She was terrified when his class hour would come up every day lol.

My Korean roommate always had tons of homework though. Koreans are hardcore about school. I don't know if their methods are the best, but they will make you work the hardest.

quote:

Could anyone confirm that Korean has been the language that takes the longest time to learn (75 weeks, longer than the other languages of the same category) and that it has been considered to be a category V language all by itself?

Honestly, I always heard disgruntled future KORLINGs saying that when I was at DLI. "Oh, Korean is so hard because the teachers treat us like little Korean children!" "Oh, Korean is so hard! They're talking about making it a Cat V language because of the teachers!" etc. If you want real, no bs answers, ask one of the Petty Officers who work at the Korean schoolhouse. Or, ask your own LPO.

I don't know that you're going to find any DLI graduate on the forums here who has been away from there for less than a year.

There have been issues with Korean at DLI since the 1960s...back then, students received much less than 1/2 a year of instruction, and many went straight from DLI to Vietnam and then to a language assignment. The two DLI-trained USMC korean linguists on the USS Pueblo had received something like 18 weeks of Korean language training, done a tour in Vietnam, and then been assigned to the Pueblo.

DLI-trained Korean linguists for generations have left DLI only to find their Korean skills woefully inadequate, especially their global language skills. Its all nothing new. Non natives can obtain proficiency, but all DLI will give you is the basics needed to actually learn the language through in-country immersion. Many of the most proficient marry Koreans and speak the language at home. That's really what it takes to master the language. Adding 13 weeks of DLI-training will not make much difference and will not enhance proficiency, it would only (maybe) add more vocabulary.

Is Korean instruction at DLI broken? Yes. Is this anything anybody hasn't know for decades? No.

This is from Yahoo! Answers:

I agree with the previous poster (kaz). Korean takes a really long time to learn. The US military, when training linguists, gives them a test to see how quickly they can learn a language. Those who pass it at the HIGHEST LEVEL ONLY can study Korean.

Of those people who passed the DLAB (Defense Language Aptitude Battery) at a high level, it generally takes about 2,000+ hours to learn Korean to an advanced level. I'm not kidding, 2,000 hours.

...

The *US Navy believes that Korean is the hardest language on earth.* There is no shortcut to learning it.

quote:

Originally posted by bonkaioo:
This is from Yahoo! Answers:

I agree with the previous poster (kaz). Korean takes a really long time to learn. The US military, when training linguists, gives them a test to see how quickly they can learn a language. Those who pass it at the HIGHEST LEVEL ONLY can study Korean.

Of those people who passed the DLAB (Defense Language Aptitude Battery) at a high level, it generally takes about 2,000+ hours to learn Korean to an advanced level. I'm not kidding, 2,000 hours.

...

The *US Navy believes that Korean is the hardest language on earth.* There is no shortcut to learning it.

Because Yahoo! Answers is such a reputable and reliable source... And based on your complete lack of a profile, you do not rate to give people advice. Let alone bad advice. Recommend not making conjecture based on Yahoo Answers ever again in your life.

Note: Ignore my post count. Any of the mods can see via my e-mail address that I've been around here for a while, and just recently changed my username.

Yahoo? You WENT there?

Waiving the BS flag here... Korean is considered a CAT 4 language, same as Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese. Korean is no more complicated than Japanese, to which it is related, and is certainly not the hardest language on earth. BS.

DLAB score requirements for Korean are the same as for Arabic or Chinese. Only reason you don't see folks talking about Japanese on these boards is that it isn't offered to enlisted, but its in the same level 4 category.

Why do you care? As a proud disgruntled former linguist, Korean ain't a language I would recommend to anybody looking for a fulfilling Navy career (see my previous posts). Unless you want bragging rights.

Enlist, make it to DLI, and score a 3/3 on your DLPT, then yeah, that's quite an accomplishment. Get a 3 on your speaking DLPT then you will REALLY have accomplished something. Personally, If you think you have that kind of language aptitude, put it to use in Arabic or Chinese, languages which the Navy actually NEEDS.