[Steel Wolf]

I've been to DLI a few times and been trained in other languages. I highly recommend it as a career path and as horizon broadening experience.

Milestones of language study.

- Dreaming in a foriegn language, with better vocab and grammar than I had when I was awake.

- Listening to someone speak in another language not realizing that it's wasn't English until they switched back to English.

- Answering a question reflexively in target language and then being amazed at what came out your mouth.

That doesn't even get into the joys of travelling in a country where almost no foriegners speak the local language. (Or some of the more interesting job related uses)

[Criminal Number 18F]

To your milestones I'd add:

- Knowing a word in one of your foreign languages, and not being able to think of it in English.

- Asking a question of a local, who detects your accent and answers in flawless English -- then turning to the companion for whom you're translating, and saying "He said..." and repeating what the bemused local just told you both.

- Being at an Ambassador's residence and speaking English, Dutch , French, German and Czech all in one evening, astonishing all the FSOs who thought you were a knuckle-dragging trigger mechanic.

- Replying to a question in the wrong foreign language, and not realising it until the puzzled look of your questioner implants on your brain.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F