What language for career in Intelligence/IR?

[Embarrassinglyoverinvestedmum]

DS is choosing a language module for next semester but he's not sure what to take. He is fairly fluent in Spanish but says that not much use as so many people globally speak it. I suggested Arabic which he did start learning years ago for fun but he says the dialects are so different it's not that useful. Im not sure if hes correct ( I dont think he wants to be a spy!) He's considering Russian or Farsi. The options are also French, Japanese and Mandarin.

At what stage of his education is he?

As you mention semester I presume university.

can’t speak for international relations but intelligence wants speakers of most languages but they tend to hire specialists ie people who are fully fluent in the other language plus English.

if he’s doing a degree in engineering/whatever then adding a language for a semester won’t make any difference.

Definitely Mandarin

Yes sorry University year 1. He has A Level Spanish and is a fluent speaker. He is doing an IR degree and likes languages so wanted to learn a new one. He can do a beginners then move onto the intermediate year 2. He wants to do a year abroad for yr 3 but isn't sure where.

Would he be able to get those languages up to fluent standard - I would go with the one he's most likely to become fluent in which would be French. Depends where he wants to work as well what they speak.

He is thinking about this the wrong way round. All languages are useful for something, you just make the opportunities happen by speaking and working in your target language.

Languages that have a lot of speakers like Spanish are still useful because there is also a huge volume of people who need to be spoken to and listened to. So it's silly to dismiss it as too common. It's also a UN language.

I would pick a language that will specifically be useful to go alongside Spanish in a region he's interested in. If that's Northern Africa, then do Moroccan Arabic and French. If it's South America do Portuguese.

One question I have is if he is genuinely fluent with A-level Spanish. English speaking people get so little opportunity to experience living and working in a foreign language sometimes we don't have a terribly good understanding of what fluency really means and what it takes to get there. My DS is doing a year abroad at the moment and his language skills have been praised to the heights by every teacher he's ever had (native speakers among them) but actually living and working in his target language is a level beyond that and he doesn't consider himself truly native speaker level fluent yet.

They're all useful, but the most useful are ones spoken in areas where there are security issues, and he's already correct in his own suggestions: Arabic, Russian probably the big two at the moment. Then Persian, Mandarin, Pashto.

I disagree with him about Arabic, as classical Arabic is the basis of all the dialects, so would provide a grounding which would enable him to pick up the version spoken wherever he ended up working much quicker. I'd advise him to stick with that and master it rather than start again from scratch.

@deplorabelle yes that is a good point. When we have been on holiday in Spain he has conversations and has ended up helping out British tourists on the bus and things like that by asking for directions etc but that may be Spanish people falling over in shock that a British tourist is speaking to them in Spanish! He also has Spanish flatmates that he has been practicing with but yes, he is probably fluent enough for a native English speaker who has learnt Spanish rather than a 'fluent Spanish speaker'

@PinkMicrowave yes that's what I was thinking re Arabic. He found it quite 'easy'. I think Russian is quite challenging, but he does have Polish friends who have taught him bits of Polish and he is very basic in that. Apart from Spanish they are all languages he picked up socially or for a holiday or just for something to do over the summer with a book so he is extremely limited in all those.

Russian is easier than Polish, in my opinion. Though I would always prefer a language you can practise every day, so if he has Polish friends, I would go for Polish, actually.

I started learning Russian during covid just for something to do to stop the brain rot. I am generally quite shit at languages and I didnt find it that hard to get going- the alphabet is the main thing that's hard to learn but once you've done that it's not that difficult to progress. Becoming fluent is obviously a whole other issue though.

Yeah - that's not remotely "fluent", that's 'A level Spanish'. It's pointless him getting a bit of another language - he'd do better to massively improve his Spanish, because he's already got some mastery of it.

That's still a very good level. My point is there would still be plenty to learn and perfect in Spanish if he wanted to. He obviously enjoys languages and is good at speaking them socially.

I really enjoy Russian and have spent a few years learning it on and off. It's got lots of chewy complexity and grammar to get your teeth into. Viv Groskop has written very entertainingly about her experience of studying Russian language, literature and culture - might be worth him skimming a copy of The Anna Karenina fix to see if it appeals.

One practical point against Russian is that it will be much more challenging for him to do placements on Russian in his third year if he turns out to want to develop it. He'd need to find out what was possible (obvs Russia likely to be a no go so would be Kazakhstan or similar).

He's probably around B1 or B2 in Spanish. If he wants genuinely usable levels of fluency and if there is an advanced course available then the best use of his time would be working towards a C1 standard. He's probably quite far off this right now.

If he won't consider this then my recommendation would be standard Arabic, followed by Russian.

One more avenue to consider: given he probably isn't pursuing a truly deep level of fluency (he's not doing a languages degree after all), he should think about the relative strengths and weaknesses of AI and Google translate in his potential chosen languages. My hunch (and he'd have to research to see if my guess is true) is that Arabic would be the language least well developed on AI tools (precisely because so many variants). This makes it potentially more useful having a "busk your way through" level of language proficiency.

I am thinking of scenarios where you ask your phone to eg tell your taxi driver to take you somewhere. That's pretty successful in Japanese but I would not be surprised if it was more hit and miss in some of the more outlying parts of the Arabic speaking world.

It makes studying and visiting more difficult too of course

@deplorabelle and @EgregiouslyOverdressed Good points thanks! I'll show him this. I think he did like Arabic but the dialect thing put him off so he'll probably end up doing that. I thought he should perfect his Spanish too because I didn't want him to lose it through lack of use ( and it's quite handy on holiday!)

I think a good starting point is what countries/regions interest him, enough to pursue opportunities once outside of universities. Big orgs will have language suite software so accessibility is there, if expected from a role perspective

Any language acquisition is going to diminish under the use it or lose it. More useful potentially, is understanding the cultural nuances in parallel. So a simple enhancement of his Spanish could be, au pair for a couple of months, or summer school/camp aide etc.

Mine au paired in Madrid for 3 months in between Y1 and Y2, and spent 6 months in Spain in Y3 where all subjects at her Spanish university were taught in local language, no concessions made for International students.

Re potential Arabic if developed further, using MSA will help enormously on the written, formal side of work but he really needs to hone in on what parts of the ME region may be of interest to him in professional life. Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf or Moroccan Arabic will all work as spoken, he can develop the regional differences if needed.

Anecdotally, my DD didn't expect to use her Egyptian Arabic at all post studies, yet months into her work (graduated last Summer), with developers based in Cairo, she culturally, was an immediate fit for a project (did 6 months study in Egypt).The next one has her on a cross-border project with EU, selected due to her fluent Spanish. Another friend's DD who did Russian and Ukrainian (spent one year in Kazakhstan) has resulted in the 'tap'. She operates now on a desk where I know no more, her YA and living with a local family accelerated her acquisition of the regions making her viable approach across many industry sectors.

Sorry long, but in summary, so many of these posts become about the language acquisition alone, but I think he needs to consider what he can leverage from which ever option he has on offer from his university, be really proactive in both cultural and language acquisition opportunities, but ultimately, choose what he actually likes to learn, rather than what he thinks would be more useful (at this stage), given that it is only one semester.

Good luck to him!

Russian of course! Biggest threat at the moment in the world is from Russia. It's also a beautiful language and once you get past the Cyrillic alphabet the grammar and pronunciation are very rigid therefor easier to understand. My hope is one day Russia will open up again and I can take my children there's such a striking and interesting country. I was lucky enough to learn from GCSE and during my degree some Russians thought I was from the Baltics, so fluency is definitely achievable (as I did this pre Internet and pre technology) and I'm not particularly brainy! But I absolutely adore the language and history and literature and music.

Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, Farsi.
Mandarin is one of the most in demand

Definitely don't bother with French or Japanese if he wants to be a linguist in intelligence.

I was told Egyptian Arabic is the standard. He could learn that.

Or as PP said, Mandarin or Russian. Both increasingly useful, especially Mandarin, I would think.

If he wants to use a language in his work, he would be best placed to improve his Spanish. The gap between good A level standard and fluency (or even proper working competency) is enormous.

Picking up a bit of Arabic or Mandarin is a waste of time.

For an intelligence career: Russian, Mandarin, Arabic.

@Embarrassinglyoverinvestedmum , Arabic dialects vary but if he has some mastery of the language, I think he should keep at it.

His Spanish sounds pretty strong. 'Fluent' means different things to different people.

For an intelligence career: Russian, Mandarin, Arabic. I agree. I'd pick Russian but I'm not likely to be recruited. I'm more Miss Marple than James Bond.

Picking up a bit of Arabic or Mandarin is a waste of time. Strong disagree.

@ealingwestmum Your DD sounds like she has a great life ( or at least the life DS would like!) Interesting that there's still such a general demand for languages when it seems MFL courses are closing all over the place.
@Mapletreelane I would love to go to Russia too. The architecture looks incredible. I hope it does open up again.

Thank you @Embarrassinglyoverinvestedmum; it’s very early days but the variety definitely plays to her strengths.

I hope your son finds a combination that works for him, it can provide a great point of difference in spite of the general downward trend of MFLs.