Which languages do the CIA want?

The CIA needs language professionals who specialize in a range of languages spoken around the world. The current mission-essential or critical languages in no particular order are Korean, Russian, Chinese, Mandarin, Indonesian Dari/Pashto, Persian/Farsi, Kurdish, Turkish, and Arabic.

What are 5 critical languages?

NSEP emphasizes study of non-Western European languages critical to U.S. national security, such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Russian, and Turkish.

What are the US critical languages?

The 15 critical languages include Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish and Urdu.

What is a mission critical language?

What Are Critical Languages? A critical language is one which the United States government has deemed not only strategically important for the country, but also with demand outstripping supply of speakers. Basically, there aren’t enough Americans who speak these languages!

How CIA learn languages?

The Defense Language Institute (“DLI”), located in Monterey, California, is where the CIA, members of the U.S. armed forces and various other government agencies go to learn foreign languages. This is the premier (and only) language school for military and government personnel.

What are Category 1 languages?

Category 1 languages are those Western European languages that are most cognate with English and that are most typologically similar to it. For instance, Dutch, Afrikaans, Spanish, and Italian belong to Category 1.

Why is Portuguese a critical language?

“Portuguese is the only European language designated as a critical language by the U.S. government,” Lamadrid said. Other critical languages are Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Dari Farsi, Hindi and Urdu. Portuguese is a critical language because of Brazil’s rise in global economics and politics.

How competitive is CLS Portuguese?

Although the CLS Program is very selective in the sense that only 10\% of applicants will end up participating on the program, every applicant who can provide a compelling response to each of the required essay questions can make themselves competitive.

What is a Level 4 language?

The darkest countries on the map represent Category 4 languages, those that take the longest for Americans to learn: Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. FSI literature refers to these as “super-hard languages.”

What languages does the CIA need in its foreign affairs program?

The CIA needs language professionals who specialize in a range of languages spoken around the world, including, but not limited to, Arabic, Chinese, Mandarin, Dari/Pashto, Korean, Persian/Farsi and Russian. The CIA offers monetary bonuses for those who meet proficiency requirements in one or more of our mission critical languages.

What is the CIA and what does it do?

The CIA is a U.S. government agency that provides objective intelligence on foreign countries and global issues to the president, the National Security Council, and other policymakers to help them make national security decisions.

Where can I find more information about the foreign language incentive program?

Visit the Foreign Language Incentive Program page to see a full list of languages that qualify for our incentives, and see our Foreign Language Proficiency Scale page to learn more about how we gauge a candidate or employee’s proficiency. Foreign language skills are critical to much of the work we do across the CIA.

What is the intelligence Language Institute?

The Intelligence Language Institute (ILI) is the premier language school in the Intelligence Community. Mission: Support CIA’s intelligence mission by enabling and enhancing foreign language skills anytime, anywhere.