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Old 11-24-2017, 12:43 PM   #2
jzhaun
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1. Your chances of Korean are about the same as anything else, it depends on availability. Sometimes all of the big six are available at the same time, other times it can be just one or two.

2. Yes, proficiency can help secure the language that you want. I have seen multiple students "test into" a class that is ongoing in a language they had studied extensively. Most classes have vacancies because people drop. Having said that, DLI has very intensive courses and they are not always organized the same way civilian courses are. I am a Chiling and I had previously studied Japanese in college for 1 year. My Chinese skills eclipsed my Japanese skills in about a month. There was another student in the class who had studied Chinese in college for an even longer period of time but it only really gave them a leg up for the first month and then some sporadic vocabulary that we learned much later.

3. The only people who can affect language selection are the CTI detailer at bootcamp (there was a Senior Chief when I went through some years ago) and the leadership at DLI. Mentioning it to anyone else is a waste of time.

4. Possibly the end of your first tour, if the manning of your preferred language is low. In general, it will be easier to switch from Chinese than from anything else in a different language group but at the moment Korean is well-manned and no one is relanguaging into it.

5. When classes start is part of it, but looking at the list (even if you could access it as a civilian, which I don't believe you can) isn't going to be that helpful because it really depends on when the billets for the class are allocated. The CTI detailer has so many seats to fill in each of those classes and he or she fills them in advance by allocating CTIs presently in bootcamp, generally so they have about a month in the hold division at DLI to get their indoc and phases done before having to start worrying about homework. So there could be a Korean class starting the week you get to DLI, but it might have been filled by CTIs who were 3 or 4 weeks ahead of you at bootcamp. It's not something you can accurately predict. Getting held back too long in training at bootcamp can also cause you to relanguage if you miss the original start date you were scheduled for.

6. This isn't true. Korean is one of the smaller languages. Like all of the language schools, they only have a set number of teachers and classrooms and new classes can only start after an older class graduates.
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