Learn Russian for the CIA/foreign service?

I'm interested in a career dealing with international relations, possibly in the CIA or the foreign service. Because ofthis im thinking about starting to take a language at my college. They offer spanish, french, arabic, german, russian, italian, and hebrew. I figured of those languages only arabic and russian would be really in demand by the government. I also do not want to learn arabic because I'm jewish and would not feel safe working in many arab speaking countries. Is Russian a useful language to know? It would obviously be a huge time commitment. Are there any beautiful cities (like Vienna, the Hague, etc.) in the Russian speaking world? It seems to me like they are mostly run down and pretty ugly and poor Is it worth it for this and also for a possible job (if i got stationed in a russian speaking area how would living standards be?)Learn Russian for the CIA/foreign service?
Truly, you would need to know more than the language to be useful to the CIA in Russia. Russians have a different mentality / attitude than western, English speaking nations that is difficult for outsiders to understand. I've been hanging out with russians for many years and I still don't really understand the way they do things. They seem to live life very fluidly, just like their language structure.



If you want to go down this path I suggest you start learning Russian now and see how you like it. It's not for everybody and takes heavy dedication to learn it well. Unless you have an incredibly big brain it will probably take you 5 to 10 years to become fluent, or at least advanced.



As for the cities, I love every one of them Ive visited and Ive been to many. Perhaps you could take a trip over there and get feel for things before you make a long-term commitment?



Visit moscow, petersburg, the golden ring, perhaps a few of the smaller cities like nizhny novgorod or kazan. If you can find a loyal russian friend, go and get drunk with the russians on the beaches of sochi during their summer. you'll love it!



Good luck mate!



Jonathon

http://listen2russian.comLearn Russian for the CIA/foreign service?
The previous comment has two wrong points - about structure of Russian language and that only in Russia Europe and Asia are connecting.

- Slavic languages, one of them is Russian, have structure - they are very strict about the word endings.

- Turkey is another place :-)

Report Abuse

You know that you insult the biggest country in the world??? Do not forget about it.

With this attitude to Russia, you will never learn russian language and won't understand russian soul. Our language is very difficult for the primitive english-speakers. Because our language is free from structures. Saint-Petersburg is the most beautiful city. It is North Venice, Russian Amsterdam, North Palmira. Only in Russia Europe and Asia are connected.
What makes you think you'll feel safer in Russia working for CIA than learning Arabic and being Jewish? Think again.

As far as standards of living in Russia, well, it used to be 3rd world country like in many - and still is in some, but after the fall of the communism it rather got revered quickly. I've seen pretty gruesome towns in USA too, so it's relative. Moscow, for example, has been the most expensive city in the world for the last couple of years, according to Forbes. Stationed by CIA in Moscow?? Come in peace - and you will get it, otherwise - good luck.
That's false.Russian cities are not ugly at all.They are as beautiful as some in New York or Chicago.

I used to live in Moscow.Enormously big city. Has it's own history an everything else. I think that living in Russia would not be a bad experience.Unless you live in some kind of village.That would suck.By the way language is an important thing.



Russia would be a good decision.

You can find crazy people everywhere.Don't blame Dimitri for his misery in Russia.He probably lived in a village or something
We were reading Dante's Inferno in my English Class and this kid from Russia sits next to me. Our teacher brought up what we thought the ninth circle of hell was. He turns to me and says this: ';You are want to know 9th circle of Hell?... RUSSIA!! Potatoes, Vodka, Communist, Gulag.';