DLIFLC Lingo

There's been a lot of turnover in the front office over the last year. Here is your chance to get to know DLIFLC's newest command group in this conversational podcast that takes you from books vs movies to worst jobs, bell-bottoms and floppy disks.

Much of the student experience here is shrouded in mystery, largely because of the unique nature of DLIFLC. Institutions that focus entirely on language are few and far between, let alone a military language institute that teaches to a high level of proficiency. The pace is rapid, the intensity high. For the vast majority of students, it's like nothing they've ever done before. In this podcast, we open up the window into four different students' lives. If you're a past, present or future student, or just curious about DLIFLC, you'll want to hear what they have to say.

The effects of poverty on education are well-documented. But because education is one of the few ways out of poverty, it leads to a cycle that is difficult to break. For Edward Wang, a Chinese Mandarin instructor at DLIFLC, it was one he knew well, thanks to the extremely poor and rural area where he was born and raised. It was a cycle his mother was determined to break for her children.

There's an old Czech proverb that says, “Those who know many languages live as many lives as the languages they know." Our instructors embody that proverb, none more than Persian Farsi faculty Ali Ghassemi. Listen to his story in our final podcast of the series, "A Hero's Journey: Instructor Edition."

Kamola Umarova was born and raised in Uzbekistan, speaking both Uzbek and Russian with her family. A former Army linguist herself, Kamola talks about life before and after the Soviet Union, and what brought her to DLIFLC.

Jerry Spivey and Vinnie Zinck began their Army careers during the Vietnam era. Back then, the draft was alive and well, their unofficial title was "lingies," and Asian languages were a hot commodity. This is their podumentary.

On the outset of the Iranian Revolution of 1978/1979, there were only a few Persian Farsi military linguists ready to jump into action. Michael Ruhm, Michael Sherman and Don Huntington, recent graduates of Persian Farsi, were working for Thom Chesno, when the embassy hostage crisis began.

Henry Klaput didn't start his military career with plans to become a linguist, but in 1961 Henry found himself stationed in Berlin, freshly graduated from DLIFLC. Here is one man's account of life as a Russian linguist at Checkpoint Charlie when The Wall went up.

30 years ago December 2019, Ceausescu's brutal regime abruptly ended in a public execution. Two-time DLIFLC graduate Branko Marinovich was a foreign area officer with the embassy at the time of revolution.