Just wondering how many have been to DLI? Did you have something that really worked for you or advice/ tips for students?

I graduated from the Arabic Basic Course over a decade ago. I graduated top of my class, receiving the Commandant's Award, and numerous other awards. I had never even heard Arabic spoken before the Army, and honestly it was not my first choice of languages back then. That said, I learned to love it and I am still very fluent today. I highly recommend reading native newspapers and books as much as you can. Listening to news tapes and radio is important, too, because the pace is faster and trains your ear to catch it the first time and to pick out the poor annunciation you are likely to hear in real life. I also recommend speaking as much as you can with natives and non-natives, though certainly natives are the best choice. Speaking conversationally will rapidly improve your speaking, listening, grammar, and vocabulary retention. My greatest move was to start a speaking group at a local coffee shop after work each day, and I invited any Arabic student form any service and any rank that wanted to come and speak with us. We drank coffee and talked about anything. The only rules were you can only speak Arabic, and if you don't know how to say it in Arabic, you have to speak around it (describe it, etc) in Arabic until the listener or someone in the group gets it. At that point someone was usually able to either look-up or share in Arabic the proper way to say it. We all used our dictionaries heavily. That was how I spent most of my free time. Don't get sucked into the reputed party atmosphere of DLI, going to bars, hooking up with the opposite sex, going out on the town, etc. You have the rest of your life for that, but only a little less than two years at DLI to master a language that can make your career, both in the military and outside. When I got out, I landed a job making $130,000.00 per year because of my high DLPT scores and my clearance. And, honestly, I had a blast at that old coffee shop. I miss it and my buddies to this day. Great times! Best of luck to you!

<p>One of the things that I found that helped me and some friends years ago was this will sound cliché or weird. but it worked we got the tapes/cd's of the classes or language studies for the week and listened to them in our sleep and it is true osmosis does work very well.</p><p>Not saying it will work for everyone but it did help me and my friends about 20 years ago, it is worth a try if the instructors will permit you copies of the studies to utilize.</p><p><br></p><p>Good luck.</p>

My main tip to you...<div><br></div><div>BE CONFIDENT...the people I know who failed the DLPT did so because they didn't believe in themselves going into it. The course is structured pretty well and you would be amazed to see how much you really know in your target language.</div><div><br></div><div>Other tips...</div><div><br></div><div>-Watch movies (target language or english with subtitles). I would say preferably movies you know the story to already so it is easier to follow.</div><div><br></div><div>-news!news!news! A LOT of words get recycled in many of the bigger sites and repetition will drill them into your head.</div><div><br></div><div>-If you have a plan that works (same goes with PT at DLI), stick to it!</div><div>-A sidenote on PT; if you don't make pt a priority along with your language skills, it will show at GAFB</div><div><br></div><div>any questions you personally have, I would be happy to answer.</div>