@@Mikeh404 The DLAB is a test to see how well your brain is able to learn a new language. It doesn't show show what language or tell how good you will do in the program. It's just to see if your brain can take the rules of language it gives you and apply it.
I took the DLAB in 1979, got a 137. The only thing I remember is the frog is in the box, the frog is going into the box and the frog is coming out of the box. Loved DLI and the 6912th in Berlin as a Russian linguist.
My recruiter did the same thing, which means there's a dire ned for linguists in the Air Force right now. Retention rates have been incredibly high throughout the pandemic, so the Air Force is having to coerce people into leaving for the Reserves earlier than planned or, in some cases, even retraining people who are currently in overcrowded careers. Not the case for linguists, hence the 10k and 14k sign-on bonuses in a time when the Air Force is offering very few bonuses for new enlisted members. Anyway, I passed with a 131 and am sure glad I did because the Air Force needs it (service before self), it's intel (which is the field I wanted anyway), I got a lock on the job (no more job draft stress), and I get a nice bonus to study for a year in Monterey, CA. Decent explanation; the simulated on-screen questions are very good.
Niceee congrats. Hoping I can go for it as well. This is starting to sound like my dream job. Getting paid to do work that I can be proud of and is interesting and causing me to want to learn more
🤑The bonus is getting me interested. My only fear about that kind of job is I will mess up a translation at a critical moment with the pressure on me or I missed something subtle. I enjoy learning new things like a new language but never been bilingual.
@@jeffreypaula2739 Do not worry about missing something in a translation. You will annotate it and move on. And you are not the only person listing or reading. There are other linguist reading and listening to the same thing you are at the same time. If it is not time critical, you will be able to go back and listen and translate. Do not do this job only for the bonus. What the recruiter does not tell you is that, you do not get the bonus until you finish all the tech schools and that uncle Sam takes 30 percent of your money right off the bat before you get it.
@@tonysmith7702 yep, as an Accountant, I expect taxes and the bonus won't be upfront but pro rata. Tech school is hard and if I flunk, I'll be a full time janitor in no time. Pero Me encanta las lenguas extrañas. Russian or Chinese will be hard. Ya, I'll try not to get it on purpose but maybe I could pull it off. Hard to tell... Maybe they'll have an officer job available if not a Cyber enlistment job. If not that then I guess I'm fixing planes like Kyle Gott. Who knows...
I’m leaving for BMT in December as a crypto linguist and I got a 131 on the DLAB as well. My sign on bonus is $18K. I had no idea the field was in such high demand.
Your explanation of the DLAB test was spot on. A lot of the stuff on the DLAB applied to the languages I learned at DLI. The test is a good prediction of learning a language. It is a good thing you did not pass because you did not want to be a linguist. Most likely if you had passed, you would be going in as a linguist. I was a Farsi and Dari linguist in the Airforce. At DLI, there were people there, who did not want to be linguists and were miserable. DLI was very stressful enough, even if you wanted to be a linguist lol. Anyway, good luck in your future endeavors.
Thank you! and yes, my recruiter was actually surprised they didn't try to waiver me because he said they usually do with anyone who scores 100-109 I am so glad they didn't! I think it is an awesome job and an amazing skill, just not the job for me
The DLAB was undoubtedly the oddest test I have ever taken. Still. Even now, all these 44 years later. You are correct; your description really did do it justice. You didn't exaggerate. It really was that bizarre. I did pass the test and did become an Air Force linguist (yay, since I wanted to do it). Hope your career is going well and you are enjoying it.
This test was crazy. It’s basically designed to seek out those people that have the brain development required to learn a second language. It’s an actual portion in your brain that one may or may not have developed growing up. Or at least that’s how I understand it. Very interesting haha
I study spanish casually as a hobby and this sounds super hard. Not sure if I'm capable of learning a second language to a point of fluency but it would be cool.
When I was going thru MEPS, I watched this because I wanted to be a linguist. I scored 69 on the ASVAB which is one point too low to be able to test. Over a year later, I retook the ASVAB and the DLAB. Nothing came as a surprise because of you all with Airman Vision. I scored Category IV! Thank you
I took a version very similar in Australia for my testing. I had a lot of fun with it. Definitely designed for pattern recognition and picking up languages fast.
That was a VERY good explanation of the DLAB, and I now wish I'd watched this before taking it. I might have gotten a few more questions right as a result of better understanding what was going on.
@@tonysmith7702 turns out I scored a 136. It was like a fun audio puzzle. Felt like I went to the movies to see a film that everyone hates, but then I liked it and didn't tell anyone that I thought it was great.
The section with the pictures is used to see if you can find patterns. Usually the 4 pictures at the top will correlate in SOME way. Like one picture may be one coin and another might be multiple coins. Then another picture might be an angry man holding multiple coins. So you can use those to pull out bits of information to answer the bottom pictures. It’s crazy and made my brain hurt but I thought it was kind of fun haha.
I was a Supply guy in the intel community. While in before I retired, I prepared my oldest son by exposing him to many languages to work on his listening skills. Then exposed him to reading, comprehension, creative writing, grammar structure, sentence structure and language exposure. Lastly, demonstrated identifying language, different voice patterns that sound like the word context. All paid off, he’s going in soon as a linguistic.
I did it and passed with 119. Though I considered taking the cryptolinguist gig, I decided against it! My heart didn't agree with going that route so now I'm doing cyber transport :)
It depends. Would you like flying a lot? Stay on the ground translating. Are you single? Sometimes very difficult for married couples even for mil to mail. When I was in, seen too many divorces, but also was happy to see true committed faithful marriages. Depends on language as well to determine how long u we I’ll be gone. Remember, mission comes first.
I desperately want to take this test. I did some research as soon as my recruiter let me know about this career. I'm going for it 100%. I've heard that it helps to study english grammar and sentence structure as that is the only sort of preparation possible for this test
Basically make sure you know the basic noun, verb, adjective. Because they will give different rules to those parts of the sentence. Then understand possession. It might say something like "The girl's dress was red" Then it could have a rule like The possessor will end in ee OR The object of the possessor will end in ee Obviously that is not exact, but something along those lines Best of luck!!
Were you given any study materials or anything? My recruiter made it seem like there were practice tests online that you could take beforehand but all I have done to prep is watch RU-vid vids like this. Great vid and rundown of it! 🍻
I was not given anything, it just up to us as the individual to decide whether to study or not, I have only heard of 1 study guide from people (when I was watching youtube videos) it's an ebook on amazon for like $10, but I didn't get it and I'm not sure of the name at the moment
I do not think studying for the DLAB will help you. Either you have it or you do not. If you come close to passing, most likely you have the ability and probably will score higher on the test the next time you take it.
I took the DLAB one time. I was in the Marine Corps. I went in in1980...... When I arrived in Boot camp were were kept up all night the first night then after Haircuts some in processing and breakfast after about 26 hours of no sleep we first had to retake the AVAB,,, That immediately after those of us with higher GT scores from MEPS. regardless of our contract, had to take The DLAB. I was so tired at that point I dont remember anything about it, just that I was completely lost..
I'm doing a research about The Air Force. The three things I'm good at is solving problem, creative mind, faster with languages. I hope in Air Force I get to learn a lot of languages even though I already know three languages and working on my four and fifth languages at memmont. I don't know what I have to get on ASVAB test to work with languages
The DLAB test is designed to see if you can learn a language fast. If you can, you will pass the test. You will learn 1 language and it is possible to cross train to another language, if at the time you apply, they have an overage or balanced in your current language. But that is not to say they will not send you to learn another language if they need you to, like they did with me. They sent me to learn Dari and changed it to my primary language. I did not volunteer to learn Dari.
@Airman Vision turns out 35m (human intelligence - army) is on the top ten "target" jobs and its my goal. Just passed MEPS. All that stands between me and that now is the DLAB. Nervous to be honest.
Yeah, I am currently in the army reserve but want to reclass from my transportation logistics job (88N) to a HUMINT instead. By the way, army linguists are being offered signing bonuses of up to FIFTY-THOUSAND DOLLARS!
My recruiter told me a little bit about cryptolinguist cuz I haven't really thought about it and now I'm really interested so I'm gonna take the DLAB. I used a practice test / study guide, and it doesn't give a grading scale so I only know my raw score is about 88%, but from what I can gather that seems to be above 120 in the standard score, so maybe I'm actually qualified for category 4 languages!
@@fdr8343 Well just so you're aware, they aren't having Air Force applicants take the DLAB anymore, they just use your ASVAB scores to determine whether they can send you here. No idea how they do it, but from my experience it seems like the majority of people here did all around pretty well on the ASVAB, so just focus on that if you do want to try for it
I scored a 120 on the DLAB and when it came time to pick a job, I was told by the Captain that I was meeting with was "the AF doesn't need any more effin' linguists". So, I didn't get that job.
@@tonysmith7702 True. I think he must have been trying to talk him out of it as he probally saw him being better in a different position. Because not only don't everyone take or pass the DLAB. But some times they get to the end of their training and fail the DLPT.
I couldnt pass it, I didnt know they test exsisted they were like hey you're taking this test tomarrow, but thats not the intel job I wanted anyways they just wanted to see if I qualify
If it is a in demand language i.e Russian, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Spanish. Request to take the DLPT for that language. If you pass and qualify for the job and there is a need at the time for that language, you can possibly go in with a guarantied language. Other wise like Airman vision said, you will have to take the DLAB. Please note, even if you do pass the DLPT for said language you still will have to take the DLAB in case the military decides to change your language.
Me about to enlist after graduating college with a degree focusing in sociolinguistics looking at the Air Force and possibly Crypto Language Analyst 👀👀👀
I thought the same (I'm trilingual). Look into the Navy, their enlistment job selection is more acceptable to people like me who are job locked in the decision to be a linguist.
Idk if the Airforce goes to Monterey, CA for DLI like the Navy does but that’s pretty much the only reason I don’t want to be a linguist 🤣 being there for 2 years lol no ty
...But why would you not want to be in beautiful Monterey, CA? By the way, ALL military linguists, whatever the branch, train at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey.
I plan on becoming an officer down the road, however cryptolinguist would be my dream job prior to rotc. I have to take the DLAB tomorrow, hoping I pass it
@@jessehendry2816 I got just below 90, however now I have my job and ship out date which is All Source Intel in the Spring. Not so bad after all, and if I learn Russian on my own time there is the aptitude test later down the road.
@@SourStrawberrys If they really want the job and are not in a hurry to enlist, wait and take the test again. Your score will go up 10 to 20 points the second time you take the test.
Do y’all know where recruits out of Mobile AL go for meps because I know there is a meps station in Montgomery which is 2 hours and 30 minutes from Mobile and there the meps station in New Orleans which is 2 hours and 5 minutes from Mobile because some people had said they go to the one in Montgomery but I also had some people tell me they go to the one in New Orleans
No clue, it could depend on which recruiter you use. Recruiters are assigned to regions, so there could be some in your area that are technically in different squadrons possibly, so they would use different MEPS stations, but you would just ask your recruiter
Funny that your recruiter said you almost passed, when everything I see says that the minimum for passing is a 95 to 100. I see nothing that said you need a 100 for say Spanish.
I’m pretty sure some of the specific stuff you talked about might be classified I asked a bunch of questions before I took my test and was told I wasn’t allowed to know