What second languages do native english speakers have to learn in school?

[Jon Miller]

I had the choice of spanish or spanish

so I took french

Jon Miller

[Dis]

I'm not sure if I had to learn a second language or not. I think 1 year is req'd. I'm not sure. I had to do 3 years to get the advanced diploma. I took 3 years of Spanish.

Spanish is a useful language where I live. I could have taken french. But there are no french speakers where I live. That was the only 2 languages they offered in my school.

And knowing 2 language (English,Spanish) is very important where I live. It can give you many more job opportunities in the working level class. Obviously high level jobs ony require English.

[Dis]

and I do feel it should be mandatory.

But not in high school! For some reason they don't even offer foreign language until jr. high school (middle school). These *******s in education have no idea how the human brain develops.

I think mandatory Spanish should be given in elementary school. If I had learned it back then it would have been much easier. Learning it in high school was very difficult for me.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by loinburger
I hated German (why the hell do you need three genders for nouns???),

Once you get past the initial shock, though, it's not so bad. And it's mitigated by the fact that German has far fewer exceptions to its grammatical rules than most languages, making it fairly easy to grasp. Plus you get to make up new words by ramming as many old words together as you want. Now that's fun.

[DanS]

"I think mandatory Spanish should be given in elementary school."

Agreed!

But still, in large swaths of the US, Spanish (or any other language) will not be of ready use...

[Asher]

One of my friends (who speaks fluent German and was born in Germany and is minoring in German in uni) says the three genders (or 2 genders and 1 lack thereof) is the most annoying thing in the language by far.

It's for that reason he prefers English.

[Kontiki]

I went through public school in Canada when French was mandatory. However, because our education system is based provincially, I had the advantage of starting French right from grade 1 in Saskatchewan. I moved to BC in grade 4, and that's when they start with French classes (or did, I don't know if that's still the case). I was way ahead of the rest of my class because of that.

Asher, growing up in Vancouver, I used to think that being able to speak French would be practically useless (although it certainly came in handy in France). I was somewhat surprised when I moved to Toronto to see how much it can help you out here. In my area (finance), there is a huge demand for bilingual people who can do business with Quebec.

[Asher]

I don't ever plan to move to Ontario either. I'm going to move back to California, where French is more than a bit useless for a software engineer.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
However, I now wish I had instead taken 3 semesters of German, as it would have helped me tremendously with singing lieder.

I thought that Italian was the most important language for that purpose. Don't they oblige opera singers to learn some Italian?

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Asher
I don't ever plan to move to Ontario either. I'm going to move back to California, where French is more than a bit useless for a software engineer.

Can't argue that point. Better brush up on your gibberish, though

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
I thought that Italian was the most important language for that purpose. Don't they oblige opera singers to learn some Italian?

Could you name me some Italian lieder?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Can't argue that point. Better brush up on your gibberish, though

That's what term papers in college are for, no?

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Could you name me some Italian lieder?

Isn't f.e. "O sole mio" a lieder?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Isn't f.e. "O sole mio" a lieder?

Not until the Germans march into Napoli.

[Zero]

Originally posted by Asher
One of my friends (who speaks fluent German and was born in Germany and is minoring in German in uni) says the three genders (or 2 genders and 1 lack thereof) is the most annoying thing in the language by far.

It's for that reason he prefers English.

isnt "it" a lack of gender? Unless you mean like "Bonito" and "bonita" like in spanish..

I took Spanish as my "fourth" language in school. my second and third aint too fluent.