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

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Not until the Germans march into Napoli.

This already happened once in a recent history.

[Boris Godunov]

Nah, that time they were invited. Makes a difference.

[Zkribbler]

In California, the rule used to be you had to take one foreign language to graduate from high school (French, Spanish or Latin--I took French) and a second foreign language to graduate from the University of California (I took German).

There's no longer any foreign language requirment.

Potsy (from Happy Days) "You take French to pick up on French chicks. You take Spanish to pick up on Spanish chicks. You take Italian to pick up on Italian chicks. But taking Latin is dumb. Who you gonna pick up with that--a nun??


Then there was the time I came home to find four messages on my phone machine for my roommate. Each in a different language. I was impressed.

[Boris Godunov]

My college French professor was Hungarian by birth, so fluent in Hungarian, English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. She said she dreamed in all 6 languages pretty evenly, often going in and out of all the languages nonstop. Whoa.

[Zero]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
My college French professor was Hungarian by birth, so fluent in Hungarian, English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. She said she dreamed in all 6 languages pretty evenly, often going in and out of all the languages nonstop. Whoa.

I dont think you have to be fluent to dream in a language. I once dreamt an entire dream in japanese. Its probably cause I was taking a japanese class during that time and I was at my girlfriend's dorm and she was watching a japanese soap while I was snoozing.

[Evil Knevil]

In the UK you have to learn a language up until age 16. If you decide to do exams (and not drop out without qualifications) you supposed to do a language exam. Thats one of those things I didn't understand, its like having mandatory British History modules in a voluntary History course...?

Most of our crummy schools in the UK have only one choice French, Bah! At most State schools anyway.

I went to a private school and got a fabulous choice between French or German. Britain is really useless as far as this is concerned

I ended up doing a bit of Greek at Uni, just because having GCSE french was pretty much a given and I wanted something to bulk my CV. Besides, it lets me respond in cod-Greek to surly taxi-guys on holiday.

I think its a disgrace that you can't get decent language teaching until you reach University

Burn the bastard Tories who invented the current system!!

[The Vagabond]

People usually learn second language only if there is a real need. That is why Americans and Britons in their mass will never be good at foreign languages unless some other overwhelming superpower emerges.

That is also why Russians are so bad at languages: everybody in our world spoke Russian.

[CapitanGarlic]

Most colleges around here require at least two years of one language...Back at my old HS, I had a choice of French, Spanish, Latin, and German. I took a year of French, hated it, and followed it up with a year of Spanish, which I enjoyed (mostly thanks to a good teacher). Then I moved, and took a second year of Spanish, which was miserable (again thanks to the teacher). The new school, having only Spanish and German, left me little option.

This year I'm taking no language, but for my intended major I'll need at least one year of a language during college, and for options I have: French, Spanish, German, Latin(although I'm not sure if I can take this one, it has to be a modern language), Greek, Russian, and Japanese. Still haven't decided, but French is definately out.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Languages in my school were option,but sstrongly-encouraged for the college-bound. The choices in middle schools were French, Spanish, and Russian. I took Russian,which was reputed to be the hardest of the three but was probably the easiest; once you get past the different alphabet -- and you get past it by Day 3 or so -- it's relentlessly regular, logical, and transparent.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
I took Russian,which was reputed to be the hardest of the three but was probably the easiest; once you get past the different alphabet -- and you get past it by Day 3 or so -- it's relentlessly regular, logical, and transparent.

Surprised to hear that.

But the difficulty of the Russian alphabet is certainly exaggerated.

[DRoseDARs]

Like most of the others who have already posted, my choices were French, Spanish, or German when I started the 7th grade. I chose Spanish (1 & 2) and did fine until the last few months of the 8th grade. I'd gotten REALLY sick and missed a lot of classes in all subjects. As a result both my Spanish and Algebra grades were dismal: barely passed the language and flunked the math. I was forced against my wishes to take the next installment of Spanish (3 & 4) and flunked miserably after the first quater. Stupid high school councilor

It wasn't until my first year of college that I bothered with foreign languages again. Took 1st and 2nd semester Spanish and did fine. Took 1st semester French and passed (read: not fine), but couldn't take the 2nd semester 'cause of the crappy why the college had scheduled it. Took 1st semester Hebrew and did fine, but didn't sign up for the 2nd semester 'cause I thought I was going out-of-town for college this past semester. Turned out I wasn't, but it was too late to sign-up, and this coming spring doesn't work for me either.



As far as requiring students to learn, I support that. I feel school-aged children (re: K-6) should be exposed to many different languages while their brains are still quite sponge-like, point being not focusing on any one language but a taste of many. Once they get to middle (7th & 8th grades) and high school (9th - 12th or 13th), then they should actually be required to learn a second language. Early immersion in foreign languages does give them the benefit of exposure to world culture, preparing them for the world at large.

[Skanky Burns]

Our choices were Italian, Japanese or French.
I don't think anyone learnt more than how to say "hello" in the language they were learning.

[Frozzy]

I had: Maori, Japanese, French and German...

[Ned]

Latin

[Sikander]

We were offered French, German and Spanish in Middle School and High School. I took 2 years of French, but didn't do all that well. Like many here, I feel it is stupid to ignore foreign language instruction until after it is made much more difficult due to your brain development. We needed to start as early as possible and learn through immersion, rather than waiting until our ability to learn language was much weaker, and then learn through slogging. It's the worst of both worlds, as your ability to learn a language the hard way (grammar and memorization) is all the more difficult when you don't have all that great a grasp of your native tongue yet in a formal sense.

Since then I've studied a little Russian, Chinese (Mandarin), French, Japanese. I'm currently not fluent in anything but English, as I haven't really used any of these languages in at least 15 years, but they have helped me immensely nonetheless, especially in reading history.