BTW, Isabelle, I would also recommend Latin if it’s an option. It’s very useful in understanding a lot of English roots and it’s a good springboard for understanding the roots of languages like Spanish, French and Italian as well.
So that your “bull” detector will go off when someone tries to sell you on Homeopathy.
I agree that kids should have to learn another foreign language, the earlier the better.
Ricky Jay
Yet bayonet1976 states this:
But he did post this:
So how else are you going to communicate with new immigrants? Either they learn English – which according to you they don’t have time to do – or Americans learn another language.
bayonet1976
Again I have no problem with kids in America learning a foreign language but the same applies to immigrants. They should immerse themselves in English BEFORE they move here.
My grandparents learned English when they came here more than a century ago. It was the dominant language of the time. By that logic all Europeans should speak fluent Latin since it was once the language of much of Europe.
Trygve
You may have been helped but most America kids are not. The problem with foreign languages in America is that we teach them too little and too late. Most people are not going to learn a language if you teach it a few times a week when they are teenagers. You have to do it much younger than that. We generally don’t.
To Isabelle:
I took about 7 years of spanish total from gradeschool on up. In highschool I was in an AP-type class and ended up teaching spanish (very basic) to grade schoolers for a couple of semesters. Being that you live in an area with a lot of Spanish speakers, and the ease of learning it as a language, I would suggest spanish, but because of my first sentence, I may be a little biased. 
I also took a couple of years of Latin, and my mother spoke french and tried teaching it to me when I homeschooled. I recommend both as well. I am currently trying to learn a little Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and Fillipino on my own, but aside from the Fillipino (which has a lot of spanish and portugese), am finding it all slow going, but fun. Every language is a good one, each having it’s own strengths and weaknesses, so I would let your child decide based on what’s taught at the school.
I also wouldn’t worry about him failing either class. As long as they study and get a little practice in, Language 1 and 2 courses are relatively simple. Level one normally focuses on phonetics and pronunciation (which is all boring mind you, but isn’t a mental marathon), and throws in some history/etymology and simple phrases. Level 2 is funner, but rarely goes beyond what I would consider gradeschool level grammar and language usage. It’s basically like they will be re-taking the equivalent of all their early english classes from kindergarten to about 6th grade in two years. Nothing a high-school student should have any difficulty with.
quote:
Originally posted by Amethyst Autumn
…If you plan to immgrate to America you should do Americans the common courtesy of learning their language before you move.
So what about this:
If you invade a sovereign nation with the plan to occupy it, you should first do the citizens the courtesy of learning their language before you cross their border and bomb them into the stone age…
?
Thank you for noticing.
Now on topic:
DTC, why do you think it is a necessity to first learn English before you could be able to learn Spanish or Japanese?
Millions and millions of people on this globe have no knowledge of English, don’t have Spanish or Japanese as their first langua
quote:
Originally posted by Amethyst Autumn
…If you plan to immgrate to America you should do Americans the common courtesy of learning their language before you move.
So what about this:
If you invade a sovereign nation with the plan to occupy it, you should first do the citizens the courtesy of learning their language before you cross their border and bomb them into the stone age…
?
Thank you for noticing.
Now on topic:
DTC, why do you think it is a necessity to first learn English before you could be able to learn Spanish or Japanese?
Uncountable people on this globe have no knowledge of English, don’t have Spanish or Japanese as their first yet are fluent in one or both of them.
The OP seems to be very upset that learning one single foreign language is required to be able to enter university?
That is in my opinion because US’ers are so spoiled… You people learn English at school and that’s it.
I don’t know what you would do if you lived in a country with 3 national languages from which two are teached already in primary school, and where in addition to that children study often also Latin and Greek, or Latin and what is called “Modern languages” which is also an option. As result of that they are fluent in all of those languages at the age of 18.
When I was 17 I did a State Exam in Belgium to be permitted to University there. Besides the normal curriculum there were 3 languages required.
My first language was Arabic of course, my second ones were French and Dutch.
So I took French
I don’t know what is wrong here, things get posted before I want them to be… must be my keyboard.
To go on: I did French as my second language; being examinated by the Examination commision of the Ministery of Education of the Flemisch Government Dutch was required as first language. As third one I took English (didn’t do very well on the written part of course, but since the languages were taken as one block, the two others saved me) and in addition I did German as 4the language.
This is nothing exceptional or even strange in Belgium. And I’m sure it is not exceptional in other European countries as well.
So you see that you being so upset and angry because two years study of a foreign language comes across as very strange on people outside the USA.
As for a second or more language being a necessity for people nowadays: I think if you want to be informed about the rest of the world, on no matter which issue that gets your interest, you need to study as much languages as you possibly can.
Salaam. A
Wait! Your grandparents learned english when they came here? Not before they came here? I sure hope you chastised them for their lack of planning, forethought and courtesy.
I phrased myself badly. What I meant was that learning another language forces one to better understand one’s own language. To understand grammar and parts of speech in a new language you must first understand what they mean in your own language. I didn’t mean to imply that it was necessary to learn English specificically, I think I was just betraying a cultural bias. Sorry about that.
My grandparents are dead so it would hardly do much good. They DID have serious problems because they didn’t learn English at an early age. My grandmother was at a disadvantage in this country.
It still doesn’t negate my point that people who voluntarily immigrate should learn the language before they move somewhere.
So Saddam Hussein should have learned Kurdish?
Ignoring the irrelevant hijack and returning to the OP:
As with almost everybody else, I find the position expressed in the OP (but later backed away from) to be limited and provincial. I agree with those who have suggested that at least one foreign language should be required in grade school, for at least two years.
Reasoning:
As others have said, learning a foreign language improves one’s skills in one’s own native language.
Learning a foreign language helps to erase the cultural myopia and smug self-importance that otherwise can take hold.
It’s often more useful than one expects.
Doing it and not needing it is much better than not doing it and kicking yourself as an adult.
And here’s something I haven’t seen anybody else mention: Learning at least one second language when young gives you the intellectual adaptability to add another language later as needed. I took two years of German in high school, which hasn’t been particularly useful in and of itself, but its grammatical weirdness gave me enough linguistic flexibility that I find I can pick up bits and pieces of other languages as I need to. Training my ear to recognize (and my mouth to replicate) the very much non-English sounds of ö and ü gave me the starting point to be able to hear, for example, the even less familiar vowel changes in Chinese. People who don’t train their ear young tend to lose, or never develop, this ability to distinguish non-native phonemes an diphthongs. (We discussed this phenomenon here.) And the ability to adapt to different grammar — i.e., the understanding that “just because we do it this way in English doesn’t mean there isn’t another way to do it” — is a boundary-crossing skill. In short, learning any language, in my opinion, provides a head start to learning another one. I may never need to speak German in my day-to-day life, but I know I’ll be able to pick up another one if I need to.
I know you like to complain about stuff, Isabelle, but I think you’re off base on this one.
I can agree with that… Learning languages requires a solid base in your first one even when it belongs to a different language group.
I had the luck that I have 3 first languages, and in addition to that from two different language groups and written in different script. Although brother Dyslex played and still plays games especially when I use roman script, these languages were a great start I received for free by birth.
Salaam. A
I think you have a point there, when you describe further on your experience.
I can’t compare it with mine, since I was thrown in a 3 languaged household by birth and thus probably developped those skills automatically. But you could be right that what you describe may be the reason why I developped despite my dyslexia the ability to learn the other languages I needed. I never thought about that or came to the idea to make the connection.
Salaam. A
I would disagree with this one. A better understanding of english language will be achieved mostly trough study of english. And using it as a preparation for learning a romance language seems a waste of time to me. Why not directly study the target language? And honnestly, latin (I did study it) isn’t an extremely useful skill. I would rather have studied any living language, even an obscure one picked at random.
But of course, I perceive languages mainly as a communication tool, and I’m not extremely interested in the other side benefits they could provide.
We’re hijacking, but : Unfortunately, a lot of people own a disabled BS detector. A friend of mine, who graduated from one of the most famous french sciences school precisely tried to sell me on homeopathy last week.
clairobscur, I’m very glad I learned Latin, and it really does help with English. I found Dutch helped as well - it’s amazing how readable I find early middle English. Learning the history of your language is fascinating.
And latin definitely helps with French, Italian, Spanish etc. I can sort of make out bits of all these languages despite not having studied them at all. (Except for 2 years high school French.) What with Dutch as well, I now have a minimal starter kit for many languages in one - Romance and Germanics. Some vocab, a clue on the grammar. I can feel not totally at sea in all western European countries plus anywhere speaking spanish or portuguese. I only start getting lost when it gets to eastern europe, and the middle east and asia are worse still. Never been to Africa other than Egypt; I imagine those languages would be very foreign but at least I could muddle along in Africaans down south…
Plus I enjoyed Latin because I was into ancient hstory and mythology at the time.
English grammar seems to be taught by intuition these days, which is very limiting. Learning any other language forces you to recognise your own language’s rules as well as the other. Are you French? Perhaps for you learning English had this function?
I don’t know what the rules are in Australia, but at least one language other than English was compulsory at my school for the first 4 years of high school, and most people chose to go on with it in year 11 & 12. French, German and Indonesian were the popular ones, with Latin, Japanese and some other langauages available.
I also spent a few years in a Dutch high school, where English, French, German and Dutch were all required, with Latin and Ancient Greek as options.
Unfortunately, “English” classes here don’t really involve the study of English for more than a couple weeks out of the year. They’re mostly just literature classes, presumably because some committee decided students will be better people if they can answer questions about all the books on a list.
Yeah…, English classes up until 12th grade AP English all suck. Hard. I have little to no faith in the writing ability of 50% of my graduating class, and I’m not coming from a bad HS. Truth is, study of English in America passes for reading a few classic books and doing some really simple papers about really simple ideas. Hardly any work is done about grammar, syntax, style, or any writing mechanics in general. Furthermore, when you study the grammar and syntax of another language, you will most definitely have a better understanding of the same in your native language. At least that’s the way it was for me.
I will not argue about the importance of learning a foreign language, since others have done so. I will comment about the eligibility of the task.
Isabelle thinks that only subjects necessary to everybody should be mandatory, all others beeing eligible. So we would have the national language and history and elementary calculus as mandatory. The children would choose all the other subjects according with their future professional needs.
But how would the children choose a profession if they don’t know what subjects interest them?
I have a familiar example to this: I am an Electrical Engineer and so is my eldest son. I expected my daughter to follow our steps, but two years before garduation she decided she liked biology better than physics, so she went to medical scool. She finished her residence in endocrynology last year, is pursuind a MSc degree in the same subject and is a hell of a doctor.
If biology was eligible she would never discover her real vocation.
BTW, our native language is Portuguese, but my two children are very fluent in English and in French. After graduating in Med School and before entering the Residence, my daughter spent some time in an American hospital, where she gave classes to American Med students.
I am not qualified to decide what subjects should be mandatory. My list that I created was off the top of my head. In order to make a fair assessment I would have to do further research on the topic.
On another note. My son bumped into his old teacher yesterday and posed the question “which language should he take?” She suggested German or French.
So many points of view.