# What foreign languages did you take in school? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 10, 2014, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048 "2014-09-10T02:15:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/82 "2014-09-11T07:48:03Z")
French for about twelve years through elementary, middle, and high school, and university. I ended up being fluent. Intensive Russian in university. Between the intensive work in classrooms (and an extra couple of hours of conversational Russian each week in another class) and the language lab, and the help from a native-speaking friend, I ended up being pretty fluent in Russian. ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/83 "2014-09-11T09:10:56Z")
They started us off with French and German immediately in primary school. The French never took even after 10 years. I can read and understand some German, but I have a very hard time speaking it. They added English in third grade. I’d say I’m fluent in English, but I wouldn’t credit school for that, I think I picked up most of it through osmosis. I remember laughing at the kids who voluntarily took Latin and Greek—who is ever going to use that? Then I went on to study philosophy… ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/84 "2014-09-11T09:16:14Z")
One year of Spanish in middle school, 3 more in high school. I used it semi-regularly at work for about a year. I could watch dramas understand them, basically, and for speaking was pretty much conversational, but not particularly fluent. I learned Castilian, so one of the Mexican guys I spoke with used to call me “Professor” because I sounded upper class/educated to him. I took a combined year of Japanese at university, and later went to Japan. I’m still here. I’m fluent, but not a perfect speaker. I have trouble with picking registers (formality levels) and don’t have a large vocabulary of specialized words. My reading comprehension is shit in comparison to my verbal skills, because I have essentially not had any time to study and have had to learn on the job. Conversational and writing skills were really important, while reading was very much secondary. Parsing meaning from memos is easier than actually reading every word. I can make it through news articles and middle school to high school level stuff, though I do have to have a _kanji_ dictionary handy for most of it, just in case. Surprisingly, some literature is actually easier to read than news-style articles, since there are a lot of compressions/abbreviations used that can trip you up even if you know all the characters. Kind of like if a newspaper’s style guide lets them write NATO as Nato. You’d have no idea what they were talking about for a while. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/85 "2014-09-11T09:39:25Z")
One year of a little bit of French, German and Latin. Then 3 years of German. Only because you had to do one language. I liked it less than any other subject I ever studied. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/86 "2014-09-11T12:00:55Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > I can give you this one (one thing which has stuck from my meagre and not very fruitful Russian studies at school long ago). It’s “vokzal” (вокзал). I always liked its marvellously crazy derivation: approximately – the first railway in Russia, around the mid-nineteenth-century, was a short line from St. Petersburg to a pleasure garden just outside the city. This pleasure garden was called after the famous one of same in London: Vauxhall. Somehow, the word got taken into Russian as the generic one for “train station”. > > (And I don’t know “necktie” or “magazine” in Russian.) That’s awesome! And now I’ll never forget it either. Allow me to extend to you a small token of my appreciation: “necktie” = галстук (GAHL-styook) “magazine” = журнал (zhur-NAHL) \<— _‘journal’_ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/87 "2014-09-11T13:55:17Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > 4 years of Arabic in elementary and middle school, of which I remember very little. Is that required in Israel? The first part, not the second part. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/88 "2014-09-11T14:36:06Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Is that required in Israel? The first part, not the second part. 😉 No, but it’s very common. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/89 "2014-09-11T14:44:27Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > That’s awesome! And now I’ll never forget it either. Allow me to extend to you a small token of my appreciation: > > “necktie” = галстук (GAHL-styook) > “magazine” = журнал (zhur-NAHL) \<— _‘journal’_ > > 😃 Спасибо ! I figure that “галстук” must be borrowed from German: “Halstuch”, literally neck-cloth. ---
**Author:** ![percypercy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@percypercy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/percypercy)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/90 "2014-09-11T16:20:24Z")
five years of Latin in high school since the first was required of us all and began in 8th grade. Latin and Spanish in college. I remember virtually no Spanish though. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/91 "2014-09-11T16:41:53Z")
I almost forgot, in addition to French in school. I learned Hebrew in Hebrew School. Don’t remember much of any of it now though. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/92 "2014-09-11T16:45:30Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > 1 year of French in college. I remember enough French to stammer a few incomprehensible phrases until the kindly French people start speaking English out of pity. As I’ve said before, the best way to manage in Paris is to speak a _very small amount_ of French - enough to show you’re willing, but not enough that they’ll expect you to understand them. When I traveled to Israel in 1980, I was in 7th grade. I was surprised to see much of the signage posted around was in Hebrew and French. While I couldn’t read the Hebrew, I actually knew enough simple French words to help out (words for exit, for example). With the exception of my trip to Quebec City, that trip to Israel was the most practical use I had for all my French classes. ---
**Author:** ![Abner\_Ravenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Abner\_Ravenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abner_Ravenwood)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/93 "2014-09-11T17:04:00Z")
Four years of German in high school. Four semesters of Italian in college. Four semesters of Italian after college, then six months with a private tutor. Despite formally studying German and Italian, I was better able to communicate in Spanish before studying it formally by picking it up from my Spanish-speaking girlfriends and my part-time job waiting tables. Though I wouldn’t consider myself fluent in Spanish yet, I can have conversations solely in Spanish for several hours without problem. ---
**Author:** ![Abner\_Ravenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Abner\_Ravenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abner_Ravenwood)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/94 "2014-09-11T17:11:08Z")
> [@overlyverbose](#): > > I took French in middle school, Spanish all high school and college (and lived in South American for a bit, so got pretty fluent) and Latin in grad school. It was cool but challenging. > > I also picked up some Portuguese when I was in South America, but nothing I was taught. Also learned to read in Italian thanks to extensive research requirements for my degrees and I speak some Catalan. But I sure wouldn’t call myself a fluent speaker in any of those last three; I’m a solid reader, but not a speaker. > > I’m 38 now and I want to learn Gujurati so I can figure out what the hell my husband’s family is talking about when we visit. So far all I can say is “dog” and “how are you?” Oh, and I can get food. Whereabouts in South America? I lived in Buenos Aires for three months in 2002, before knowing any Spanish. I had recently finished four semesters of Italian, so I was able to communicate speaking Italian or English. When I came back to the States, I began speaking Spanish with the Rioplatense accent, seeing as how that was my first exposure to Spanish. The Central Americans in Northern Virginia with whom I was trying to speak were not amused. Apparently Argentines aren’t liked so much amongst other Hispanic groups. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/95 "2014-09-11T19:32:24Z")
Four years of Latin in high school. One semester of German in college. My best language today is French, which I taught myself to read over a period of 10 years. I have read several books in French with little or no need for dictionaries. I can’t imagine doing that with Latin or German. Spoken French is largely a mystery to me, though. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/96 "2014-09-11T20:14:52Z")
2 years of French in primary, another 4 years in high school. About 10 visits to the country and I only spoke French with an old guy in north Vietnam. I took Latin for two years and it was horrible. I’ve taught English as a foreign language since 2006 and I find there are many different learners of language. Some of the best speakers can’t write worth a damn, some of the best students of English grammar are sorely deficient in vocabulary, most are struggling to come to terms with structures their own language doesn’t have. My high school teacher was French, but fluent in English, and the best student in our class had a French-speaking, French-teaching mother. C’est la vie. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/97 "2014-09-11T22:52:38Z")
> [@iljitsch](#): > > They started us off with French and German immediately in primary school. The French never took even after 10 years. I can read and understand some German, but I have a very hard time speaking it. They added English in third grade. I’d say I’m fluent in English, but I wouldn’t credit school for that, I think I picked up most of it through osmosis. > > I remember laughing at the kids who voluntarily took Latin and Greek—who is ever going to use that? Then I went on to study philosophy… Say something in philosophy. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/98 "2014-09-11T23:00:50Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > We’re _Swiss_! .“…sing ze I-am-not-a-Nazi polka!” Two years of Latin in high school - I even made some Junior Classical Latin honor thingy that I can’t really remember any more. Ironically, it was my knowledge of English that helped me with the Latin - I used to have a thing about etymology. Two years of Spanish, also in high school. In college, I picked Biblical Hebrew for my foreign language requirement. I can’t remember why - I’m not even Jewish. Our very first assignment was to memorize the _aleph-bet_. When we got back, the instructor called on a few Jewish students first, and of course - Hebrew school still fresh in their memories, I suppose - they rattled it off in one breath, the way I would with the English alphabet. So who do you suppose was the first of the _goyim_ that the instructor called on, who had to say it slowly and haltingly? Of course. I stuck with it for all four semesters my university offered it, mainly because it narrowed down to a core group of really interested and interesting students, and by the end I was fairly literate in the language. I couldn’t read poetry like _The Song of Solomon_ or the Psalms, but I could read the books of history like Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. The Torah, too. Alas, that is all gone. I kinda miss it. Although I also wish I had taken another language my university offered, that has long fascinated me: Anglo-Saxon. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/99 "2014-09-11T23:16:30Z")
Middle School: Latin, 2 years High School: Spanish, 3 years University: Arabic, 1 year If I want to snark/nerd - I also learned the languages of BASIC, Pascal, Lisp and Prolog… ETA - nothing left of any of it. I can pick up a little Spanish at best. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/100 "2014-09-11T23:18:10Z")
9 years of English, but in fact my knowledge of the language comes from tabletop role playing games, whose rulebooks weren’t yet translated in French at the time, Understanding the Dungeon Master’s guide and its peculiar vocabulary with the help of a dictionnary (I remember believing that a chainmail was a chestfull of chains…and wondering why you would want to bring so much chains for your adventures) made me progress a lot, and internet consolidated it later. However, having learnt English by reading, I’m not fluent. I’ve a hard time understanding spoken English, and my own pronunciation is very off base (to the delight of an Italian woman I frequently communicate with in English, and who learnt it exactly the opposite way : by talking with customers in a hotel where she’s working. Her theoretical mastery of the language is much more limited than mine, but she can actually understand it and be understood). 4 years of Spanish. First two years were fine, since I liked my first teacher (even though I would learn later she was a very unsavoury character, at least she was good at interesting us), but I disliked the next teacher, and gave up during the 4th year, disgusted with the language and not wanting to have anything to do with it ever again. It tooks me a couple decades to get over it. Around 40, I was interested again and start studying it again, with a Colombian student as teacher. I made significant progresses, used it at a time in an online game playing with Bolivians, then stopped, and lost a lot. I’m not fluent, mostly because my vocabulary is limited and I forgot the grammar. I can get by with it, not much more. At least, contrarily to English, I can generally understand what I’m told, when I know the words. Reading is a bit easier since I can often guess/remember words when I see them in writing (in part due to the closeness to French). Since people mention it, I also studied Latin for 7 or 8 years, but I had no interest in it, and was really bad at it, even by comparison with the already very poor level of my schoolmates. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048/101 "2014-09-11T23:18:21Z")
6 years of French in junior high and high school. I ended up being fairly fluent, and won the high school French award. Unfortunately, I haven’t had enough opportunity to use it, and have lost much of it, although if I hear French spoken or watch a French movie, I start to slip back into it. I used to dream in French. I also took 2 years of Spanish in high school, and a year of Italian in college, but they mostly end up getting confused with French. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-foreign-languages-did-you-take-in-school/698048.md?page=6)