|
 |
Your language experience in school | ||
Tags: School Education | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4442 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 9 of 17 05 November 2013 at 9:47pm | IP Logged |
|
Mother tongue: Chinese Cantonese
Second language: English Languages studied: Chinese Cantonese: 5 years. 90% Mandarin: 2 years. Retention 90% French: 5 years. Retention 10% Back in my school days I have 2 friends (brothers) who both studied Latin, German and French. Back then they did well in class but I don't think they were at the conversation level. At some point both relocated to Europe to work and ended up in Germany. Along the way they picked up Spanish & Italian living there for a few years but never went to class on those languages. A lot of what you retain is not what you learn in the classroom but what you do on your spare time. You can start interacting with people who speak your target language, go online and practice by posting messages on online blogs. Otherwise you can spend a few months to years in a different place to learn from the natives like Carlos Douh from Vancouver, Canada who travelled to Hong Kong for a few months. Then he started taking lessons, posted a few videos in Cantonese which became instant hits. After that he decided to relocate permanently. Recently I was asked to translate some Internet content from English to Chinese. Although I'm into Graphic & Web Design, translation isn't my strong point. I used Google Translate as a starting point and finished editing the text in a week. Had 2 people who are fluent in Chinese do the proofreading. They made a few minor changes but the rest looked acceptable. Based on observations what you do in class is less important than what you do outside. Most people only spend 1-2 hours in class while the rest of the day your brain is engaged in the language you are familiar with instead of your target language. Back in my school days took French. Out of a class of about 30 people only 2 were comfortable enough communicating outside class. To get my retention level up on Chinese I would designate more hours in a day watching TV drams, movies and other videos (some with subtitles and some don't). And listen to any radio programs available online in the target language. On top of that I have several lists of words & phrases I come across watching videos and go over them from time to time. I know a few people who started out with more years of Chinese in school but have completely forgotten how to read. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 10 of 17 06 November 2013 at 1:13am | IP Logged |
|
Language(s) studied
English (9 years) German (4 years) Latin (3 years) In primary and early secondary school, I always really loved English and I did a lot in my free time (translating songs, reading), and my performance in class was the level expected of those who took private classes in addition to those at school. When I was 12, my English teacher recommended me to take the entrance exams at the lyceum where her daughter studied, as the level of English was more advanced. I passed. The lyceum was awesome, but I was lucky to get the second foreign language I wanted, German. Later on I got to know a girl who wanted to learn Italian but got Japanese. Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish and Ukrainian were also studied. And obviously French. Latin was a requirement for everyone starting from their second year out of four. Started at age English at 8, German at 13, Latin at 14 Retention into adulthood Difficult question for me because I'm 23 and more importantly, because all hell broke loose when the lyceum made me realize that it's possible to learn ANY language. And this was also the best English teaching I've ever had. The school situation today I guess it can be said I was ahead of my time, haha. Nowadays it's much more common to learn English by having fun, especially since everyone has Internet access. I often wonder how my life could've been different if I had chosen Spanish or Italian. In fact, my parents were handling the paperwork on my behalf (I was 12, remember) - they knew I wanted to learn German so they listed it. but I wonder if I might've listed German, Spanish, Italian, assuming it was allowed to give several preferences in hope of getting something you like. I really didn't want French or Arabic so I would've tried this, I think. Anyway, I'd say nowadays Spanish is becoming more common, but the big two is still German and French. And of course English on its throne. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 11 of 17 06 November 2013 at 3:47am | IP Logged |
|
Language(s) studied
English (5 years) German (4 years) Russian (3 years) [not typical of my generation, though - I changed the primary school along with the language, and my first school was in the middle of transition from one language to another one anyway] Started at age Russian - 9 [again, not typical of my generation - I went to school earlier than most children] German - 11 [a one-year pause after the first year in primary school, and starting again from scratch in secondary education] English - 12 [learned before at home and in private classes as it was not offered in my first primary school. When I changed the school, I joined a class that had learned it already for 3 years] Retention into adulthood English - irrelevant, as I was always ahead of my class, and unfortunately learned next to nothing in the classroom (lots of wasted hours) German - 20-30 words and a veeeery general idea of grammar. No actual language skills acquired at school. I couldn't speak any German even in the end of my German course.Nothing but "My name is...", "I live in..." and the extremely useful knowledge of "The Little Red Riding Hood" by heart (with very limited comprehension of the painfully memorized sentences). Started learning again from scratch (German, not the fairy-tale). Russian - basic reading skills (I still remember the letters well even though I dabbled in Russian two weeks tops in the last 15 years), solid basics in Russian handwriting that I should be able to activate if need be (we learned Russian letters the same way children do when they start learning how to write - no more than a few letters in one go, calligraphypracticeetc.), a couple of dozens of words, including the Russian names for punctuation marks, some simple sentences, one children's poem about how great we know the alphabet :) (my knowledge of the Russian alphabet is limited to "a b v g", though :)), bits and pieces of declination and conjugation. The school situation today English is the main language taught at school, German is still a popular second foreign language, at least in my region. Russian is much less common at school than it used to be. Spanish gained some popularity. Children now start earlier in primary school (often at the age of 6-8) and learning a language is compulsory until the end of the school education (this is not new). The second language is obligatory for those who want to pass A-levels and enter the university (no change here either) and it often starts a few years earlier (not sure if this is regulated by law, though). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Einarr Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom einarrslanguagelog.w Joined 4611 days ago 118 posts - 269 votes Speaks: English, Bulgarian*, French, Russian Studies: Swedish | Message 12 of 17 06 November 2013 at 2:01pm | IP Logged |
|
Language(s) studied
English (7 years) French(5 years) Back when I started school in 1997 it wasn't common for the first graders to study any foreign language up until grade 5. Then the choice they gave you was usually: English, German, Spanish or Russian. I wanted to go for German of course, but by popular demand from my family and my primary teacher, I had to finally end up in the English class, which was basically the language that almost everyone had chosen. Then, after grade 7, it was compulsory for everyone who wanted go to a respected lyceum to take a state exam (usually there were a bunch of high schools that would take students after grade 8, but no one really wanted to end up there, unless they couldn't care less about themselves or their studies). Typically the competition for the best ones is vigorous and that is due to the fact that one has two different paths that can list in their list of schools. Basically you have the classic lycees - there you study intensively L1 all the way through the 5 years and together with that you should pick up a L2 which is studied for a couple up to 4 hours weekly - basically nothing to write home about.Usually the high school curricula requires from the students there to study Chemistry, Biology, History, Physics and Geography (pretty much everything besides Bulgarian) in the L1. Usually the most popular lyceums were the German one (which is not only competitive but way beyond that), the Spanish one, the French one, then the Italian one (which everyone knew that it's a no go unless the parents are VERY rich) and of course the American one where not only one needs to be rich, but also exceptionally smart. Then you have the national professional lycees. There the competition can get even worse, due to the fact that they usually attract students from all over the country. Now the course I was studying was a bit different than the normal curricula you get into one of these schools. Usually you study your L1 to a decent level (not the one that would match the level of a person from a specific language lyceum) and then to a lesser extent a L2. What we did at mine was some kind an experimental joint degree (or as I'd like to call it: let's see how much longer can they endure) between it the French government and the French institute. So the point was that we had the amount of French they study at the French lyceum, then from grade 9 we were expected to know French good enough to manage all the business-related subjects in French (we, for instance had a couple of teachers that were French, and no matter what they would not explain anything, not even a misunderstood word in English). Apart from that we got a couple of more business subjects together with the maths, physics, chemistry, biology, geography and history which were taught in Bulgarian only. For a L2 we had a choice between English and German. Me and a couple of friends wanted German, but once again there was not enough of a demand for it. Apart from these all other high - schools tend to follow their models. When it comes down to other languages there's the Russian lyceum - not as popular as it used to be before 1990, and I think lycee No. 18 where they teach languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Korean and Arabic apart from the usual English, French, German and Spanish. I believe they teach Swedish at lycee No. 12, but only as L2. Started at age English - 11 French - 14 Retention into adulthood English - as my primary source of communication, apart from my native language, I'd say I'm doing a good job, besides I had to keep it up to a level anyway as I needed it at university and need it basically every day, living in an English - speaking country. French - brushing it up at the moment, due to the fact I consider my active skills a bit rusty, but apart from that, given the fact I haven't been using it actively for the last 4 years since I've left school it's all been fine, thanks to the occasional translations I do. The school situation today Basically the same with the sole difference that children start studying a foreign language from grade 1, and if I'm not mistaken by grade 5 they're expected to be able to pick up one more language. The novelty, however, is that the ministry of education has implemented the right of a student to pick up one's mother language as an elective subject. From what I checked at the site of the ministry of education, such language can be: Armenian, Hebrew, Turkish or Roma as Bulgaria has significant minorities from this ethnic groups. Edited by Einarr on 06 November 2013 at 2:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| russtache512 Newbie United States pandamanda.com Joined 4026 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 13 of 17 15 November 2013 at 4:28am | IP Logged |
|
I took 4 years of Spanish in school and learned more Spanish in 1 semester in college
than in all of high school. There was 1 fundamental difference with my highschool class vs. my collegiate class. My collegiate professor only spoke Spanish! It forced me to switch gears when I walked in because I knew if I wasn't 100% focused on the language I was going to fall behind and miss out on essential directions. Now I'm studying Mandarin (just beginning) and rather than using a school and text book approach I'm going to find a site that offers 1 on 1 speaking in a colloquial manner because I know it will improve my Mandarin 10x faster than taking Mandarin classes from a book. Any thoughts? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4288 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 14 of 17 15 November 2013 at 5:02am | IP Logged |
|
I learnt Spanish four years in secondary school, in addition around that age I spent
fours years for Mandarin, four for French, three for Portuguese. In 2007 spent one year self- study for Spanish and covered almost all of the grammar and learnt more than in the four years. Thereafter until now I self-studied semicontinuously. Now several years later and my goal is to do the C2 exam. I would never have imagined that in secondary school. Meanwhilst, I discontinued Mandarin completely after classes, since thereafter was I still unable to even make simple sentences. But I can half-read a newspaper and semi- write still. Edited by 1e4e6 on 15 November 2013 at 5:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| FullofPears Newbie Japan Joined 4049 days ago 9 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 15 of 17 15 November 2013 at 6:07am | IP Logged |
|
Languages studied:
French: 4 years (elementary school) Spanish: 6 years (high school/university) Started at age: French: 10 Spanish: 14 Retention into adulthood: French - None. I can understand some words when I read them, but only because I see them all the time on labels (I'm Canadian). Most of my French vocabulary is common food ingredients and the parts on the nutritional information, plus some things on airport signs and the like. Spanish - Almost none. My school had a terrible Spanish programme, and which really showed when I got to university. I suffered through two years of university Spanish before giving up. I could probably pick it up fairly quickly if I were so inclined, though. The school situation now: I graduated less than a decade ago, so presumably the same. I've talked to people who stuck with French instead of switching to Spanish like I did, and it sounds like they've kept more French than I kept either language. Lesson learnt: if you're in Canada, study French, not Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4337 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 16 of 17 15 November 2013 at 8:49am | IP Logged |
|
Languages Studied
French (14 years) German (1 year) Japanese (3 years) Spanish (1 term) (There's been a lot of study outside of school, but these are the years that were done in school) Started at age French: 4 German: 13 Japanese: 14 Spanish: 19 Retention into very early "adulthood" French was almost a disaster as I couldn't speak it when I graduated and my comprehension was limited to French Immersion school subjects. Better now that I'm working on it, but I could have easily lost a lot of it. German is an official disaster: I think "I have" is "Ich habe". Apart from some Rammstein lyrics, you'd be hard pressed to get any more German out of me. Japanese is pretty good, at least in terms of comprehension. I was one of the only student who actually worked outside of class and made an effort to learn more than a few Kanji. I'm not really studying it anymore, but I read novels every now and then and watch movies/shows when they catch my interest. It's too early to say for Spanish, but I have high hopes. Will report back in 10 years along with the other languages I may or may not study in university. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
