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Iwwersetzerin
Bilingual Heptaglot
Senior Member
Luxembourg
Joined 5669 days ago
259 posts - 513 votes 
Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin
| Message 33 of 94 10 August 2010 at 6:56pm | IP Logged |
In Luxembourg, the 3 national languages (French, German and Luxembourgish) + English are compulsory. I also took 6 years of Latin and 5 years of Spanish in secondary school (high school) which were optional. Some schools also offer ancient Greek instead of Latin and Italian instead of Spanish.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| johntm93
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5327 days ago
587 posts - 746 votes
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 34 of 94 10 August 2010 at 8:13pm | IP Logged |
Desacrator48 wrote:
nuriayasmin wrote:
| When I went to school, English was taught from class 5 on. My children had English lessons in primary school, too (class 1 - 4) but were taught the basics again in class 5. The second foreign language is normally French or Latin and if you decide to study a third one, you may either do French if you had chosen Latin as your second foreign language or Latin if you're already studying French or you can do Spanish. Some schools also offer Russian (especially in East Germany), Italian or Chinese but that's not very common. English - French - Latin - Spanish are the languages which are normally taught at German schools but only English is compulsory for every pupil. |
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Serious question but only because I don't know, but is English compulsory for every German pupil because they won the war? I imagine the reverse would be true if things had gone differently. If not could someone explain why?
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Probably because English is pretty much the lingua franca of the world, and that's helpful to know for Germans because their country is important in the business world. The only way WW2 influenced that that I know of is that the victory helped make us one of the most important countries in the world (there were other reasons, such as our manufacturing industry, etc).
I don't really think the reverse is true.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| The Real CZ
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5649 days ago
1069 posts - 1495 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean
| Message 35 of 94 10 August 2010 at 9:09pm | IP Logged |
Aside from English, in 8th grade we had to take a quarter of Spanish, which was mainly vocabulary, and all I remembered were words that were English loanwords. In 11th grade, I took Spanish for 5 days before I got sick of the class because I wasn't learning anything. Spanish was the only class offered at my school because I went to a school in a town of 1000 people.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Desacrator48
Groupie
United States
Joined 5308 days ago
93 posts - 127 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 36 of 94 10 August 2010 at 9:12pm | IP Logged |
johntm93 wrote:
Desacrator48 wrote:
nuriayasmin wrote:
| When I went to school, English was taught from class 5 on. My children had English lessons in primary school, too (class 1 - 4) but were taught the basics again in class 5. The second foreign language is normally French or Latin and if you decide to study a third one, you may either do French if you had chosen Latin as your second foreign language or Latin if you're already studying French or you can do Spanish. Some schools also offer Russian (especially in East Germany), Italian or Chinese but that's not very common. English - French - Latin - Spanish are the languages which are normally taught at German schools but only English is compulsory for every pupil. |
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Serious question but only because I don't know, but is English compulsory for every German pupil because they won the war? I imagine the reverse would be true if things had gone differently. If not could someone explain why?
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|
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Probably because English is pretty much the lingua franca of the world, and that's helpful to know for Germans because their country is important in the business world. The only way WW2 influenced that that I know of is that the victory helped make us one of the most important countries in the world (there were other reasons, such as our manufacturing industry, etc).
I don't really think the reverse is true. |
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So then it must be in the other, let's say European countries, where English is not compulsory, they must not be as important in the business world ;)
I don't know, it just bothers me a little to read how one language is made compulsory. I can't imagine me having been forced to do Spanish in school as opposed to choosing it over French and even Chinese. I probably would not have liked it so much and pursued it outside of class because I, like others, would just have seen it as an educational requirement to fulfill and something I can forget when I'm done with school. That's obviously not the case here on the forum, but it definitely is with most students forced to do something in school. No wonder the world hates us for forcing them to learn English, haha.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| nuriayasmin
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5243 days ago
155 posts - 210 votes
| Message 37 of 94 10 August 2010 at 9:51pm | IP Logged |
Desacrator48 wrote:
nuriayasmin wrote:
| When I went to school, English was taught from class 5 on. My children had English lessons in primary school, too (class 1 - 4) but were taught the basics again in class 5. The second foreign language is normally French or Latin and if you decide to study a third one, you may either do French if you had chosen Latin as your second foreign language or Latin if you're already studying French or you can do Spanish. Some schools also offer Russian (especially in East Germany), Italian or Chinese but that's not very common. English - French - Latin - Spanish are the languages which are normally taught at German schools but only English is compulsory for every pupil. |
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Serious question but only because I don't know, but is English compulsory for every German pupil because they won the war? I imagine the reverse would be true if things had gone differently. If not could someone explain why?
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English only became compulsory for all pupils in the middle of the 1960's. Before English was taught to all pupils in some states (Bundesländer) only. Pupils in Hamburg had English lessons as early as 1870 but my father who was born in 1948 in North Rhine-Westphalia never learnt English at school. It also depends on the school type how many languages are offered. In most German states pupils only attend the same school until the age of 10. Afterwards pupils with bad grades go to a school where only English is taught. Those with average grades attend a school where English is taught and French may be chosen as a second foreign language. Those with good grades go to a school where they have to learn at least two foreign languages. There are also comprehensive schools which include all three school types but the differences remain after all. (I don't like to group pupils by bad, average and good grades but unfortunately that's how it works).
As for me, I attended a school for pupils with average grades, did English and French and after I had finished that school I continued my education at a school for pupils with good grades and eventuelly finished school with the option to go to university. My son also attends that second type of school but learns only English because he hates languages. My daughter attends a private bilingual school so she has normal English lessons but last school year her history and geography classes were also taught in English. The subjects which are taught in English change every school year. So her English is pretty good but as her teachers are all German she finds it difficult to understand English when she talks to native speakers.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| darkwhispersdal
Senior Member
Wales
Joined 6040 days ago
294 posts - 363 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin
| Message 38 of 94 10 August 2010 at 10:11pm | IP Logged |
French, German and Welsh. Dropped French and German pre GCSE due to clashes with other subjects and Welsh was compulsory at Foundation GCSE level if it wasn't included in picked GCSEs. However no one took the exam as none of us could string two words together after five years teaching.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| tractor
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5453 days ago
1349 posts - 2292 votes
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan
Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 39 of 94 10 August 2010 at 10:23pm | IP Logged |
Desacrator48 wrote:
I don't know, it just bothers me a little to read how one language is made compulsory. I
can't imagine me having been forced to do Spanish in school as opposed to choosing it over French and even
Chinese. I probably would not have liked it so much and pursued it outside of class because I, like others, would
just have seen it as an educational requirement to fulfill and something I can forget when I'm done with school.
That's obviously not the case here on the forum, but it definitely is with most students forced to do something in
school. No wonder the world hates us for forcing them to learn English, haha. |
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English is a compulsory subject just like maths and other things considered important enough. Not learning
English means losing out on many opportunities and lots of information.
I think it's a great thing that English is becoming the lingua franca in Europe. I makes both travelling and
business a lot easier. Maybe Esperanto would have been better though.
As of people hating Americans, that has more to do with US foreign policy than the language.
Edited by tractor on 10 August 2010 at 10:24pm
3 persons have voted this message useful
| johntm93
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5327 days ago
587 posts - 746 votes
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 40 of 94 10 August 2010 at 10:36pm | IP Logged |
Desacrator48 wrote:
johntm93 wrote:
Desacrator48 wrote:
nuriayasmin wrote:
| When I went to school, English was taught from class 5 on. My children had English lessons in primary school, too (class 1 - 4) but were taught the basics again in class 5. The second foreign language is normally French or Latin and if you decide to study a third one, you may either do French if you had chosen Latin as your second foreign language or Latin if you're already studying French or you can do Spanish. Some schools also offer Russian (especially in East Germany), Italian or Chinese but that's not very common. English - French - Latin - Spanish are the languages which are normally taught at German schools but only English is compulsory for every pupil. |
|
|
Serious question but only because I don't know, but is English compulsory for every German pupil because they won the war? I imagine the reverse would be true if things had gone differently. If not could someone explain why?
|
|
|
Probably because English is pretty much the lingua franca of the world, and that's helpful to know for Germans because their country is important in the business world. The only way WW2 influenced that that I know of is that the victory helped make us one of the most important countries in the world (there were other reasons, such as our manufacturing industry, etc).
I don't really think the reverse is true. |
|
|
So then it must be in the other, let's say European countries, where English is not compulsory, they must not be as important in the business world ;)
I don't know, it just bothers me a little to read how one language is made compulsory. I can't imagine me having been forced to do Spanish in school as opposed to choosing it over French and even Chinese. I probably would not have liked it so much and pursued it outside of class because I, like others, would just have seen it as an educational requirement to fulfill and something I can forget when I'm done with school. That's obviously not the case here on the forum, but it definitely is with most students forced to do something in school. No wonder the world hates us for forcing them to learn English, haha.
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I really don't like how schools make a language (or any language) compulsory.
And I really don't know where I was going with that other post, I kind of rambled.
2 persons have voted this message useful
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