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Spanish in the United States | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Raye Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5159 days ago 37 posts - 51 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: DutchB1 | Message 25 of 27 13 December 2010 at 1:36am | IP Logged |
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No real disagreement here, hrhenry. My point is that Spanish has a de facto status as a second language here, and many native English speakers, however monolingual they continue to be, acknowledge this in the choices they make throughout life (choosing it over French in high school, signing up for that Spanish for Education Professionals or Spanish for Health care Professionals class for work, taking that Conversational Spanish in Six Weeks course because “I really should learn Spanish”). And some do learn it to advanced (practical) levels, especially in the West and big cities. Only a comparative few make this kind of effort for Russsian, Chinese, etc., even though there are large immigrant populations who speak those languages, too.
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| patlajan Triglot Groupie United States Joined 7154 days ago 59 posts - 65 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Turkish Studies: German, Mandarin, French | Message 26 of 27 22 December 2010 at 7:33pm | IP Logged |
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In my experience, most college bound high school students take a foreign language, and the majority of them choose Spanish. But as widely observed, very few would place this skill on a resume after college. This is because there is little social or economic incentive in the U.S. to learn languages. The quality of the teaching is generally not the issue, any more than the quality of math teaching results in most people being unable to do algebra, regardless of their high school grades.
Until there is a "chic factor" or true economic reason most Americans won't learn or retain another language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| NYC_Trini_Span Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7228 days ago 60 posts - 66 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 27 of 27 25 December 2010 at 8:09am | IP Logged |
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On the one hand I agree that the language education sucks in the USA in terms of having conversations (I notice many people - including my oldest brother- can read the heck out anything in Spanish but cannot speak it) but a few schools do standout. My love of Spanish began from the first grade. I was placed as an advanced reader/writer and everyday I would be pulled out of class during "reading time" and taught Spanish with about 6 other kids. Let me tell you I remember knowing greetings, parts of the body, my days and colors etc and I know that had we been taught this up through senior year in hs we would have been fluent. Or rather highly conversational.
On the other hand I do believe individual US schools can buck the trend. I work around education. In 2004/5 I got a chance to visit a school my company was helping to fund. All kids at the school whether white or black or latino were learning mandarin from kindergarden to 6 grade (it was 50 percent or so chinese population) and I was so blown away meeting these kids who were having lunch and chatting away with the little chinese girls and boys. This is in Manhattan by the way. In fact it was so great I was inspired to study Spanish againan but really seriously this time and the rest is history. *my family is from Trinidad and Tobago (ahhh you saw my name already) and its an island that is 7 miles from Venezuela but even there Spanish is not taught as much. Most people there speak English (british based) or hindi. But its not uncommon to meet a Trini who has work or family in Venezuela and has learned to speak somewhat. Since 2007 the island has decided to make Spanish the other national language and even the signs in the capital (coincidentally named Port of Spain from the days of Spanish rule) have been changed to half Spanish half English. They have a goal of being bilingual country by 2020 Edited by NYC_Trini_Span on 25 December 2010 at 8:21am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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