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Which languages studied beside the big 4? | ||
Tags: School Education | Foreign Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| MarcusOdim Groupie Brazil Joined 4647 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes  | Message 17 of 49 13 November 2011 at 3:36am | IP Logged | ||
My grandpa took French, German, Italian and Latin at a catholic school when he was a teen. My cousins take Spanish I had to study some English and Spanish at school a few years ago Some private schools kinda offer both French and German too. Some cities in Brazil have a co-official language, German, Ukrainian, Guarani and Talian so they are possibly taught at school too I've heard that in the state of Espírito Santo a few teens study Pomeranian (can't confirm though) but there is for sure a huge community and they still speak the language 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kaibri Triglot Newbie China Joined 4613 days ago 12 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, German, Mandarin Studies: Indonesian, Portuguese | Message 18 of 49 13 November 2011 at 6:36am | IP Logged | ||
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When I was in high school in the U.S. my school offered, in order of popularity, Spanish, French, and German. I
graduated about 10 years ago and since then they have added Mandarin. Mandarin seems to increasingly be one of the standard languages offered. In undergrad I didn't know many people who had studied Chinese before college (and remember this was only 5-9 years ago) but in grad school (started 2 years ago) I met many undergrads who were coming out of high school Mandarin programs. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| -Eddz- Diglot Newbie New Zealand Joined 4854 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Icelandic | Message 19 of 49 13 November 2011 at 9:16am | IP Logged | ||
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My school in NZ offers French, Spanish, Japanese, Maori, Latin and until this year also had German. Besides English, of course.
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| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5026 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 20 of 49 13 November 2011 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Back in the day, one year of Latin was mandatory for everyone around, and maybe two more years for those in the Humanities branch, but I don't know if that would count as a language (read: no real language use).
WRT to the "Big 3": (I'm taking out Spanish), it was more like English (everywhere) or French, which I was actually offered (but refused, the damned idiot) but I'm not sure it was implemented in 100% of schools. I've heard rumors of German lately, but it's still a rumor, I'm afraid. That would leave us at level -1. Neat... WRT other languages... are there other languages? ;( Edited by mrwarper on 13 November 2011 at 1:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PaulLambeth Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5173 days ago 244 posts - 315 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Hindi, Irish | Message 21 of 49 13 November 2011 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Latin was taught to us (non-religious school) for a year in General Studies, mainly because the deputy headmaster wanted to teach us it. I don't think we actually learnt anything at all in those classes though, and it was nothing like the teaching of any other languages (French and German when I was there, and Spanish a couple of years after I gave them all up).
I'm constantly telling people how bad the second language education system is in the UK. It's so poignant that I'm telling people this in English, when they are from all the way across Europe. There's just no encouragement to learn a second language. It's introduced at about age 12 and you can drop it by 16 with just a C-grade pass if you want. Also why the emphasis upon those big 4? They're reasonably handy for our small corner of the world (and a bit further - French in West Africa, Spanish in Latin America), but actually if you want to be speaking to people who you couldn't normally be speaking to, because they might not be learning English in school as much as western Europeans, they should stress different languages: Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Swahili, Russian, anything! Or at least give a mention of them. I don't recall in school ever being told about the languages around the globe, how different they are, or even how lucky we are to be born speaking English, given its global importance. Absolutely nothing. Nor were we told about the other languages in the UK ever! Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh I had to find out about myself. Languages shouldn't be everything in schools, but they should at least be something in Britain. EDIT: I'm aware that the minority languages in Britain are taught at least somewhat in those countries, but are never even mentioned in England. EDIT 2: While editing over all of my Britains, I edited over the one that was vital. Edited back. Edited by PaulLambeth on 14 November 2011 at 2:23am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Saim Pentaglot Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4883 days ago 124 posts - 215 votes Speaks: Serbo-Croatian, English*, Catalan, Spanish, Polish Studies: Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Occitan, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic (Maghribi), French, Modern Hebrew, Ukrainian, Slovenian | Message 22 of 49 14 November 2011 at 12:54am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know what the "big four" would be in Australia, but I know of Japanese, Italian, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Indonesian and German programs. I think Australian language education would be more multipolar than in other countries, but also less people take foreign languages.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5811 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 23 of 49 14 November 2011 at 1:02am | IP Logged | ||
Actually, it's mostly inertia. Historically, they were important. Now, the education system has the infrastructure: teachers, books etc. If you did a survey of what people wanted in UK schools, you'd be more likely to get people answering "Russian, Mandarin and Spanish" than what we currently have. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gales87 Pentaglot Newbie Spain Joined 4569 days ago 12 posts - 20 votes Speaks: Welsh, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: German | Message 24 of 49 14 November 2011 at 1:35am | IP Logged | ||
Just a small correction: you start to learn a foreign language at age 11 and can drop it at 14 in British state schools. It hasn´t been obligatory at GCSE level for a few years now. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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