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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 |  | |
| ikinaridango Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5925 days ago 61 posts - 80 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese, Italian Studies: German, Polish | Message 33 of 49 15 November 2011 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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At the English-medium state school I attended in Cape Town in the 1990s, Afrikaans was
compulsory and Xhosa, French and Latin were all optional. South Africa is a somewhat exceptional case, considering that it has eleven official languages. I've not lived there for over fifteen years, however. Perhaps someone with more recent experience in the education system there will be able to provide us with more up-to-date information on the variety of both languages of instruction and second- language choices in state and private schools. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lapislazuli Tetraglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6836 days ago 146 posts - 170 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, ItalianB1 Studies: French, Hungarian, Esperanto, Czech | Message 34 of 49 15 November 2011 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here in Austria Italian or Russian are also often offered at schools, besides English, French and Spanish. I am sure there are also school that have other languages too, but those are the most popular.
There is also the possiblity to focus on ancient languages then one would typically take Latin and Ancient Greek. But in some regions there are ethnic groups of Croatians, Hungarians or Slovenes, so in those areas also those languages are offered. But from what I hear it seems those are mostly taken by children who have a background (parents, grandparents) in those languages and almost not at all by the others (which I personaly find is a pity ...) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fomalhaut Groupie United States Joined 4703 days ago 80 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 35 of 49 15 November 2011 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | ||
second hand source, but a South African friend (young like me) was formally educated in French as well as native level English as Afrikaans. So it seems that it still going on to some degree 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mei190 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5140 days ago 29 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 36 of 49 17 November 2011 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
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At my old girls grammar school it went the following direction:
Everyone took French (first year onwards) If you excelled, you were offered Latin classes (second year onwards) Second foreign language to choose from German/Spanish (second year onwards) If you excelled in both French+second language (my case German) you were offered Russian (third year onwards) Summary: French, Latin, German, Spanish and Russian. The boys grammar (down the road from the girls) is a language specialist school so offers French, Spanish, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian and Mandarin from first year onwards and you can choose as electives. Was always jealous of the boys for having Mandarin. I do believe many primary schools in the area here are also offering Mandarin as well now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4689 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 37 of 49 17 November 2011 at 11:46am | IP Logged | ||
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At my Midwestern US high school, the four languages were, in order of popularity,
Spanish, French, Latin, and German. Here in Hawai`i, Japanese and Hawaiian are probably more popular than any of the European languages, and there are Hawaiian-language charter schools and immersion programs. There's been a major effort to strengthen the language, and it's really paid off. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kazordoon Bilingual Triglot Newbie Spain Joined 4580 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, English Studies: French | Message 38 of 49 21 November 2011 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I was in school, in Spain, I did 3 years of latin, which for that time, between 1986 and 1989, was compulsory for all students. We had to learn lots of word declinations and verb conjugation, but after those 3 years I couldn't even say "hello" in latin.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6397 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 39 of 49 21 November 2011 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think here in Russia it's more of a big 3 (English, French, German), with Spanish probably being about as rare (but possible) as Finnish, Chinese or Japanese, only, these are available in specific regions and Spanish is studied in various ones as there are no areas where Spanish is more relevant or less relevant :)
It's still big four in the sense that you can't take the national exam in any other language (when you graduate). I went to the lyceum that belongs to moscow states linguistics uni (where i studied later... huge disappointment!), and the languages to choose from were French, German, Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian, Japanese, Mandarin, Arabic (when I studied they never ended up forming a group), with English being compulsory as either first or second foreign language. I got German as I wanted but you're not guaranteed to get the one you want. Quite typical in Russia, really. At the uni, some had to study such languages as Kazakh, Armenian etc... normally with French or German as the other foreign language so that they had some career opportunities anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6650 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 40 of 49 21 November 2011 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm not surprised by this comment at all. I know a girl at my school here in Taipei that studied Chinese for 6 years in Australia, and her Chinese is awful. Unbelievably awful. To add insult to injury, apparently her teacher told them they "don't need to worry about tones", so needless to say, she gets a lot of confused looks from locals and students alike when she speaks her toneless Chinese. I really can't even say how awful it sounds to hear Chinese syllables with Australian English intonation. And just to twist the knife, she wants to go back to Australia to be a Chinese teacher. And she's nearly failing. As far as my hometown, my high school had only French and Spanish. Spanish was more popular by far, and is what I took. Other high schools in the area offered German, Italian, Latin, and Russian, but I don't think any school offered more than 3 languages. Spanish was offered at every school, of course; French was offered at most. Edited by OneEye on 21 November 2011 at 4:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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