• Call for all UK students to learn a second language from age 5 - 16
    94 replies, posted
My school's language courses were awful. Had to take two years of Spanish and I really don't know any more than when I started.
Second language for brittish? You mean like proper american? [sp]I'm joking, I love brittish.[/sp]
Hopefully this goes better than the French classes I had through school. I swear I learned twice as much living with a couple Quebecois for four months than I did in about 5-6 years of Core French
Learning language is so easy I started to do it when I was a baby with undeveloped brains The problem is of schools teach like piss and make it an unstimulating experience.
In our school we had to do a language - but had the choice of French. [b]If[/b] we were in the 'top-set' (or good at it) we had the option to do [b]German as well.[/b] So yeah - brilliant choice there; I'd have preferred to do German, or another language but hey-ho got a B at GCSE, so it's better than nothing. But as other people have said "Pretty much forgotten it in a week".
Forced to do french, had to take german as an extra. Didn't go to the exam.
wait so the they can't at least pick the language they want to learn
[QUOTE=Jack_Ghetto;35248206]Forced to do french, had to take german as an extra. Didn't go to the exam.[/QUOTE] I too was forced into doing French but thankfully my teacher let me cheat in the final exam.
[QUOTE=Triumph Forks;35246433]Hopefully this goes better than the French classes I had through school. I swear I learned twice as much living with a couple Quebecois for four months than I did in about 5-6 years of Core French[/QUOTE] I had French class for 6 years, and I can't even string together a sentence.
Dropped both languages in secondary school in a heartbeat as soon as I could, never looked back. I absolutely hated it and used bablefish for almost all the homework.
I want to master my first language, or at least come close to it, before I go on to learn a second language. But since I can't, German is an interesting language and is getting me the credits I need.
I actually forgot the language i learned at school a year after, but went on to learn 4 other languages in my own time.
[QUOTE=Source;35248830]I actually forgot the language i learned at school a year after, but went on to learn 4 other languages in my own time.[/QUOTE] because you wanted to learn them you cared about it and that' why thet stick there plus holy fucking shit 4 languages in what a year.?
This is already being done here in Portugal, English is being taught from pre-school onward. It's easier to learn languages while young, I learned English from just watching Cartoon Network since I was 7 and I wasn't even trying to learn it, it just happened. Playing video games probably helped too since they're generally in English.
There has to be more focus on speaking, from the very start. In my experience, 95% of the time we were just learning to read, write and understand spoken language, rather than speak it. As a result, you can get an A* while barely being able to string sentences together on the fly, like me. I do German at AS level and I can barely converse because we only ever do written assignments. I'm not sure whether this is just confined to my school though.
[QUOTE=Canned Induvidual;35246064]I have 6 years of german on my back. Ich hasse sex jarhe of deutsch im mein arsch. How did I do? Seems like a waste[/QUOTE] Arsch is a 'der' word, and 'im' (should be 'in' as 'im'='in dem' and you would say 'in the my ass') in this case is a dativ, so that makes 'in meinem Arsch' I think 'Ich hasse' means 'I hate' dunno if you wanted to say that. No idea what the middle part of the sentence means
[QUOTE=AK'z;35246102]I still know "je suis fromage".[/QUOTE] Isn't that "I do cheese" or something. I eat cheese would be je mange fromage.
"Here students you'll need to know a second language when you get in the real world!" -on job- "I know german!" "Great! Well all the our affiliates speak English same with all businesses around the world who want to be multinational"
Ugh, forcing kids to do languages is quite literally the worst thing to do. In maths, they could easily catch up if they miss/ don't pay attention to the lesson, in, eg, Spanish, you miss a lesson and you end up fucked. Also in my GCSE Spanish lesson, literally noone knows how to make sentences without the aid of google tranalate. Our schools method is, you can't drop it, so if you fail, it looks shitty on your CV, and instead of testing how good their spanish is, they force them to remember 6 fucking paragraphs, and are expected to speak the whole thing fluently without mistake. After about 3 years, I can decently read Spaniah, can't speak/read/listen AT ALL though.
they should give you more of a choice, i was forced to learn french up until about 13 when i was then forced to learn german. needless to say i'm shit at both because they forced me to be shitty at both instead of letting me focus on one language
[QUOTE=KwiggALT;35249369]Ugh, forcing kids to do languages is quite literally the worst thing to do. In maths, they could easily catch up if they miss/ don't pay attention to the lesson, in, eg, Spanish, you miss a lesson and you end up fucked. Also in my GCSE Spanish lesson, literally noone knows how to make sentences without the aid of google tranalate. Our schools method is, you can't drop it, so if you fail, it looks shitty on your CV, and instead of testing how good their spanish is, they force them to remember 6 fucking paragraphs, and are expected to speak the whole thing fluently without mistake. After about 3 years, I can decently read Spaniah, can't speak/read/listen AT ALL though.[/QUOTE] It's a GCSE, as long as you've got a degree an employer won't really bother to look at them.
taking french is only useful to learn "un phoque" now you don't have to take a second language
As an American, I wish I'd been made to learn a second language, and I wish our public education system had better teachers. Now a bunch of my friends can speak Spanish and I'm very slowly catching on.
[QUOTE=Groat;35249735]As an American, I wish I'd been made to learn a second language, and I wish our public education system had better teachers. Now a bunch of my friends can speak Spanish and I'm very slowly catching on.[/QUOTE] it sounds harsh but in the future most people will be speaking english anyway the utility of a second language apart from english is going to steadily drop off
I did German once. I remember very little of the German and more of the teacher shouting at me for not remembering any of the German.
I was taught French from when I was about 6, until GCSE's (16). Could barely string a sentence together now. The way foreign languages are taught need to be improved. We had all these exchange kids coming over speaking basically perfect English, with slang, and apologising for their "poor vocab". They'd been learning English for less time than I'd been learning French, and they were so much better than I. So yeah, basically: Good, but make the teaching better too.
Fuck, man. I was forced to do German after I picked French, the only good thing I've learned from it is "Mein Luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller Aale"
I hated french, i forgot everything apart from some sentences like "je mange les gateaux" because gateaux sounded like the italian word "gatto", that means cat in english.
I remember French class in elementary school was 5 years of learning how to say pencil.
[QUOTE=The golden;35246024]I'm willing to bet that learning history or art is easier than learning German. (My sisters school even offered Japanese)[/QUOTE] Not really. Languages are overall the easiest subjects to learn in a way that you remember them. Art and History need an at least decent memory.
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