• Call for all UK students to learn a second language from age 5 - 16
    94 replies, posted
omelette du fromage
I wish the US would do this too. By the time kids start taking Spanish or French in High school they're getting too old to effectively learn a new language.
In my opinion, learning a foreign language is more important that understanding many of the aspects of, say, trigonometry or poetry, because fields where knowing those are extremely limited compared to the usefulness of being multilingual.
I have to admit, I actually enjoyed the way I was taught Spanish at my local community college. We very rarely actually used the book - most of the class time was group-based activities, where we'd either be in small groups and complete various tasks that required cooperation in Spanish, or we'd be in large groups and do various games in Spanish. About the only thing we used the book for was as a basis for activities. The homework and the exams were piss easy, mostly just vocabulary and grammar - and never any of the obscure shit you'll never actually use, like classes such as English and math tend to force on you, but practical and common usages. I mean, you could literally do the homework fifteen minutes before class, and the exams required almost absolutely no studying, because they involved words and grammar we used all the time in class, because the exams were all centered around common things. Yeah, we went over that obscure shit, but we never were really tested on it. We may have had occasional quizzes on it, but the quizzes were worth very small portions of the grade and were short besides (ten minutes was allotted, and the class generally finished in seven). I really liked how that class was taught, and I felt like I was actually learning the language for the sake of the language itself. A year later, unfortunately, I've forgotten everything but "Ole" and "Banyo" (the 'y' is part of transliteration), as well as a few simple phrases. But then, as I keep telling myself, the only phrases you need to know in a language are "I don't speak <language>" and "where is the bathroom?". And I know both of those. :v:
That's the problem with living in a English speaking country. Everywhere in the world you learn your primary language + english.... In uk / america you learn english. Period.
it annoys me that all other European country's are so willing to learn English but the british kids dont give a fuck about learning foreign languages.
I picked up Spanish in my sophomore year of high school. Spanish 1 and 2 were a breeze for me, partly because it was a half English half Spanish environment. Then I took Spanish 3 because I felt I could handle it. It was an all Spanish environment (about halfway through the first semester the teacher started docking points for speaking English), and I almost completely failed. Puedo todavía usar gramática bien, pero olvida las palabras de unas cosas a veces.
I went 2 years of german and basically the only thing I know is kartoffel I learned that off the back of a spice mix
[QUOTE=Paravin;35246142]As an Eastern European citizen I have to know my native language (Latvian), the cancer-language you can't live without (Russian), English and I'll learn French and Spanish in uni. So, please, learning languages is piss-easy.[/QUOTE]Easy for some. I've been trying to re-learn Finnish, which used to be my mother tongue when I was little, for 8 fucking years. Swedish was an absolute arse-ache (that I failed consistently) as well, despite every bloody Swedish teacher i've had claiming it's really similar to English.
I learnt french from and early age right till the end of school and I cant even speak a proper sentence of it.
[QUOTE=lavacano;35251257] Puedo todavía usar gramática bien, pero olvida las palabras de unas cosas a veces.[/QUOTE] [I]Todavía puedo usar gramática bien, pero olvido las palabras de algunas cosas a veces[/I] On: Here, in Chile, we have english classes in primary, secondary and high school. And is pretty useful. That's how I'm writting here :v:
French was shit, would've rather learned a man's language like German or Russian, fuck the pansy French shit. Not trying to offend people who might be French, but your language is terrible. Oh and I forgot all of it and never took the exam, but only by choice.
I completely agree. But not with our current curriculum. I've just done my TEFL course, and for an example they taught us different lessons in German, Russian, Urdu and Portuguese. I learnt more language in 2 days than I did in 2 years at school. It's with our shit schools the problem lies. [editline]23rd March 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Legend286;35253501]French was shit, would've rather learned a man's language like German or Russian, fuck the pansy French shit. Not trying to offend people who might be French, but your language is terrible. Oh and I forgot all of it and never took the exam, but only by choice.[/QUOTE] [img]http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/402029_264308863644251_100001954183949_627572_238677920_n.jpg[/img] too manly for french
[QUOTE=NoDachi;35253679]I completely agree. But not with our current curriculum. I've just done my TEFL course, and for an example they taught us different lessons in German, Russian, Urdu and Portuguese. I learnt more language in 2 days than I did in 2 years at school. It's with our shit schools the problem lies. [editline]23rd March 2012[/editline] [img]http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/402029_264308863644251_100001954183949_627572_238677920_n.jpg[/img] too manly for french[/QUOTE] Wow you can click a link below my avatar in an attempt to be humorous.
[QUOTE=Legend286;35254492]Wow you can click a link below my avatar in an attempt to be humorous.[/QUOTE] Maybe you should think before you say something completely ridiculous. You pasty-dough prepubescent.
[QUOTE=NoDachi;35254563]Maybe you should think before you say something completely ridiculous. You pasty-dough prepubescent.[/QUOTE] Right.
From what I've experienced with friends that are bilingual the best thing you can do is send your children to a foreign language school, so they're taught in a certain language and learn your native language outside of school. But again the key thing here is that they're children. It's hard as hell to learn a new language and be fluent in it without serious work and dedication to it after ten.
[QUOTE=SataniX;35245854]This is still useless unless the way schools teach is reformed as well. Teaching someone exactly what they need to know for the exams, and nothing else, is not going to help people anyway.[/QUOTE] Same thing needs to be done in the US as well.
I've taken Spanish for about 12 years, since it was the only thing offered at my school, and it's worse than my Swedish that I started learning on my own a few years ago. Hopefully they'll have a lot of options for the students to choose from.
Our School had us do French and German for two years before we got rid of them for GCSE. I did German to A-level. I cannot remember a word of French, more of German, but none of it was useful. I can give opinions of Nuclear power, but I cannot for the life of me have a conversation in German.
[QUOTE=lockdown6;35256038]i have to study latin as well as french[/QUOTE] well at least they complement each other
Portuguese, Spanish, French and others languagues are derivated from latin.
[QUOTE=LegndNikko;35250553]In my opinion, learning a foreign language is more important that understanding many of the aspects of, say, [B]trigonometry[/B] or poetry, because fields where knowing those are extremely limited compared to the usefulness of being multilingual.[/QUOTE] uh try getting any STEM degree without knowing trig
Taking a language will FUCK YOU OVER.
I don't think I've ever learned a second la- Oh wait.
I learned more about english on video-games, movies and foreign friends than I have from all my school/high school studies. Unless you go to a specific academy to learn a language, you are not likely to learn it properly, you also gotta like the language you are learning.
5 years old is too young, 12 years old is too old. Learning languages should begin somewhere from 2nd - 4th grade, as you should perfect your primary language as much as possible before getting yourself into a second language.
I had to anyway, hence why I am able to speak pigeon French.
[QUOTE=oskramorir;35252223][I]Todavía puedo usar gramática bien, pero olvido las palabras de algunas cosas a veces[/I][/QUOTE] Dije [b]bien,[/b] no perfecto
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