Foreign Language Education

I took the usual HS and college Spanish classes, and had a Spanish-fluent GF for 18 years. She learned through traditional schooling and is indeed fluent. I met her at a company where she was the lead in the Spanish department, and she is now a HS Spanish teacher. I was under the impression I was pretty solid. So I volunteered through Catholic Charities to teach GED classes to Spanish speakers. They actually want you to speak exclusively in English in the classes, so no Spanish necessary, but I knew I had a big advantage being a quasi-Spanish speaker. And then I found out I was unequivocally NOT a Spanish speaker. This was a mix of Central and South American countries, so different dialects and such. But they could certainly understand each other. I followed along maybe 10% of what they said. If I had truly needed to communicate in Spanish I would have been in trouble.

 

I thought German was easy-ish because there is similar structure to English, but there are things about German which just require memorization and repetition and have no intuitive logic, like some Der, Die and Das gendered nouns. French was more difficult for me, but there are enough overlap with English that its not incomprehensible. I've always wanted to learn a really useless language, like Polish or something.

 

I’ve studied Latin, French, and Spanish, enough to get the gist of the written languages but not enough to be conversational (although I’m becoming slightly better at Spanish through more frequent usage). Looking to renew my study of French and start learning Brazilian Portuguese (so I can sing bossa nova and samba tunes in the original language).

 

Some Spanish I absorbed through being born and raised in Key West, and more French than most, but nowhere near fluent. Read it better than speak it.

 

I took Latin in middle school and Spanish after that. I wish I were more fluent in Spanish (enough to use it for work purposes).

 

I took three years of Spanish in HS and learned a good bit because I enjoyed it. I remember most of what I learned in HS, and added little bits and pieces over the past 30 years, mainly because I'm in construction and I'm around Spanish speaking folks a lot. About 3 months ago I decided that I really want to get fluent in it. I've been putting in 5-6 hours a week and it's showing. Reading children's books in Spanish has really helped. Mostly stuff for 3 to 5 year-olds right now, but starting to get into books that are for 6-10 year-olds. I've found that mixing up the memorization/reading has helped rather than focusing on one or the other.

 

Grew up in Miramar with Spanish speaking friends, took 3 years of Spanish in high school and now use Babbel to be able to converse with my team in Costa Rica without too much laughing at my pronunciations.

 

Japanese is insanely difficult to learn. English and Spanish are the same
language compared to Japanese. It may not seem that way but it is. And getting from the intermediate level to advanced can be 10 years of study.

 

My wife is from Taiwan and speaks Mandarin. I tried learning it, but it was a hopeless endeavor with my workload and other obligations.

 

To continue with the thread theme, I can tell you that the aforementioned GF hired everyone else for the Spanish department at the company. These reps spoke to Spanish speakers about consumer electronics (they did all the sales, tech support, CS, etc.)

Most interviewees were Spanish degree holders. And a very large percentage of them were basically NOT Spanish speakers in any functional way. They were generally solid with reading and writing, but conversation was another universe. Some, like the GF, were legit all around. Most of the hirees were either Spanish speakers who learned English, or English speakers who learned Spanish informally, like having a Spanish speaking spouse. English speakers who had only learned via traditional schooling were the least likely to be able to handle real-world conversations.

So I agree that in a world only becoming more intermingled, people who are choosing to stay monolingual and expecting unearned leverage to bring everyone else to them are making a huge mistake. And school systems at any level that aren't doing languages the right way are also doing everyone a disservice.

 

Most of the customers I referenced were Puerto Rican. That was part of it, the PR style is almost its own thing. And formal Spanish teaching is more like Spain or Mexico. Nothing wrong with that obviously, but also missing a whole lot of nuance to get you through in all other countries. Immersion, and I also had a class like that and dreaded every minute, is probably the best way to gain a practical understanding. I can often, but still with huge gaps, follow a very formal Spanish (from Spain) speaker although they are often a little too fast for me, or a formal Mexican speaker so long as there isn't much slang. Outside of those two styles understanding nosedives fast. And formulating my own sentences on the spot is beastly. I usually just get to a dead end, convo over unless the other person can save us.

 

I disagree, technology will make it work. There is already AI work being done to create a real time universal translator.

 

I studied Spanish and French. I find the idea of studying another language exciting because travel and reading are so important to me.


I think it's nice to learn another language, but not essential. There might be cognitive benefits to learning a foreign language but reliable studies are difficult to do. And then it would have to be more important than something else a student might use their time for. I mean, great for you if you can learn Mandarin or Arabic, but it's
going to require an enormous amount of time outside of school hours, unless you were raised by a native speaker.

If English were not the international language then of course Americans would learn that other language. But it's not essential if you live in the US. And which foreign language should be learned? Would starting German in second grade increase a student's chances of eventually get a job in Germany or working with German clients? Maybe. Is this of high importance? I doubt it.

I could see the argument for teaching Spanish alongside English from an early age and then do the normal foreign language curriculum on top of that. It might be an idea worth trying in certain parts of the country. Maybe it's already the case in some places.

 

All my learning in Japanese has been via watching Anime. lolz

 

Tried to learn Spanish when in my late 40s... but it didn't stick.

As an ex-friend of mine used to needle me with, "Él apenas puede hablar inglés."