Did you have foreign language classes in your school?
My answer:
I had English classes from the beginning of primary until the end of my formal education, and German kind of on and off since fourth grade in primary until the end of secondary. But I don’t feel like the classes gave me much beyond teaching me the very beginnings of English which could perhaps be hard if I didn’t have them at school.
How was it with you? If you did have language classes, do you feel like you actually benefitted from them in any way? Or maybe quite the opposite? 🙂
My Inner MishMash 
I had English classes the last year of primary school and then throughout secondary school. I also had French and German throughout secondary school and took both at the highest level. Still, I agree I was still very much a beginner at them when graduating (and forgot all of them later on). I was better at English, but I have to thank the English-language Internet for that.
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It’s so easy to forget stuff from school. God bless the English-language Internet!
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We had to take French up until grade 10, if I remember correctly. I also tool a couple of Spanish and Japanese classes in high school. It was helpful for travelling. Even if I wasn’t speaking those languages, having a sense of Latin word roots helped with reading signs in various countries. It also helped with figuring out how to pronounce English words in a way that people might find easier to recognize. For example, I would normally say the word “toilet” with an emphasis on the first syllable, but I’ve found that non-English speakers are more likely to recognize what I’m trying to say if I emphasize the second syllable.
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I so much agree about the Latin word roots, it can be incredibly helpful. And yes, I think indeed toilet sounds a bit more universal with the accent on the second syllable.
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In my day in school they offered a choice of Spanish or French (or German if one was interested). I took one year of Spanish and was pretty dismal at it. Then in later life a job I had required people to learn Spanish. I got more out of those classes, because I appreciated the opportunity, but I’m still not fluent. I can order a meal in Spanish now though and not embarrass myself too much.
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I’d say that’s a very practical and useful skill. 🙂
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I took Spanish for nine years from third grade through eleventh grade. I learned a lot, but I only still know a little of it. And it was so hard. I studied hard and got good grades in Spanish, but none of the thousands of vocab words stuck with me except the basics, like numbers, colors, etc. It feels like a waste, unless the whole point was to master translation and memorization (for testing), etc.
I took German in college, and I did better, but it was one semester, and I basically remember diddly squat of it. Anyone who can become multilingual–it blows my mind. Very impressive to me, because my brain can’t grasp it at all!!
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Perhaps you’d find it easier to be multilingual if you had the method tailored to you back then. Schools don’t really care about that and don’t really have the possibility to do it with so many students, so I think that’s why a lot of people don’t retain as much as they could otherwise.
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Reblogged this on Autism Candles.
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