<p>S. is a HS Sr who would like to get a head start on his college's language requirements (6 semesters, 8 for IR majors). They don't generally accept AP credit, though you can sometimes place out of classes if desired. They will accept credit from a local CC, so he'll probably take a course this summer in hopes of freeing up time/space later on for classes he'd really like. He's done well in HS spanish, but it's one of his least favorite classes.</p>
<p>Options for summer course might be:</p>
<p>1) Another spanish class. Perhaps a spoken-language or even a literature class? Someone we spoke with at his college also suggested sticking with his original language to start. He is not crazy about this choice, but IMO, suffering through 4 years of spanish without ever learning to speak it seems like a waste. Also, he's already familiar with the language.</p>
<p>2) Arabic. His idea, as he thinks it will help him get a job in the fields he's interested in (at least now, at 17). Chinese could be an option as well, but he's heard it's extremely difficult.</p>
<p>3) A European language, like French or German (his school has an amazing campus in France, but don't know if he'd take a semester there or not -- I would!). He and H. think this option is "useless." I disagree, but am not the one taking the class...</p>
<p>Chinese and Arabic are the two major IR languages for the upcoming generations. Both are much easier to learn in immerisve situations--plus it is half the cost of private U credits.</p>
<p>My older S did an immersive course in Beijing before he went to uni. He received a years' worth of credit once he started as a Freshman--and did a second year. My younger plans to do the same. He can also do summer courses at Middlebury.</p>
<p>French is also another viable alternative--espeically if your son has any interest in the ICC or NGOs in Geneva.</p>
<p>I think that he should take the language that most interests him. He's most likely to study that language. Once one achieves fluency in any language, it's not that hard to learn another language, so what's most important is that he studies a language now that he enjoys.</p>
<p>While we can predict some of the languages that would be most useful in work in the future, we don't know what may be personally of use to him in the future. At my mother's strong minded suggestion, I didn't take German in high school, though I very much wanted to. Instead, I took French -- a language that she wanted to know.</p>
<p>It ended up that I married a man who is fluent in German; he was a German major who also lived in Germany and has friends who are native German speakers. It would have been an asset to my homelife if I could speak German, so you never know....</p>
<p>If he hasn't liked learning Spanish, he should try another language. If he doesn't like learning other languages, he might want to re-think his major.</p>
<p>I didn't like learning French in high school, but I liked it just fine when I went and lived for a year in France before starting college. (Gap year.) In fact learning one language fluently seemed to make at least other European languages much easier to learn. I took German in college and learned Italian when I was living in Germany. Thinking I was pretty smart I tried Chinese, and discovered it was beyond me. I don't have a good enough ear to learn the tones. I never did learn more than a few hundred characters. But if he has a facility for languages Arabic and Chinese are likely to be useful in the future. Personally I could use more Spanish. For me spending time in the country where the language is spoken makes a huge difference in how well I learn to speak it.</p>
<p>My son was bored senseless by non-immersive language classes in english speaking countries--but soared in immersive French camp and in the immersive Mandarin classes in Beijing--even dreaming in French. He still dreams in Mandarin from time to time. He knows he will have to spend a few years in China after gradation to become truly fluent.</p>
<p>mathmom, we must have been separated at birth because I also tried to learn Mandarin--non-immersively--whilst living in Asia. No go for me either. :(</p>
<p>I'd vote for Arabic; it's interesting, easy to learn, and will be in very, very high demand for a very long time to come. The downside is that advanced classes in the future could be hard to find - it seems that not many schools offer beyond two years, at least not at the moment. Chinese will also be in demand, but I do not know how hard it is to learn.</p>
<p>Just some technical thoughts. It's always great to see someone pursue a new language, and Arabic or Mandarin certainly seem necessary in the future.
I had heard both of these are VERY hard, however.</p>
<p>An important consideration: learning to read and write (not speak) Span/Fr/German versus Mandarin or Arabic, requires a lot of effort to decode visually a brand new alphabet. </p>
<p>So let him think about his learning styles. Does he pay attention to visual details? Will he practice and drill himself a lot so he can decode a new alphabet? Is he patient at the beginning of projects? He'd need to memorize all new shapes and correlate them to sounds produced, just to get the project off the ground. </p>
<p>I read and write Hebrew (native English speaker) and that initial decoding was the big challenge. Once you get the code broken, however, it is l00% phonetically reliable and each letter produces only one sound every time, unlike English (cough, through, bought, although...).</p>
<p>Arabic will be very much needed. I do have a cousin who learned 5 Romance languages and then said Mandarin was harder than any of them.</p>
<p>S. just came down to the kitchen here and we read through the posts. He has been leaning towards Arabic (wants to major in IR), though paying3tuitions made some good points about learning new symbols, sounds, etc. It will certainly be a challenge. All good suggestions - thanks.</p>
<p>my son has taken Mandarin and Arabic and had some comments to make.</p>
<p>mandarin -- very difficult because of the tones. Best to learn this in an immersion program. Very hard to pick up in a regular classroom situation -- at some point you have to go to China and live there in order to master it.</p>
<p>Arabic -- easy in the sense that the rules apply to the entire language, very hard in the sense that it is so foreign to the English speaker. "to be" verb is implied, etc. Plus -- Modern Standard Arabic is usually the one that is taught -- but most countries have their own colliquial form. you can speak MSA fairly well and not be able to be understood on the street in Egypt (there are some big differences in pronounciation). If you really know MSA, you can do ok -- but you need to be at a higher level than basic because of the different forms. However Arabic is going to be in demand.</p>
<p>My vote -- take what he is interested in. And I would suggest an immersion program. Not only do you learn more -- but you get a good jump start on fluency and some motivation for continuing in the language. My son took Mandarin for two years in a regular classroom situation and a summer in Cairo -- and he knows tons more Arabic and is much more motivated to continue in the language.</p>
<p>If he's going into IR, then the language he chooses should relate to the region of the world he wants to specialize in. He needs to think about what region he's most interested in and go from there. Plus, when you're actually interested in the place itself and the language is applied, it makes learning the language more fun and a lot easier.</p>
<p>lspf, for IR, especially if your son is ultimately interested in a foreign service career, there is no wrong answer as far as language is concerned. Some postings require language skills prior to arrival; for others officers are given immersive language training on arrival. But, conversely, having fluent langage skills does not necessarily result in a related posting. Career officers tend to find the job that offers advancement first then learn the language as required. </p>
<p>If your son's potential area of concentration will be the middle east, then he should by all means give Arabic a try. I find any language that I can't "read" to be extremely difficult to learn (never tried Arabic, but I was hopeless at Chinese both Mandarin and Cantonese). I do a lot better when I can see the word and write it. Your son will find out soon enough if he has an ear for it.</p>
<p>My D loves languages. I have steered her away from Arabic because I, her over-protective mother, do not want to encourage her (as a female) to end up in an Arabic-speaking country. I wouldn't have quite the same concerns with a son. She has had introductory Chinese (in Germany) and found she excells at the tones. She is a violinist, and I feel certain it is her musical ear that helps her. Is your S musical at all? D is already fluent in German, and has had several years of Spanish, and is currently also studying Attic Greek. She is good at understanding grammar, parts of speech, etc. IR is a major she also is considering. (She is a HS senior.) </p>
<p>I think it's worth figuring out why your S didn't like Spanish. After four years, I would have expected him to be able to test out of some of the requirements. If he thinks it's because of a poor teacher, then taking it elsewhere during the summer should make or break that theory.</p>
<p>I'm of the "take what interests you" camp, too. Somewhat like NSM, I studied French from junior high (what is was called back then) half way through college and in my late twenties lived in Germany for a year and a half. So you never know where life will take you. At this stage, I would be ruled by interests, accessability and quality of the teachers. It's nice to go further in depth in Spanish since he's got a background, but if the teaching and opportunities for immersion aren't promising, switching now isn't a bad idea. I'd want to be sure his college can provide follow up experiences, though, if he takes a summer course somewhere else. </p>
<p>Many people will tell you to study Arabic or Chinese because those will be the 'hot' languages in the coming years. That makes me think speakers of Finnish or Swahili or Korean or Farsi will be in greater demand since those aren't the languages American students are flocking to. Languages are like shoes - you start out with one pair, then see another one that looks good and you'll need those boots for when the weather gets cold .... Your son has a start in Spanish - he can go further in that language or begin another. If he stays in IR, he'll have reasons and opportunities to add to his list. If it were me, I'd take the language with the best teaching environment - best classroom teacher, opportunities for immersion, etc. and realize that beyond learning that particular language, I'm learning how to acquire new languages, and can apply those skills to learning the next language.</p>
<p>my son had another few thoughts he wanted me to post -- </p>
<p>Is he considering graduate study in any particular field? My son found that the area he is interested in will require French and German in order to do master's/doctorate. </p>
<p>The teacher and department can make all the difference in the world! A great teacher can make any class fun, interesting and easy to learn. He might see if any particular language is more highly spoken of at the school he is attending.</p>
<p>See if it is harder to get into classes in certain language, how long they have been teaching the language and how many classes they offer. Arabic and Mandarin are newer languages for many colleges and I know that they have been having troubles getting qualified teachers. This sometimes means that the teachers really aren't all that qualified (the know the language -- but not how to teach) or the class enrollment is restricted and hard to get into or only a few classes are offered. All that could be a problem if that is the language he wants to gain fluency in (and I would think an IR major would want fluency, not just a certain number of semesters to meet the requirement).</p>
<p>Finally -- he wanted me to stress againg -- immersion, immersion, immersion! It is really the key to learning a language.</p>
<p>Most of what I would say has already been said here, but that seldom stops me.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I like the idea of putting in the effort to take the last few steps to achieve some real mastery of Spanish. It will be years before he masters Arabic or Mandarin, and he probably is not far from mastering Spanish (which is about as easy a foreign language as there is). It would probably help him in learning his next language to know at least one foreign language well -- you get a better sense of the final goal and how to achieve it.</p></li>
<li><p>It is ridiculous, ridiculous, to talk of "not liking" a language. Languages don't have inherent moral or aesthetic qualities. They can be harder or easier for native English speakers to learn, but there's nothing especially good or bad about any of them. As far as I can tell, your son has not gotten to the point where he has had any engagement with Spanish literature or dealing with Hispanic culture in Spanish. So how can he possibly make a judgment about "not liking" it?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>(My kids say stuff like that, too. I lecture them about it, too.)</p>
<ol>
<li> The son of a close friend, who knew Latin very well and had two years of Greek (with its non-Roman character set) before he started college, started Arabic his sophmore year of college, for much the same reasons your son has. After three years and one summer of college Arabic, two years living in Cairo, and almost a year in Jordan, he does not feel close to fluent in Arabic (although he can and does get by in it day-to-day). That is not to discourage learning Arabic, only to note that really learning Arabic is a substantial, long-term commitment. (And, yes, the regional differences are substantial -- maybe not as substantial as among Chinese "dialects", but I know that, say, Egyptians have a lot of trouble understanding Algerians if the latter aren't speaking formally, and when I listen to Egyptian and Algerian popular music, as I do, I can tell that not only the pronunciation but the vocabulary itself is quite different, although the basic grammatical structures are the same.)</li>
</ol>
<p>I agree with JHS -- would you and he consider an immersion program in Spanish? That might be the tipping point that gets him to the point where he is close to fluency and he likes the language. then he could start another language if he wants? </p>
<p>Also -- I think languages are harder for some people than others (like math). As far as what JHS said about Arabic -- I have heard from many people that it is hard to attain fluency.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is ridiculous, ridiculous, to talk of "not liking" a language. Languages don't have inherent moral or aesthetic qualities.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It should be ridiculous, but it doesn't really explain why the first day I sat in German class I felt like I had come home, whereas French always seemed like a jacket that was too tight in the shoulders. Some rational explainations for why this might be... American speakers have lazy muscles and some of the sounds required by one language may be harder for us to learn to produce. Grammars really are different - perhaps one with more rules and fewer exceptions may please a person's inner aethetic sense. (As I recall Swahili has different plural endings depending on the number of legs an object has.) Countries do have certain national characters - you might enjoy watching Truffaut films over Eisenstein, reading Proust over Thomas Mann.</p>
<p>Another vote here for looking for good teachers (makes all the difference!) and immersion (ditto).</p>