Sometimes, one just has to “restart” their language trajectory. Some 30 ago I took Russian at a well renowned, competitive university. We had a fabulous time in that class, especially at the weekly “conversational seminars” where the professor bought pitchers of alcohol for us underage students. Unfortunately, at the end of the year it became clear that none of us had learned more than a few words of conversational Russian, despite us all having reasonable grades in the literacy section of the class. Admins at this University, aware that some students were not up to par, instituted a new rule in which we were all forced to take an oral proficiency exam in order to be admitted into our 2nd year class. As you may expect, my entire class failed that exam (perhaps we would have done better with vodka in hand, given the contextual effects of learning.) Having failed, we were given the choice of retaking Russian 1 and 2 (for no credit), or switching to an another language (our program required oral proficiency in a language to graduate). The entire class switched to other languages (I did Hebrew, another did French, another did Spanish, etc.)
We all survived, and turned into highly successful, happy people. We still happily reminisce about our Russian class.
The upshot is: do as other posters suggest – start a new language. Sometimes there is no going back. You will be fine!
Which of the languages do you think are “easiest” to learn?
The foreign service institute actually ranks how difficult various languages are to learn, given that the learners are starting off as English native speakers. https://www.atlasandboots.com/foreign-service-institute-language-difficulty/
This ranking comes out as expected: Romance languages (those derived from Latin) are easiest.
@WannabeWannabe - Did you take a Spanish placement test? If not, why not? Until you know the results of a formal placement evaluation, all of your fretting is pointless.
The easiest languages for a native speaker of English who’s studied a little Spanish would be Italian, Portuguese, and French. Your school offers French. It’s an easy out for your dilemma.
You have cases/declensions that make it much harder than French but depending on how it’s taught you might not have to speak it.
Latin is fine, albeit somewhat impractical. You won’t ever be expected to verbally fluent in Latin, so it is an appropriate option for someone who doesn’t have confidence in their speaking ability with a new language. It should help you acquire new English vocabulary, since many of our morphological roots come from Latin. Back when the old SATs were basically a souped-up vocab test, studying Latin was a true boost for scores. In the current version, not so much.
On the other hand, all other languages offer an opportunity to learn about a new culture, and to interact with people that might have a different perspective on life. Latin is basically a dead language. That makes it an odd foreign language option in today’s world.
Put it this way, supposed in a college interview, someone said to you – why did you switch from Spanish to Latin? Can you think of a cogent response? I can imagine, for someone whose ultimate goal is linguistics, classical studies, religious studies, or romance languages, Latin may be a reasonable addition to language competencies. Also for someone pre-med, or going into botany, perhaps the Latin derivation of many technical words would confer an advantage.
But for you, will you have an answer? If not, take French, Italian (if offered), or even German.
Hey so guys, I got placed in Spanish II and will also be getting credits
Thanks for getting back to us. Good luck.
