<p>or are they just taking it as a requirement?</p>
<p>Not sure, but I want to learn Spanish or Mandarin</p>
<p>I think if you take a language and immerse yourself in it through study abroad, you have a good chance of achieving some sort of fluency. Obviously, you probably won’t speak like a local, but if you can get yourself around and have a conversation with someone in that language, you’ve done a lot.</p>
<p>Fluency in a language takes about 10 years (from what I hear) of learning to become completely fluent. If it is something you want to do then go for it.</p>
<p>Yeah. I have friends who have learned Japanese, Korean, and Spanish and have gone to live in those countries. It takes dedication and a lot of practice. It also helps if you know someone who speaks the language so they can help you with it. Study abroad seems to be a really good opportunity if you really want to immerse yourself in a language.</p>
<p>I’m learning Spanish in school, teaching myself French, and learning Arabic with a tutor. I plan to study abroad in Guatemala for a year. I am just curious about what other people do.</p>
<p>It just depends on how much you want to learn the language. I’m actually tutoring a girl who took two years of French in college a few years ago, but she’s terrible at it.</p>
<p>^Well some people naturally have better linguistic skills then others…it just takes them more time to have it fully sink in.</p>
<p>My brother minored in German and took classes for years, even lived in Germany for a while. He could barely read a sentence in German after graduation, so…</p>
<p>College foreign language is almost completely useless apart from helping you decide which country to go on a pub crawl while doing a summer abroad. I have known many people who majored in language and were barely passable at even understanding them.</p>