<p>Dahling, I woudn’t know about inscriptions on Roman ruins, but I took one year of Latin and it helped me a lot with medical terminology 5 years later.</p>
<p>Thanks!
This is where I practice my writing because I don’t go to school nor have brainy job.<br>
Spelling and grammer are always hard but people here is forgiving.</p>
<p>Oh, latin, it helps remembering some of those long dinosaurs’ names when you have to talk with your kid, no?</p>
<p>I think that many hs kids don’t really learn languages well because the teachers are not rigorous enough. In our hs, you can really tell ahead of time in which languages you have the potential to become fluent. Some teachers have kids fill out simple worksheets while others have kids write daily journal entries. Some teachers have conduct class in English and require little oral participation while others conduct class in the foreign language and require students to participate in oral debates in the foreign language. Very different experiences! No pain, no gain. It takes time and effort, but it can be done.</p>
<p>My son also really appreciated having teachers who mostly were native speakers of French, though one of his favorites, for AP and V, was not a native speaker and still a great teacher. The quality of the teaching makes a huge difference.</p>
<p>I teach Spanish, and current research shows that it takes at least 10,000 hours of hearing, speaking, reading, and writing a language to acquire any degree of fluency. Small wonder kids aren’t fluent after four years of high school! Many teachers teach kids “about” the foreign language instead of teaching them to communicate in the actual language.</p>
<p>There are some teachers, like me, who teach utilizing a method called TPRS - Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling - which involves teaching language in context instead of through filling out worksheets and rote memorization. Not only is it more engaging for the kids, it gives them the ability to use the language that they are studying. TPRS teachers teach probably 90% of class time in the target language, which makes a tremendous difference in the kids’ comprehension level.</p>
<p>I’m kind of a crusader about this method and I would encourage parents to find out if foreign language teachers in their kid’s schools are using it. It makes a HUGE difference in so many ways!</p>
<p>My daughter is a HS junior but attended a private middle school whose French teacher was inspiring and demanding. The demanding private HS she attends normally tells kids who studied French in middle school to start at the beginning but they place kids from her school into French 3. So, as a junior, she is taking what she says is her second AP Level French course. A lot of the work involves watching French films and talking about them in French. I’m not a French speaker (though I studied it for 3 years in HS) but we share a house in Quebec and she seems to do quite well when speaking with folks up there when we go up in the summer. Her accent is Parisian and not Quebecois, but they are accepting.</p>
<p>She actually decided to study French in part because all of our bright Canadian cousins go to McGill and we thought that might be a good choice for her. [As dual US/Canadian citizen, she has very low tuition at most Canadian schools].</p>
<ol>
<li>Best thing I ever did for understanding how sentences are constructed in English</li>
<li>Only thing that ever helped me understand the logic behind more advanced sentence constructions in Spanish.</li>
<li>Wonderful literature. </li>
<li>Students who score high in Latin SAT have among the highest scores that you’ll find, in regular SATs</li>
<li>With a strong background in Latin there is no Romance language you can’t learn, at least for reading knowledge</li>
</ol>
<p>or 10 years, that’s what “Outlier” said anything of masterly. Guess Malcolm Gladwell is OK.
I done more time but still no way “master” ed, though.</p>
<p>10,000 hours sounds about right to me. There is definitely something to be said for learning the language at a younger age, when it comes to accents. OTOH, learning a language primarily for reading knowledge is far faster.</p>
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<p>Sorry, but I think this is absolute nonsense. That figure has been used in reference to world-class mastery of a skill, such as a musician or a chess grandmaster.</p>
<p>A LOT of people acquire at least “some” degree of fluency in speaking a language after a LOT less than 10,000 hours exposure. And Spanish is a particularly easy language for an English speaker to learn. </p>
<p>Unless you insist on a very rigorous definition of fluency.</p>
<p>Do you think that Spanish is easier to learn than French or German, for example? If so, I wonder why?</p>
<p>The only reason why you would take 4 years of a language in my school, is that because it was concurrent with our local community college - 4 semesters of a foreign language -> fulfilled requirement at a UC.</p>
<p>It really is dependent on the teacher - my teacher was very easy for the first two years, then suddenly got very difficult for the third year, so I’m not even taking a fourth, since I didn’t feel like I had strong enough roots in the first place. The most she did was go over vocabulary, occasionally give worksheets, and correct homework. No real interaction or speaking exercises. In the third year, she suddenly started speaking ONLY in the foreign language, which is a huge jump up from the first two years.</p>
<p>Anyone who wants to continue learning Spanish by immersion in college and is looking for a diverse college experience with an international flavor should consider: </p>
<p>University of Miami</p>
<p>10,000 hours? are you sure that’s right? if you do one hour a day every day, that’s more than 27 years! there has to be a way to become fluent in a language faster than that.</p>
<p>10,000 is close to two years of waking hours. I’d have thought most people are pretty close to fluent in one - at least if they’ve had some intro to the language before the immersion experience.</p>
<p>10000 hours sounds right. Malcolm Gladwell argues you need that much time to be truly great at anything</p>
<p>After about 1,000 hours of formal French classes, I can read and understand novels and some non-fiction (Discours de la Methode is what I’m reading now). I may not be able to carry on an extended conversation about metaphysics or surgical procedures, but I can hold my own in the language. </p>
<p>After only around 500 hours of Spanish, I am around the same proficiency as I probably have spent around 50 hours practicing with my Spanish speaking family.</p>
<p>In contrast, after about 170 hours of an immersion-type class in German, I can only understand basic German. I can hardly form a coherent sentence. </p>
<p>HOWEVER, in addition to formal classes, I try to immerse myself in French and Spanish daily. If I’m going to watch a movie, I will often turn on the Spanish or French subtitles or audio. I read the news in both languages. I listen to music in the languages, and I practice speaking whenever I get a chance.</p>
<p>In my personal opinion, immersion is important as a SUPPLEMENT to formal classes. Immersion is usually essential, but it is good to have a basic knowledge of the syntax, grammar, etc. before undergoing an immersion experience. The foreign languages programs at my HS aren’t stellar, but I do a lot of independent study. Languages are my passion, and I wouldn’t give up my proficiency for anything.</p>
<p>In Europe, at the age of sixteen, most students begin learning their fourth language. In our school system, many don’t even truly learn one. In my HS, many foreign language students can’t even have a conversation after 3 years of study. It takes motivation and dedication to learn any language, even the “easy” ones. In the end, it pays off.</p>
<p>In response to lkf725, I believe that French and Spanish are the easiest languages to learn for someone whose native language is English. Both these languages have rather simple grammar and vocabulary with lots of cognates. French has more difficult spelling and pronunciation whereas the Spanish subjunctive tense (and si clauses) are more complicated. French also has a more complicated system of negation. German has difficult and complicated cases, and its vocabulary often differs significantly from English as English often has more latinate vocabulary. Of course, English is a Germanic language, but I seem to have a much easier time learning Romance languages.</p>
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<p>I have to agree with 100%. The kids in my son’s private HS take Spanish primer-5th grade and then select a language in 6th grade (from Latin, German, Spanish and French). They then take that language through at least 11th grade. In general, they are not allowed to switch. Very few, if any, come out able to speak a language fluently, despite the fact that they have have 12 years of a foreign language. The Europeans at our school (we have a lot of international students) think the way foreign languages are taught in the US is a big joke.</p>
<p>Our son took Latin from 6th grade on for the very reasons listed above. I figured if he was going to spend that many years studying a language and wasn’t going to be able to speak it fluently, then he might as well get some benefit from it. He is a wonderful writer, a strong reader, tops in his literature classes, won several national Latin awards and managed to be a NMSF (actually, come to think of it, a lot of the NMSF in his school are latin students - might need to see if there is really a correlation there - just speculating based on a small sample size but the public schools don’t teach latin and many of them in our area have zero NMSF out of classes of 1,000. Our school had 9 out of a class of 70).</p>
<p>Anyway, my point is there are some very real benefits to studying Latin, even if it’s not a language commonly spoken these days. I have zero regrets about son taking Latin. He will go on to take a foreign language in college and will have a great foundation for it.</p>
<p>I would add that knowing Latin is very useful if you plan a career in medicine or law.</p>
<p>Another student perspective here:</p>
<p>My parents and I are Russian immigrants; we came here when I was 2. They learned some Latin and German in high school and were able to pick up conversational English upon being immersed in America within a year. My father is completely fluent in English, and my mother is nearly fluent (grammar kills her occasionally, but she can talk to anyone).</p>
<p>I grew up speaking Russian at home, though as I’ve gotten older and the topics of conversation have gotten more mature we’ve begun to talk almost exclusively in English. I had some Russian tutors when I was younger, but it was always just inane drills and I don’t remember any of it. I can speak Russian semi-fluently, but I’ve almost completely lost the ability to read and write. I’m planning on taking a few Russian classes in college to supplement what I’ve gotten at home, and my goal with Russian is to be able to visit Russia without my parents for a couple of weeks and feel completely comfortable. I’m pretty sure I can achieve this goal before graduating from college, so I’m motivated to actually work towards it.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I took French from 5th grade to the AP Lang level in 11th. I can read and understand speech with some competency (I can understand newspaper articles and songs if I’ve got a dictionary), but my speaking is woefully lacking. I decided against taking French this year (12th) because the teacher is terrible. I might take a class or two in college, but it’s not a priority.</p>
<p>So I’ve basically learned one language from immersion with no formal schooling and the other with only school and no immersion. Not only am I more competent with the former, but because I have deeper insight into the culture I am more curious about the culture and am thusly more motivated to continue my education of the former in a more formal setting. I agree with those who said that having a specific goal in mind, whether it’s studying abroad or reading literature or having an extra line on your resume, is really important.</p>