Foreign language at UCLA?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
1

<p>Right, so I need to take a year of foreign language because I didn't have the AP credits for it.</p>

<p>I considered taking: Spanish, German, Korean, and Mandarin.</p>

<p>I personally hate Spanish and I think it's a boring, uninteresting language. However, I took up to Spanish 2 in high school so I know some fundamentals. In addition, its arguably the easiest of the languages I mentioned. However, many people sign up for Spanish at UCLA. I've heard rumors Spanish is much harder as a result? Opinions?</p>

<p>I like German, but I find it to be a useless language because nobody I know speaks German. I think it's a really fun language to learn, but likewise, I'd never use it. In addition, the pronunciations aren't too bad as many words are like English words. In addition, they're still using the same alphabet as the English language, with a few exceptions.</p>

<p>Korean. It's the easiest of the Asian languages...and I thought it'd be fun to learn an Asian language. Plus, Korean isn't that bad since there's an alphabet, Hangul. I don't think I'd really use Korean either in the real world though.</p>

<p>Mandarin is hard. Straight up. I'm Chinese, but I speak Cantonese. Learning Mandarin would be really useful for me, and I know "SOME" Mandarin. However, the written language is just brutal. Brutal I tell ya. I'm scared this is the hardest language and isn't what I'd be looking forward to if I want an easy A. That's just my thoughts anyways.</p>

<p>So if anyone has taken any of these 4 languages, can anyone tell me from their experiences which one was the easiest, and of the 4, which one do you think is the likely "easy A?"</p>

2

<p>My friend took Mandarin 1 and it was an easy A.The first year is probably going to be an easy A. </p>

<p>You could try Japanese as well as your knowledge of chinese characters would help. Japanese is definitely an easy A.</p>

3

<p>Is there time to take a language all the way to the max level? Or would that take up too many units? I wanted to exhaust all the Japanese language classes they have to offer here, but I’m not sure whether I’d be able to do so, seeing as how physical science majors have a lot of classes to take.</p>

4

<p>Isn’t that a question you can answer better than any of us? What you need for your major + 42 units to go up to at least 100C = > or < unit max?</p>

5

<p>I think you should just take a language that you enjoy - it will be a more pleasant experience. In any case, most people after their university life don’t really continue studying languages and your abilities in said can atrophy rather quickly. </p>

<p>Personally, I find German quite beautiful. Spanish is useful if you keep up with it but if you’re not interested I would just avoid it. Right and Spanish is fairly easy to study at UCLA - the tests are multiple choice. I took French, by contrast, and judging by the exam structural differences, French had a more difficult series of classes. As for Chinese, well, you can always just enroll in a class and judge how difficult it is for you . . . </p>

<p>Agreed with Altema. You just have to add up the units you need – that or you can always petition for more units. The general rule of thumb is that if you’re graduating in four years, it doesn’t quite matter how many units you have.</p>