<p>As spring registration rolls around, I'm trying to decide which new foreign language to start studying. Hoping the Vandy CC community can help me out a bit. I'm choosing between Italian and German. I took Spanish for fourteen years prior to college but dropped it when I got here. 201W just seemed like an overload and very stressful (I am trying to avoid as much as possible in college the massive amounts of unhealthy stress I experienced in high school), and I am functionally close to fluent. However, I can feel my Spanish skills slipping, and it is very important to me to keep up foreign language skills. I'm thinking of several ways to keep up Spanish. There are pros and cons for Italian and German.</p>
<p>Italian:
Pros:
-Very close to Spanish, which would help in keeping up those skills, and also close to French if I decided I wanted to learn that later
-I like History of Art and may minor in it - Italy is obviously very important to art history
-Strongly considering study abroad in Florence</p>
<p>Cons:
-May not be able to minor in History of Art, which also negates the purpose of study abroad in Florence
-Really only spoken in Italy and parts of Switzerland, so not very useful
-3 hours, and 5 would be better; I feel like a 4 class schedule would be better for me this semester, and Italian and my three other classes would put me at 13 hours when I want to be at 15-16</p>
<p>German:
Pros:
-German heritage, would love to learn the language
-Very useful internationally in business and technology fields
-More widely used than Italian
-I want to travel Bavaria extensively one day
-5 hours, so I can do a 4 class/15 hour schedule like I want</p>
<p>Cons:
-Less similar to Spanish, so less of a chance of keeping those skills up as I study it, and not a Romance language - it would be easier to learn other Romance languages after Italian
-Not connected to History of Art as explicitly (yes Germany has art history, but Italy and Florence have the appeal of Renaissance art)
-Would much rather do study abroad in Italy than in Germany</p>
<p>I could do both for a semester and decide which I want to keep studying, but I think 18 hours would really be an overload. I couldn't do both going forward - I have a lot of interests and there just aren't enough hours in my schedule to do both for an extended period of time. I don't want to drop down and do a 5 hour Spanish course I already have credit for (104). I'm grateful for any advice or opinions you guys can offer!</p>
<p>I completely agree that if you have a stressful course load and have no intention of putting fluency as a priority in your future…you should not make foreign language “hard.” Only you can decide–and everyone strategizes on how to shake things out to make the hardest courses balanced by things that feel manageable. There is an obvious argument that Spanish is a desirable fluency in our nation and abroad. There are many commercial and cultural advantages for Spanish fluency that you should weigh as valuable. I have a Duke son grad who did OK in Spanish…I think he had a 680 or 700 on the SAT subject exam and a 3 on the AP…and he also had a stressful high school life in a Governor’s high school. He wanted to major in Econ and History and he chose to use starting at the beginning of a language as a place of (relative) ease in his schedule. He also went on Duke’s excellent semester in Berlin (which is a city brimming with music, art and architecture btw and a very affordable city for a foreign study compared to say…London or Paris). He didn’t want to speak Spanish, and probably didn’t want the challenge of the upper level courses. He is of German descent and is obsessed with classical musicology and played in the Duke Symphony so he had the satisfactions of liking German as a subject regarding its overlaps with composers. Berlin is a fabulous foreign study destination although it is dark and cold in the winters compared to Florence. </p>
<p>One thing he enjoyed was time with the smaller German department where he enjoyed getting to know his teachers. Also, during your semester abroad it is highly likely you will take a level or two of a foreign language. He completed two courses in German that semester abroad. Vandy son went to Copenhagen and took a survey course in the language which was not easy --but important for maximizing the experience of being in Denmark. Vandy son’s choice of Copenhagen was a bit surprising to us but he was interested in their system of government and in taking trips from there.<br>
The list of languages that are most desired by the Feds for a variety of state department or national security jobs don’t have German and Italian in the top recruitment lists (understatement)…Spanish of course has the most applications stateside. Nevertheless, a true fluency in any language is marketable if you can master something instead of dabble. Take a look at Vanderbilt’s foreign study options, and talk to students who are upperclassmen who went abroad. Personal testimony makes a world of difference as you weigh going on a terrific semester abroad. Which I hope you will do! There are pages on FB and at Vandy promoting various destinations with student testimonials and there is an International studies office at Vandy where you should do a drop by. Ask for names of students who recently did a semester someplace you want to go. Duke son was on a list to talk to prospective Berlin semester students for a couple of years. I would definitely place having a fabulous semester abroad as a gift to yourself and your emotional health and growth. Good luck making your decision! </p>
<p>Is the SPAN 201W really a stressful class? My S is considering taking it but also does not want to be overwhelmed. He grew up in a household where some Spanish was spoken and understands it very well but never really spoke it well. He struggles with the grammar and therefore does not write it well so I would think that he would have a hard time in a writing class. Does anyone have personal experience with this class and how difficult it is?</p>
<p>@Faline2 Thanks for the advice! I will definitely look into talking to people at the Global Education Office. Both the Italian and German departments are very small, so I’m sure the people in those programs would be happy to talk about them.</p>
<p>@jmama496 I can only speak from the day I was in the class, but my professor (who I gather in hindsight is one of the toughest ones for 201W) said he considers 201W the hardest course in the Vandy Spanish department because it is one course, while at most universities it would be split into two. I took my IB Spanish exam as a junior and was in a custom reading/writing course as a senior, so my issue when I got into 201W was that it was hard for me to speak (after a year of not having to much) even when I understood what the professor was saying. My professor was only speaking Spanish in class the whole time, though I’m told not all of them do that. Add this to the fact most of the other kids in the class seemed completely fluent, and you can understand my stress. I could have stuck it out, but I didn’t want to have a class that would consistently stress me out like that at the beginning of college. I have reasons not to drop down to 104 and start there again, but that may be the best option for your son. He could always try 201W the first day or two of the spring semester and then drop down if he feels overwhelmed. It’s a personal choice based on your son’s skill and what he’s comfortable with in terms of both academics and personal health/stress level. Hope that helps! He could also talk to someone in the Spanish department and look into taking the department placement test if he’s not sure where he is.</p>
<p>I asked my daughter who took a full year of both German and Italian at Vandy (at the same time) after going through AP Latin in high school. Her comments, for what they are worth, are below–I would only add that I heard her talk more about her Italian class and her professor (she just loved the Italian prof) than I heard about the German class. However, it is the German language that the grad schools really want to see on her transcript (for classical archeology) rather than the Italian.</p>
<p>“Italian would be easier to learn in a grammatical sense than German for someone with so much experience in Spanish, but they will probably slip into Spanish (since the words are similar but not quite the same) during class sometimes. German has a complicated grammar system for people who have never been exposed to the case system for nouns (Latin & Ancient Greek have these) and this can be frustrating to students of German. I would ask what the student wants to do with those languages–most people in the business world would recommend German because of Germany’s economic dominance right now, though I will point out that Vandy teaches the kind of German spoken in Germany, not necessarily the German spoken in Austria or Switzerland (which are similar but a little different). Italian sounds prettier to me, but it’s most useful for someone planning to work or live in Italy.”</p>
<p>@jrmama496 I am pretty sure my son took Spanish 201W. He did it sophomore year after not having any Spanish for two years because his last course was AP Spanish in junior year of high school. I think he did well in it. They had to write letters and resumes and stuff. I was wondering how he would do because it had been a while since he took Spanish but I don’t think it was too bad for him. (He might want to check if he is allowed to take it. Some courses are not allowed for native speakers.)</p>
<p>@LHSCary thank you so much! It’s very helpful to get the perspective of someone who took both languages, as well as an idea of their use. One of my fears with both of them is that they would not be useful. LBowie’s comment makes me wonder about going back to 201W but trying to get an easier professor. Any way, thank you so much to everyone for their help and advice!</p>