<p>I took Spanish for four years at my highschool (that's all they had to offer). I didnt take the AP test because of "complications" at my school. I think spanish is not really useful and I don't like the language either. I know french, but not a lot, so I would like to take french at GWU. I was wondering if i should stick with spanish or if i should start a new language. At highschool, foreign languages are easy to teach, they show you pictures of cats and dogs and you say what they are in that specific language, but i doubt they will do that in college. Is it hard to learn a different language in college, especially in first year? Finally, should I take spanish one (knowing a lot of it) or should i start fresh with french one? (by the way, I want a really really good GPA)...</p>
<p>hey, i'm having the same problem kind of. I took French for 3 years in high school, but dropped it my senior year and took Spanish instead. Initially, I thought I would take French next year, as I'm in Elliott and I figured that French would be useful because of the UN and such. However, I've since realized that French is probably pretty useless if I ever want to do anything else, so I'm thinking I'll take Spanish. Why do you want to take French just out of curiosity? I still haven't decided so your reasoning might help me out. Also, if I do take French next year, I'm taking French 1. I need that 3.7 gpa and also feel like I've forgotten half the language by not taking it for a year.</p>
<p>Just wondering... why do you think Spanish is so useless, especially compared to french? Next to mandarin chinese, it's the most spoken language in the world. More than 4x as many people speak Spanish than French. And Hispanics are becoming by far the largest minority in the U.S.</p>
<p>Just something to think about...</p>
<p>well...I don't think is useless for the "world" hahaha. but for me...i already know it all...i mean i'm fluent because i lived in madrid for a while so i would take it in college just for GPA. I am fluent in a couple of languages (italian, german, russian, romanian, spanish) but i don't know french at all. So that's why i wanted to take it...but i dont know if it's gonna be really hard in college.</p>
<p>ohhh haha that makes a little more sense. I'd say go for it, take French, it's a beautiful language as I'm sure you know. I've taken 6 years of Spanish and a year of French myself. I'm a little worried about GPA in college too, but I'd honestly rather take something I'm really interested in than a GPA-booster class. But that's just me. good luck!</p>
<p>I placed into French 9 (5th semester) and, being in the Elliott School, I completed my language requirement in one year (2 semesters). Now with that requirement satisfied, my schedule was more flexible and I could work on finishing other requirements. That was my rationale. I totally went for the GPA-boost.</p>
<p>For those with 2+ language experience, I'm not sure if the departments will let you take multiple placement exams. </p>
<p>One option would be: If you want to make the extra effort, take however many placement exams you can, go with the one that's higher, finish the requirement and move onto the next language.</p>
<p>There's nothing wrong with starting a whole new language. The drawback is you may need more semesters to complete a requirement.</p>
<p>Language classes are totally dependant on your prof. You could have a ridiculously easy prof, you could have an extremely difficult prof. Do your research and decide which path is right for you. </p>
<p>Something that might be good to check is if departments offer placement exams outside CI (aka during the academic year).</p>