<p>I am wondering if anyone has any advice or suggestions regarding several different foreign languages my daughter is considering taking at Harvard. She just got the expected results of the foreign language placement test that told her that after four (apparently weak!) years of Spanish at her high school, she is placed into a low enough level Spanish course that specifically states she can't take the class if she's had more than three years of high school Spanish. Rather than argue with anyone about that little paradox, she says she'd really rather start a new language and is considering French, German or Chinese. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any experience with those languages at Harvard, specifically from the beginning level? Any difference in strength or friendliness of the instructors in the different departments? Recommendations regarding the regular vs. the intensive levels?</p>
<p>Any recommendations about which language might be the most useful? At the moment she's considering a math or philosophy concentration, so I would think French or German may be the language of choice for those. Then again, she may decide she likes economics, and Chinese may well be helpful there.</p>
<p>Yes, I know there is foreign language advising, but she may have to miss some of it for an audition, so I just thought I'd see what I could do to supplement the information she gets. </p>
<p>Intensive languages at Harvard are very serious if you haven't had any exposure to the language before. You will work hard and you'll be speaking that language by the spring. This is true even for European languages, but intensive introductory Chinese is going to be like a cross between a language class and a varsity sport. I honestly wouldn't recommend this to a student who's torn about which language to take. I'd recommend it if you've been dying to learn Chinese your whole life.</p>
<p>Intensive introductory French shouldn't be such a killer, especially if she already has one Romance language. But even there, I'd say intensive is for the devoted student who really cares about reaching fluency rapidly. The typical Harvard student will find the regular speed introductory course in any of those three languages to be challenging and interesting.</p>
<p>Thanks, Hanna. It's the dance team audition that conflicts. It had to be rearranged a bit to accommodate another audition for a musical group, and well, she's learning a lot about managing or more accurately, mismanaging schedule conflicts. She's made some mistakes this week, but she's dealing with them and I think learning from them. And she feels better about making her own mistakes, in contrast to a boy who was at a music audition whose parents were both there to make sure he had enough time in a practice room and that his audition went as scheduled. </p>
<p>Yours sounds like a strong recommendation for the regular level. I will pass that along. It seems to me the better way to go so as not to get in over one's head first semester.</p>
<p>I think that's wise. I was in regular speed intro Japanese my senior year, and by second semester I had to run to keep up, even though I'd had Japanese before. I had a friend who really enjoyed intensive Portuguese, but he was already pretty proficient in French and Spanish.</p>
<p>If the first week of regular bores her, she can talk to the professor about bumping up to intensive, but unless your kid is a living Rosetta stone, she's not going to be bored in regular German or Chinese. If she wants to make the commitment, I have to put in a plug for the Asian languages at Harvard. That whole department will kick your butt and rock your world at the same time.</p>
<p>Hmmmm, living Rosetta stone? I think the score on the Spanish placement test indicates otherwise, along with confirming the weakness of our high school curriculum. Boredom is not one of her worries in a college level language class. It sounds like the regular speed classes will be plenty intense.</p>
<p>Nceph:
My S was in the same boat. Did well in Spanish 4 but did not place out of the foreign language requirement with Spanish. He placed out thanks to Latin (he had taken 3 years of Latin). Looks like weak Spanish curricula are common.</p>
<p>Since students are expected to take only one year of foreign languages, I would suggest not going the intensive route if all she is interested in is fulfulling the language requirement. However, if she is interested in East Asian languages, intensive classes will really put her in a position to use her languages for senior thesis. But intensive classes are very intensive. They move at a very fast clip.</p>
<p>Marite - Hearing that she's not the only one who'd been through 4 years of high school Spanish and failed to place out of the requirement will make my D feel a whole lot better.</p>
<p>You know, if we could just jump ahead a few years and see what she's really interested in, it'd be a bit help in selecting the language. I think at this point, Chinese just seems like an interesting, useful language. But then German seems interesting, too, especially if she might pursue math or philosophy beyond college. Or maybe French. Or possibly Swedish. Or . . . .</p>
<p>Or she could make the Depts of Celtic Languages and Literature or of Sanskrit and Indian Studies happy by taking courses there. There's also Urdu or Tibetan, if she is so minded or Swahili....</p>
<p>More seriously, though, is your son considering graduate school in math or physics, and if so, is there a particular foreign language that he's been advised to take in order to pursue either of those? I had seen somewhere that it was suggested that graduate students in math be proficient in French, German or Russian. How one decides among those three, I'm not sure. Perhaps it depends on whether one prefers Descartes, Euler or Lobchevsky?</p>
<p>S nearly passed the French exam without ever having taken French (!). He did not learn French from me (I gave up early). But Spanish and Latin obviously helped.
People he talked to said that learning over a summer should suffice. The level of French required to pass the math French exam is different from that required in the humanities or social sciences. And of course, he may end up in grad school where a foreign language is not required.</p>
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<p>Intensive languages at Harvard are very serious if you haven't had any exposure to the language before.<<</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>I'll say. D took German in high school but somehow never thought to place out of German at H. So on a whim she took Latin(!) in college. Boy, they worked her hard. Her roommate had taken Latin in high school, but in the first six weeks D's class outstripped how far the rommmate had gotten with the language in 4 years.</p>
<p>Ok, well, I'm sufficiently intimidated. I guess we'll see what the family member who actually got into Harvard thinks. I suspect she'll agree and not go anywhere near the intensive language courses.</p>
<p>After just about one full week of classes, D has decided on regular Chinese, and it seems more than sufficiently rigorous but very enjoyable.</p>
<p>And for the benefit of anyone who's considering applying to Harvard, her beginning Chinese class has only eight students in it. No hiding on the back bench of that classroom!</p>
<p>S is taking Chinese as well in the level between introductory and advanced. I encouraged him taking the intensive one but after discussing with his advisor, he opted for the less intensive one. The work load is heavy for intensive Chinese - 5 to 6 hours a day according to the advisor.</p>
<p>Thanks Hanna - I'll pass him the "living Rosetta stone".</p>