<p>I’m a Brown hopeful, and I plan on majoring in foreign languages. Brown seems like the perfect university, due to the free curriculum which would allow me to focus fully on foreign languages (and maybe a bit of English and math here and there). Anyways, I would like some first hand opinions on foreign languages at Brown and the difficulty of the classes (and if it is worth it to attend Brown to train to become a translator for a company). My interviewer’s son is currently attending Brown and he told me that he is completely in love with his Greek and Latin classes, and that Brown is a wonderful place to continue my studies in foreign languages.</p>
<p>Btw, I am currently studying 5 foreign languages at my high school & local college - French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Japanese. I plan to try and major in Chinese at Brown.</p>
<p>Yo creo que Brown ofrece buenas opciones de lenguajes extranjeros, como es una IVY debe tener muy buenos profesores en esos idiomas que estas estudiando ahora. A mi me gustaria tomar alguna que otra clase de idioma en Brown, love it! i hope you understand this! :)</p>
<p>mon interviewer a etudie le francais a brown et elle l’adore! elle est maintenant professeur a dartmouth. je pense qu’au moins les etudes francaises sont tres bien gerer parce qu’il y a beaucoup–comme moi-meme --qui s’interresse au francais. en fait, j’aime le francais a brown surtout.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your responses. I am only a year into french So I cant understand what you wrote easily, but writing a good response is another story (heh ^^;…although, French is one of my main target languages to become fluent in).</p>
<p>I figured they would hold the class (or try) completely in the foreign language, but I’ve noticed that in my Italian class, a lot of students try to resort to English (sometimes the teacher won’t let it slide though). I was just curious if it was a bit more strict when it came to using your native. </p>
<p>One question I forgot to ask was if it is worth it to pay the big price tag Brown has to go there to study foreign languages. I really love the school and think the experience alone would be good, but I heard mixed responses as far as the studying foreign languages there (concerning the money issue haha). Most people who said it was worth the money were from other colleges, but the few people who attend Brown said they are quite good at hammering in languages in your head(my friend’s roommate takes German courses(I think this language,atleast) there and apparently she has to study daily just to keep up, which is what I want).</p>
<p>And do you ever see your classmates trying to use the language they are studying outside the classroom? A few times my friend and I talked in Italian just so people didn’t understand us during our English class ( and to get our friend angry).</p>
<p>Yeah, I did Japanese in High School and so I started with intermediate / 2nd year level. (I’m only a first-year) There’s also an advanced beginners that you could do instead, depending on how much you know. </p>
<p>The class meets every day of the week. We use very little English, do a good amount of reading, writing and listening. There’s also an optional “conversation” section for the class where we meet with a TA once a week and just talk in Japanese. Good practice / fun.</p>
<p>Since CC supports Japanese texts… I wonder if it supports Chinese as well.
中文是种很有趣，也很有挑战性的语言。
As a Chinese Brown-student-wannabe I hope someday I can have a chance to help you practice your Chinese at Brown. :)</p>
<p>BTW the Chinese above means “Chinese is a very interesting and very challenging language.”</p>
<p>Quando vedo la mia migliore amica, con cui frequento una classe del tedesco, ci parliamo qualche volta nel tedesco, specialmente quando non vogliamo che gli altri ci capiscano. Generalmente, parliamo l’inglese perch</p>
<p>Ohh bravo ed ormai puoi parlare buon’italiano! Voglio veramente studiare le lingue straniere a Brown, se ho accettato. Mi sembra che hai imparato l’italiano meravigliosamente, e voglio imparare le altre lingue nello stesso modo che hai imparato l’italiano. Quante ore per settimana devi studiare per il classe di italiano?</p>
<p>For anyone looking in here who’s interested in foreign languages but not fluent in more than one or two (and, if like me, only took HS German/some language as yet unspoken on this thread):</p>
<p>Brown’s foreign language, from what I can get from my friends, is intense. Especially the first year or two, when people are trying to become fluent. Even Middle Egyptian (which I shopped but didn’t take) strives to get you to the point where you can “talk” in heiroglyphs. And then a large chunk of Brown goes abroad their junior year. Again, personally I haven’t taken any languages, but the friends I know in Japanese, Russian, Spanish, French, etc. almost never go anywhere without their flash cards, and whenever they meet someone from their class they seem quick to switch languages.</p>
<p>Na klar, die Studente, die Deutsch fur nur ein Jahr Deutsch studierien hatte, sind fliessiger als ich, und ich habe fur funf Jahre Deutsch studierien.</p>
<p>@xxyoursuperman: Grazie tanto! Gli insegnanti hanno detto che si dovrebbe fare dodici ore di compiti alla settimana. Dopo aver studiato il latino nel liceo, ho trovato l’italiano facile, quindi facevo tre oppure quattro ore alla settimana. Frequentavo soltanto cento e duecento (i primi due semestri), ma ho imparato quasi tutta la grammatica. Adesso qualche parola mi manca, ed ho perso l’abilita’ parlarlo, ma spero che il mio italiano scritto vada bene.</p>
<p>chsowlflax17 does bring up a good point, though. High school languages are very different from college languages; generally, a term of college is equivalent to anywhere from 1 to 3 years of high school languages. The pace is different, and a lot more of the work is done on one’s own. Generally, students are much more responsible for learning the grammar and vocabulary on their own before class so the teachers don’t need to spend much time explaining it and can instead work on reinforcing the concepts.</p>
<p>@chsowlflax17: Die Studenten sind fleissiger? Oder koennen sie Deutsch besser? Ich glaube, dass die deutsche Faehigkeit von jemandem haengt nicht davon ab, wie fleissig man ist, sondern wie lange man Deutsch lernte.</p>
<p>By second semester hardly any English will be spoken in a standard language class at Brown. It’s way tougher and frankly more interesting than in high school.</p>
<p>I’m really interested to see how everything turns out for you xxyoursuperman. I’m a foreign language major and I’m hoping to get into Brown as well. I take 7 foreign languages, both in my High School and at a local community college as well. I’m from NY so it’s really competitive of course. I take Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, Latin, Sign Language and Arabic. My interviewer was really sweet, but she went for grad school and actually was rejected for undergrad, so she didn’t have much to say about the program I’m intending to go for. I interviewed with the deans in the Spanish, French, and Italian departments and I was lucky enough to have short messages of recommendation sent to admissions from them on my behalf, I really hope it helps. Keep us posted!</p>
So I cant understand what you wrote easily, but writing a good response is another story (heh ^^;…although, French is one of my main target languages to become fluent in).</p>