<p>Yah, I found that College courses were much more challenging than High School ones(I’m taking French & Spanish at a local college here). The pacing is much faster than high school by far, and I love it for that. </p>
<p>@@CAR1992 - I’m highly jealous of some of the languages you’re taking (chinese & arabic). My interviewer was really sweet too, also helped that his son (a student at brown too!) was very interested in Chinese, Latin, & Greek…so we had a nice conversation about asian languages & latin. Lucky you with those letters of recommendation! Best of luck to you in getting in ! The wait is almost over @__@ yes…finally haha. </p>
<p>Hopefully there won’t be a rejection…my week has been pretty rotten T__T. I don’t need icing on top of the cake haha or any type of foreshadowing.</p>
<p>I would also love to take classes in french if hopefully I get into Brown. J’adore la langue Francaise mais Je voudrais etudier les economiques. I hope that made sense…lol.
I took French in my high school in Nigeria for 3 years but I still don’t think I know that much.
Would it also be possible to learn 2 languages at the same time at Brown: I’m also interested in mandarin Chinese.</p>
<p>I’d assume anything is possible, if you really have the drive.</p>
<p>@princejay95: Vous pourriez </p>
<p>Je recommande absolument les cours de langues </p>
<p>En general les cours de langues sont supers a Brown (et je m’excuse de taper sans accents), mais la qualite d’enseignments different de departement a departement. Par exemple, moi, je sais que le department de francais est bizarrement plus fort que le departement d’espagnol a cause de les politiques a l’interieur (mais les professeurs sont tres cools et supers quand meme!).</p>
<p>Moi, je ne connais pas bien le department d’italien, mais je sais que le departement des Etudes Orientales est super (haha- j’aime bien ce mot). Le coreen est la suele langue qui ne soit pas trop fort, mais tout le department est en train d’ameliorer grace a la demande haute (meme le chinois et le japonais qui sont deja forts).</p>
<p>Y desde que dijiste que has estudiado frances por solamente un ano, cambiare a espanol (y prefiero el espanol como soy un “concentrator” d’espanol!) Yo estuide espanol por 6 anos antes de venir a Brown (y ASL por 3 y japones por 2), y puedo estar de accuerdo con los otros en decir que el estudio de idomas a la universidad es mas dificil y divertido.</p>
<p>Hay una cultura fuerte de aprender idiomas a Brown, y todo el mundo querra practicar hablandolo si no estas estuiandolo como obligatorio. (thecomisar en fait est ma colocataire- nous nous parlons en francais et un peu en espagnol souventttttt!) Si ya tienes preguntas especificos, no hesitas de PMearme.</p>
<p>P.S. The Haitian Creole program at Brown is one of the very few in the nation! I wouldn’t say it’s a strong program compared to other more well “engrained” foreign languages (mostly because of the lack of published materials), but the professor is frckn AMAZING. Without a doubt Professor Patrick Sylvain has been my fave. Consider it if you get in (good luck, btw!)</p>
<p>How is the German department like? I have taken four years of french (but am far from fluent, high school language classes are easy) and would like to become fluent in both.</p>
<p>The low level German classes are a lot of fun and well taught. My understanding, however, is that 500 goes too slowly and is no harder than 400. I’ve been unable to take courses beyond 400, but at this point, I’m supposedly competent enough to survive in Germany indefinitely. Many of the upper level courses are lit-driven, and so presumably involve lots of writing. I enjoyed my experience, though having courses meet for that extra time each week was tiring (normal courses meet for 3 hours a week, low level languages meet for 4-6).</p>
<p>By “survive indefinitely” do you mean inconsequential things like “Where is the bathroom?” and “Excuse me, I seem to have a stick protruding through my abdomen and am in danger of bleeding to death. Is there a hospital nearby?” Or will the 400-level be enough to actually converse naturally with native speakers? I ask because I will inevitably end up in a Northern European country, so speaking English, French, and German will serve me well.</p>
<p>Perche` noi dobbiamo parlare nella lingua stranieri</p>
<p>Naturally, maybe not. But not inconsequential either. I’m good enough at German to read research literature in my field of interest, and I write competently. Personally, I struggle with the speaking aspect (more than my peers do), but by the end of the first semester, I would have been able to do inconsequential things like you suggested. After 3 semesters, students can go abroad and take classes in German, so our German can’t be that bad…</p>
<p>On the other hand, I’d probably starve in Italy. My Italian is simply atrocious due to disuse.</p>
<p>Brown rejected me, but the opportunity to take new foreign language classes S/NC was really appealing to me. I think the class rigor and the fact that many students already have exposure to that language can keep kids from trying new languages in college.</p>