<p>I really want to learn a language while I'm in Harvey Mudd, but I can't choose which.</p>
<p>In high school, I learned Latin for 3 years, so that knowledge would come in handy for the European languages. To be honest, though, I prefer to learn Chinese. But it's just that I feel like the time I spent learning latin is going to come to a waste if I do so.</p>
<p>Well you’re in luck. One of the main goals of the new core is to allow people start new languages their first semester here. </p>
<p>Intro classes are usually 4 days a week, which is kind of a pain. You’d take your Spanish and French classes off campus for sure, but you could take Chinese at Mudd since they just hired a Chinese prof this year.</p>
<p>^
Thanks. But, I knew all of that besides the fact that Mudd just hired a new prof.</p>
<p>I want a feedback about these courses from people taking one of them.</p>
<p>I have taken Spanish at Pitzer and the profs are pretty good. Language education here is better than what I’ve experienced elsewhere, like in HS. And I’ve been told it far surpassed the standard of a usual American HS.</p>
<p>Maruhan, Learning latin wouldn’t have been a waste: The root words you’ve learned greatly increase your vocabulary (in English). That’s an optimistic way of looking at it anyway. :p</p>
<p>Fiona… US high school foreign language education is a failure. I’ve spent middle school and three years of high school studying Spanish and French, and I have barely anything to show for it. Mind you I got As in these classes too. Then you see some foreign exchange student come over and they’re practically fluent in English just from what they learned in language courses. I believe it’s because the US system concentrates too much on memorization than on practicing speech in class. (The exception to this is AP Spanish; at least at my school it’s pretty decent).</p>
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<p>That’s what they say. But, in fact, it is not entirely true. Especially if you already have a rather broad knowledge of vocab. Sure, it helps somewhat, but barely. It’s rather the other way around. Knowing English words helps memorize Latin words.</p>
<p>The last is what I found true with French, which I took for 6 years (3 in middle, 3 in high school).</p>
<p>@Fiona… US high school foreign language education is a failure.</p>
<p>Word.</p>