<p>I have taken spanish in high school for the past 3 years and still know esentially "squat". I have gotten all A's and B's so im doing what im suppose to, right?
I feel like most people who know and understand multiple languages learn them in less than 3 years, right? I didnt really think about it until now, but looking back it seems kinda rediculous me. Is this just my experience at my school, or is it the same everywhere? Fortunatly i just did it to please college admissions, but if i was looking to learn spanish then it would have been a complete waste of time and coursework. Anybody else feel me?
Sent from my YP-G1 using CC</p>
<p>I also did 3 years of spanish and hardly knew any of it then let alone years after I finished it. I think programs like rosetta stone would be a lot more effective if you want to learn languages.</p>
<p>I’ve been studying it for nearly 5 years now. I am exceptionally good at talking about my house, my family and holidays, but I would have no idea how to ask something basic like ‘how much is this?’.</p>
<p>^ You don’t know how to ask the cost of something?</p>
<p>What a lot of students fail to realize is that in high school, your foreign language class meets, generally, 45 minutes a day for about 5 days. You spend more time around your native language than the foreign one. Learning a new language involves a large time commitment. If a student wants to learn Spanish, they should be listening to music in Spanish, watching Spanish shows, speaking in Spanish, reading in Spanish, etc. They must surround themselves. A great number of students don’t do that and blame it on the teacher.</p>
<p>I’ve been learning Spanish since I was in 7th grade all the way up to last year. Can I speak it fluently? No. Is it my school’s fault? No. It’s my fault. It’s my fault because I didn’t learn the new vocabulary. I didn’t use the new vocabulary. I didn’t remember. I got all As, sure, but getting an A and learning a language are two different things.</p>
<p>De acuerdo.</p>
<p>Because we’re working towards external exams and coursework, our teachers only teach us what we need to know, and barely anything else. 60% of our grade is based on speaking and writing which they help us prepare then we just learn for the test. The rest is listening and reading, which just requires vocab.
Because I listen to a lot of Spanish music, watch Spanish films and go to the Canary Islands every year, I’ve got quite good at listening to and understanding the language, I just can’t speak it at all.</p>
<p>Yeah, at my school only about 10-20 percent of people who get to AP spanish attempt the test, and most fail, unless they are native speakers. I didn’t learn much. I placed into 4th semester spanish in college, though somebody who took AP tested into spanish 101, the lowest level.</p>
<p>The injustice! The scandal! Who knew high school wouldn’t give you everything necessary to prepare you for life?</p>
<p>In reality, you probably understand the language better than you think you do; you just can’t converse in it because you haven’t used it enough for it to become automatic like English. It’s like how you can understand a marshal art extremely well as a spectator, but you need understanding and muscle memory in order to participate in it.</p>
<p>You can’t become fluent in a foreign language just by going to a class (even in college, most likely) and then being surrounded by your native language the rest of the time. I think I’ve benefited from my high school Spanish classes, mostly because I learned more about English grammar and vocabulary from them.</p>
<p>“Fortunatly i just did it to please college admissions”</p>
<p>Your motives will also affect what you get out of a class. Unfortunately it’s often possible to get good grades in high school without learning anything (with the help of grade inflation and tests that encourage short-term memorization), but if you actually care about learning, you shouldn’t take advantage of that.</p>
<p>Para mi, la clase de espanol es esencial. Me ofrece varias oportunidades para relejarme. Te recomiendo que continues estudiandola en el futuro.</p>
<p>I understand all of that no problem. But if you’d asked me to write it…</p>
<p>I did two years of Spanish (while taking another language), I did not retain anything after quitting, but I think it is partially because of the other language. The other language I am taking Hebrew I have been formally learning for four years and a little bit before then, that one I actually speak decently. It takes time, practice and effort to master a language.</p>
<p>At my school we have a class called AICE Spanish, which really focuses on essay writing and reading/listening comprehension. The AICE system is derived from the British educational system, so it’s a lot different than typical American high school Spanish courses. For the exam we have to prepare a speech and have a short conversation on the spot in Spanish, write two essays, and read two articles and answer questions about them. Instead of doing verb conjugation worksheets we read articles and then discuss them. I like it a lot even though it’s one of my most difficult classes. I can understand what the teacher is saying 80-90% of the time now, compared to like 40% at the beginning of the year, and can actually voice my opinion in our discussions.</p>
<p>I agree that high school spanish is useless. I could tell you about my guidance counselor and different parts of my house, but I still know nothing about how to ask for directions or order food. I am in Level 3 Spanish and I still know absolutely nothing.</p>
<p>I’m wondering exactly how much of that is the school’s fault and how much of that is your fault.</p>
<p>I’ve been told learning a new language takes 7 years of education, even if you’re not a rock star student. Since I’m only on year three, I’m a little terrible, but for personal reasons I love it and would never stop taking it until I am fluent 
Personal opinion FTW lol</p>
<p>-------------------------------------------If it is to be, it is up to me…</p>
<p>
A better measure is the time spent using a language. The Foreign Service Institute estimates that most anglophones take about 600 hours of practice to become fluent in Spanish; that’s 4 academic years (assuming 30 weeks per year, 5 hours per week of intensive language usage) or 10 months of speaking it for 2 hours every day. And it still depends on how much attention is paid to grammar.</p>
<p>I completely agree. I’m taking AP Spanish Lang, but I still can’t really speak well or even understand much. We watched a Spanish soap opera in class a while ago, and almost no one actually understood what was going on (save the native speakers in our class).</p>