<p>I have a friend who will be starting at UVA in the fall, and he is very interested in taking an "exotic" (at least to me!) foreign language. Can anyone provide some insight into the various language departments? Are any considered to be significantly more difficult than others? Would it be a mistake (as in an overwhelming amount of work) to take, for example, Japanese his first semester? Thanks! :)</p>
<p>Japanese and Russian are both a lot of work, but if your friend is dedicated (willing to study 1-3 hours per night for example) then he will be fine. For instance, in Japanese you have to learn one of the alphabets the very first night. To show you are dedicated to the work.</p>
<p>What’s the rest of his schedule like, and how good is he at languages?</p>
<p>My S took Russian I last year with no prior exposure. He is an all-round smart kid with mainly math-science interests, and he had no career- or major-related reason for wanting to take Russian rather than something else. He thought it was an excellent course, with a very good teacher. But he also found it very fast-paced and demanding, especially since the rest of his curriculum was very challenging. A lot of his fellow-students already knew some Russian or were “legacy speakers” of one of the Slavic languages. </p>
<p>After a year of Russian, S decided to fulfill his UVA language requirement by taking the Spanish placement test (he had Spanish in hs). He may come back to Russian when he has more time to devote to it.</p>
<p>One popular option for kids who are interested in getting really good at a language is UVA’s Summer Language Institute. You spend 8 weeks doing nothing but learning your language. It’s a very effective way of jump-starting yourself into a reasonable level of fluency.</p>
<p>Thanks, jingle. I wonder if he knows about the Summer Language Institute…sounds like a very good way to go!</p>