<p>I am currently a sophomore and taking the honors third year spanish at my school.
I used to like spanish. However, this year it has become much harder and boring and I am finding myself looking at the clock everyday every 2 minutes or so. Furthermore, my grades in the class are slipping and I seem to be unable to manage an A.
I have heard from upperclassmen that as I progress higher in the curriculum the classes become even more challenging.</p>
<p>I speak and write fluently in Chinese.</p>
<p>I am considering quitting spanish.</p>
<p>If I quit it, how do you think my college applications will be affected?
Will it be viewed as a minor problem or a major flaw?</p>
that doesn’t really count if you’re Chinese though…</p>
<p>
i’ve always found this sort of advice to be WORTHLESS. trust me, never ever
listen to people who tell you things will be hard; you should figure it out for yourself.</p>
<p>
just get your grade up. don’t quit Spanish just because you get a B+ or A-. that will make you look like you can’t handle slight adversity. i had a similar experience my sophomore year. i got a B+ in Hon Spanish III first sem but i worked harder 2nd sem and got an A. in Hon Spanish IV i got A+'s for both quarters.</p>
<p>A lot of people at my school consider the third year to be the hardest… Here we do almost all grammar stuff during that year- before third year we basically know present, present progressive, preterite, and imperfect. After the third year we know ALL the tenses.</p>
<p>Is that how it works at your school? A lot of grammar third year? If it is, Spanish becomes easier for most people after the third year- fourth and fifth years at our school focus more on speaking, culture/art, and the more fun stuff.</p>
<p>And I also agree with newjack- don’t quit… work a bit harder and try to make it through this year, and then try out next year. If the teacher is different, that could result in a better experience too.</p>
<p>I think it depends on your school’s language department. I’m taking AP Spanish IV this year and making a high A, but I feel like I’m learning almost nothing and my knowledge of Spanish is in fact eroding away. All we get tested on is the plot points of specific stories, and all our vocab is random useless stuff like “dowry”. So I’m not going to go on to Spanish V next year 'cause I bet it’ll just be more of the same.</p>
<p>Just stick with Spanish and try harder.
I was told by upperclassmen that Spanish 2 was the hardest and that was a piece of cake. Then I was told the same about Spanish 3 and I have one of the top grades.
Just keep trying and as for colleges, don’t they recommend 3 years?</p>
<p>A lot of times this happens because they didn’t learn the material for their lower classes well, and it’s really hard to build on weak fundamentals. It’s a pretty common thing. If you don’t work hard your first few years, the later years are hell. For almost any subject.</p>
<p>don’t quit. and if you’re chinese, speaking chinese will be looked upon as a “should be” even if you’re born here. But somehow that doesn’t apply to europeans born here… hmmm… strange</p>
<p>I teach HS French and Spanish. I am sorry you are finding third year hard and boring. Those two seem to be mutually exclusive, so you have a couple of choices. If it’s hard and you have given up, therefore find it boring, get some extra help to figure out where you have difficulty and maybe when you straighten it out it will be easier and less boring. If it’s boring just because it’s boring, do some extra work like reading Spanish books and stories, going on Spanish internet sites, listen to Spanish music, watch Spanish TV and movies, find a Spanish-speaking area near where you live, if possible, and make the language come alive for yourself. Definitely language classes in school can be boring, because we are teaching basically in a fake environment. If your teacher is boring, then you can take the initiative and do work on your own. DON’T DROP THE LANGUAGE. It will definitely pay off in the end. Another point is that many colleges require you to take a second language, or to place out of it altogether. If you continue now, you could potentially place out of it when you get to college, or place into a higher level. If you are Chinese and you are fluent in Chinese because of that, you are very lucky! Aspire to tri-lingualism, and you will have a wonderful view of the world, especially with those three languages: English, Chinese, and Spanish. Hang in there.</p>
<p>I appreciate the responses, however I am still a little doubtful because of some other problems:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>In many of my other classes (i.e. Math, Science and English) I can, about 3/5 times, easily flip through the books during lunch and in classes where we’re not doing anything (not Spanish) and “BS” a high A or A+. All of my classes are AP or Honors. I put more effort into Spanish that some of the other classes but my grades are not reflecting it.</p></li>
<li><p>I have had a history of difficulty learning a new language (5 years in ESL -_-). However, I have had very patient English/ESL teachers and I feel that I have a strong English foundation. Right now, I am not the best reader but I can write fast and effectively.</p></li>
<li><p>Because it is relative easier for me to understand other subjects, I feel that I have more talent in those areas and I am currently pursuing extracurricular endeavors in those areas (i.e. research, essay contests, math olympiad contests). However, these projects severely cut my time and I am choosing between spanish and cutting down some things which are more promising.</p></li>
<li><p>I understand that spanish can be important. But above all, I think that what I feel should be considered more than what some college feels. This may sound naive and clich</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Depending on your career, it tends to be a lot easier to get a job if you know Spanish. Speaking with Spanish-speaking people is a common thing in a LOT of professions- especially if you’re planning to stay/work in CA. More and more people are speaking Spanish in the US…</p>
<p>Don’t count on Chinese as your foreign language…a lot of colleges don’t see it as “fair” if you learned it because you’re ethnically Chinese (yeah, it’s stupid, but that’s how it works - I’ve had to accept it too ). Though I suppose if you took the AP Chinese exam, it would look OK (my language isn’t offered as an AP exam, grrrr). But as you are already in Spanish, do <em>not</em> quit. More than anything else, if you develop this mentality, you’ll keep dropping classes that you’re doing poorly in. As for looking at the clock every few mins, you have to learn how to deal with that. It’s an important life skill to be able to put up with boredom.</p>
All we get tested on is the plot points of specific stories, and all our vocab is random useless stuff like “dowry”. So I’m not going to go on to Spanish V next year 'cause I bet it’ll just be more of the same.</p>