Should I switch to honors Chiene 1 from honors Spanish 5 on my senior year in high school?
I am currently a senior in high school and am taking honors Spanish 5. I also want to state that I am trilingal already. Spanish 4 was hard for me and I barely made it, although I got an A for my overall grade. I am debating if I should take Spanish 5 this year or switch to Chinese because I am interested in taking Chinese also.
I heard that if I change my language course throughout my high school it will negatively affect my transcript. I am just so frustrated because throughout these years of me taking Spanish I haven’t learned how to speak it better, I know the basic sentences and words, but condrugating in past tense is hard for me, etc.
My thoughts are if I’m not gonna learn how to speak it fluently or at least better than now then why am I taking the course, why not take Chinese to make it easier for me. But if it’s gonna negatively affect my transcript then I am not gonna switch. What should I do?
As someone who actually did that, let me give you my PoV. This was, by far, the worst decision I made in HS.
HS Chinese I will not ne enough to do anything with conversationally. It may not even be enough to place into Chinese II in college, so you could end up having to start over if you continue in college.
If you don’t want to continue in Spanish, don’t. Take another non FL instead. You already have met the foreign language preparation requested by every US university. The only caveat would be that some colleges require FL to graduate, which may ir may not be met, depending on the obscurity if the language, by one of the other languages in which you are fluent.
If you really want to learn Chinese, take it in college.
I agree with others. In this situation I just would not take a language class.
In my experience to learn a language you need to use it. If you were to watch TV shows and movies in Spanish and find Spanish speaking people to talk to (in Spanish of course) at least a couple of hours per week this might help quite a bit. However, not taking a language at all seems like an equally good approach that would leave you time for other classes.
If you are very interested in learning/exploring Chinese, I’d say it’s fine. Four years of a single language, and five overall, would be plenty for any college admissions decision. As would four years, if you choose to not take any language.
Don’t take it because you think you need a language. But if you think it’s the most interesting elective available, take it.
You wrote that you are already trilingual. If you read and write at least one of the non-English languages, look for a way to use one of them to place out of any foreign language requirement when you get to college.
I’m fluent in Armenian, Russian and English. So if I tell the colleges that I can read and write in those languages do I not have to take any foreign languages in college?
Language requirements vary from school to school. In my rather limited experience with two kids, most schools allow you to place out by demonstrating proficiency in some manner (e.g. school placement test, AP score) but one school my daughter applied to had a language requirement that they claimed you could not place out of. They would just put you at a higher level, or if you demonstrated fluency, place you in a completely new language. You will need to check the gen ed requirements of the schools you are applying to.
That is the exception. Yale is another example (unless it’s the one to which you’re referring) where you are required to take at least one FL class at Yale. No getting out of it.
Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service also requires foreign language classes, insofar as I remember. S20, who had two years of high school French, was admitted to this program (and waitlisted at Yale - I didn’t know about their foreign language undergraduate curriculum requirement until reading this thread). Had he gone to Georgetown, he was interested in pursuing Mandarin Chinese, in which he is conversationally proficient but never tested.
True. Although that is a specialized subset of the university. Similarly the Huntsman program at Penn requires FL in college. Another example of a college-wide FL requirement is USMA. And in exchange for a free ride , you get to be told which language you will study and be told to like it. ?