Studying multiple foreign languages

My friend is trying to narrow down her possible majors. Foreign languages is among her interests. She’s studied Spanish and Chinese thus far, She hopes to continue both, as well as add ASL. Is 2 (and possibly 3) too many to study effectively?

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Our daughter just graduated with a double major including Spanish; she also took Mandarin her first two years for fun. She studied abroad in Spain fall of junior year, which meant she couldn’t re-enter her Chinese class mid-year. Senior year she took Korean instead of Chinese and now teaches ESL in Seoul.

Studying an Asian and Romance language at the same time is possible, especially if your friend is already fluent in one of them. I imagine as she fulfills requirements for her major, your friend can drop one language (or elect a short elective to stay fluent) and start the ASL coursework. Choosing a pass/fail option can take some pressure off academically: our D did this with Korean while working on her honors thesis.

Scheduling will be an issue: your friend may not be able to get into the required class she needs right away, depending on how many sections are offered and how popular the language is. Asian languages at my D’s college met an extra day per week and were higher credit courses.

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She’s doing both simultaneously right now. I bet she’ll want to go abroad at some point. But you’re right that scheduling will be a bear. Does/did your DD play the piccolo? :wink:

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