Spanish in Schools

[redhen]

Quote:
I'd choose French..anyday over Spanish..

 

[NRacine]

I'm in WI, technically much closer to Canada than Mexico. But there are a lot of immigrants from Latin America here working on farms and in factories. It has been very helpful to know a wee bit of Spanish. That could bring up another debate about language, but I would have been very happy to receive Spanish classes earlier than 8th grade. Once you learn Spanish, it's much easier to learn Italian. And let's face it, if you learn Italian, you HAVE to go to Italy!

 

[redhen]

Okay..i changed my mind..I want to learn Italian!

 

[key west chick]

I grew up in south Fla in the early 80's. I learned more cuban slang than I did in 2 years of spanish class. While learning spanish would make more sense than french or german, why should I learn spanish here when others should learn english? If I lived in another country, I wouldnt expect them to learn my language to communicate with me. I would learn theirs.

 

[beak]

Quote:
That way when your at the store and a couple Latinos are behind you and start laughing you'll know that it's because one of them farted and that they aren't laughing at you.

You shouldn't have to know Spanish unless you live in a country that has it as a first language. Since we have a significant population of people in the US that speak Spanish it would be a useful language to know. Besides according to some people the US population will be mostly Latino in 30 years or so. When that happens, all the bi-lingual signs will have Spanish on top. When you call the cops it will have a message in Spanish asking you to press 2 for English. It's okay I'll be dead then but I will be laughing in my grave.

 

[beak]

Quote:
That's exactly what my Daughter did. Just about the same reasoning too. Took a semester of study a broad. She loved Italy.

 

[hikerchick]

Quote:
Most people in Europe study English, or at least one other language besides their own.

Anyway, English is not "our" language.The United States has no official language.

 

[fowltemptress]

My beef is, living in Texas they pretty much shove the Spanish down your throat, trying to dissuade you from enrolling in other languages. My school offered French, German, and Spanish. If you chose anything other than Spanish the guidance counselor would give you this whole spiel about how you'll never use it, that there are more opportunities with Spanish, it would be best not to waste your opportunity in learning a new language, blah de blah de blah . . . if you still were set on another language your parents would get a call about how it would be "in their child's best interests if you could persuade him/her to choose Spanish instead. Unfortunately, my Mom listened to her, and I had to "learn" a language that, IMO, is the ugliest language I have ever heard (this is not intended to offend, and I'm sure English is an ugly sounding language to many people. I've just never liked the way Spanish sounds). Because of my TOTAL disinterest in that language, I pretty much know how to say hi and count to ten, but that's it. I wasn't going to go out of my way to retain knowledge I didn't want.

When my Uncle was in high school in Texas, he got the same spiel when he wanted to take a different language . . . Russian. Fortunately for him, my grandparents didn't care what their children did in school, so long as the grades were fine, so he studied Russian and went on to major in it in college. Since then he's learned three other languages, including Spanish, Latin, and Polish, and of the foreign languages he knows he uses *gasp* Russian and Polish the most. And he lives in Texas! He works for the newspaper, and they are constantly in need of him, since most of the other employees are pretty much only able to translate Spanish. Who woulda thunk it?

A bit off topic, but his stories are pretty cool, because he went to college in Russia for a bit during the cold war . . . scary stuff, they bugged all the American student's rooms and videotaped them . . . one of his classmates got shipped home to America in a hurry after they filmed him doing something incriminating, and they asked him to spy for them or they'd send the tape to his family.

I can't even imagine it.

 

[Chicks R Friends NOT Food]

Quote:
I'd choose French..anyday over Spanish..

I'm the opposite, I'm terrible at French pronunciation and I think my teacher wanted to hit me for my spelling.

wee instead of oui...

I just wish my school had German. I love german.

 

[arabookworm]

our school district starts spanish in the elementary schools, but it is basically a waste of time, because you only have the class once every other week or something like that. but starting in the 6th grade, you choose to take spanish, french, german, or latin, and you stick with it through high school.

I chose german cuz it had the awesomest teachers!!! and it wasn't as popular so we had small classes. last year there were 14 of us.