Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose
Larry Send a noteboard - 25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM
1) Which languages did you learn in school, and for how long?
High School - Two Years of Spanish (9th, 10th grades)
First round of college - Four semesters of Latin, three semesters of German (high intermediate for Latin, low intermediate for German)
Second round of college - tested out of first three semesters of Spanish, then two semesters (high intermediate, advanced) of Spanish classes.
Self-study: Portuguese, Italian, French, Serbian, plus exposure to some Haitian as well.
2) Which languages would you say you speak with some degree of fluency?
Speak? English and Spanish. Write? Same two. Read? Those two, plus Portuguese, Italian, French, and German.
3) Do you think languages get too much attention in the school system you went to, too little, or just about enough?
My high school graduating class was only 58 and it was in a very tiny rural town (despite me living in a Nashville exurb 15 minutes' drive east), so if any Spanish were really learned, it was a very pleasant surprise. So too little emphasis back in the early 1990s, obviously.
Now for UT's history program, if I had completed my Ph.D. I would have been expected to have at least reading fluency in German and either French or Latin, considering my specialization was German cultural/religious history.
4) What do you think of the remarkable dominance of English that appears in the data?
Imperialism FTW?

Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.

/Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
24/09/2010 01:37:42 PM
- 1308 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 02:10:57 PM
- 719 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 03:32:09 PM
- 669 Views
That is rather sad to say the least.
24/09/2010 04:15:32 PM
- 893 Views
Indeed
24/09/2010 06:23:52 PM
- 713 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 04:00:04 PM
- 782 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe
24/09/2010 05:47:09 PM
- 747 Views
Interesting.
24/09/2010 06:04:30 PM
- 696 Views
Re: Interesting.
24/09/2010 06:42:02 PM
- 848 Views
Re: Interesting.
24/09/2010 07:05:44 PM
- 755 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
24/09/2010 09:38:05 PM
- 846 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 05:49:05 AM
- 832 Views
Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose
25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM
- 802 Views
Certainly it can.
26/09/2010 12:35:56 PM
- 802 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 04:54:40 PM
- 942 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
25/09/2010 07:38:29 PM
- 865 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
26/09/2010 12:07:19 AM
- 880 Views
They should have asked about second languages rather than foreign languages.
26/09/2010 11:34:27 AM
- 733 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere)
27/09/2010 03:18:30 PM
- 779 Views