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Re: Interesting Legolas Send a noteboard - 27/09/2010 11:04:37 AM
I used to live in areas where Arabic or Urdu was spoken as much as English (grad school housing) or where some of the street signs were in Spanish as well as English (South Florida), so after a while, you pick up elements of it, if you so desire.

Yeah, that would certainly help, obviously more so for somewhat related languages like Spanish than for the likes of Arabic or Urdu.
I'm not for sure if you have a good picture there. In the modern languages classes I've taken, the emphasis was always on speaking and listening before on grammar and writing and in my intermediate and advanced classes (both German and Spanish), virtually all of the instruction was given in those languages rather than English. In addition, majors (and some minors) are encouraged to do study abroad programs for a semester or two to pick up specific dialects and nuances that might be overlooked, so after 450 hours or so of language exposure (saying a minimum of 10 classes in the language major at 3 hours a week, 15 weeks a semester), I would imagine some degree of fluency would be expected, and in more than just academic readings.

Well, I did say for the non-western languages. It's not from personal experience that I'm speaking, though, merely by what I was told recently by a number of friends who spent a year in Japan and were less than impressed by the fluency of the American and British students there. Which is merely anecdotal evidence, admittedly. And indeed, my even more limited personal experience - back when Angie was taking a class in Japanese - does suggest that the language education in the US is similar enough to ours, except for simply being less intensive because there are more other subjects besides.
As for the major/minor system itself, the purpose is to do more than just have a fancy technical school certification. I had 132 hours on my degree. 51 was in history, 12 in political science, 12 in Latin, 6 in German (I audited my third and final class, so I wouldn't have to worry about assignments while I was working on my undergraduate honors thesis), 15 in literature and composition classes, 9 in anthropology, 8 in geology, and the rest in electives. I like to think I got more exposure than if 75% or more of my classes had been history courses.

Yes, I rather doubt either of us is going to convince the other there. In my view, exposure to all kinds of subjects is for HS; university is for dedicated study of a certain subject, and there's no point in wasting time on unrelated subjects that you won't need for anything (certainly it doesn't follow that a history study should have nothing but history classes, but the other subjects should be somewhat related at least - anthropology works for me, geology not so much). The result is that our universities need less time to get to the same results - three years of undergrad standard instead of four in the US - and I don't really see any downsides to how we do it. But as I said, I doubt I will convince you of that.
As someone who studied under two Marxists, I do believe I would say that ;)

What is it with cultural historians and Marxism? :P In most every other field, precious few people would dare to call themselves Marxists for fear of getting laughed out of the university.
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/Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 24/09/2010 01:37:42 PM 1228 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 01:49:32 PM 659 Views
Answering the survey myself... - 24/09/2010 02:04:39 PM 656 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:10:57 PM 642 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:20:45 PM 780 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:24:01 PM 666 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 02:14:52 PM 698 Views
We have a similar situation in Belgium. - 24/09/2010 02:32:25 PM 566 Views
It is all double dutch to me - 24/09/2010 02:41:41 PM 643 Views
Hah! - 24/09/2010 06:58:49 PM 725 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 03:32:09 PM 595 Views
That is rather sad to say the least. - 24/09/2010 04:15:32 PM 830 Views
Indeed - 24/09/2010 06:23:52 PM 632 Views
That's just Paris being a city of nasty people. - 24/09/2010 06:32:40 PM 783 Views
I never noticed that - 24/09/2010 07:05:18 PM 669 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 04:00:04 PM 710 Views
I didn't mean just in Sweden, or Scandinavia. - 24/09/2010 04:19:32 PM 691 Views
Well... - 24/09/2010 10:50:09 PM 604 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 05:47:09 PM 670 Views
Interesting. - 24/09/2010 06:04:30 PM 622 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 06:42:02 PM 766 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 07:05:44 PM 676 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 07:21:24 PM 802 Views
Re: Interesting. - 24/09/2010 08:18:30 PM 656 Views
Re: Interesting. - 25/09/2010 08:02:30 PM 718 Views
American who just got a C+ on a French quiz reporting in. - 24/09/2010 06:09:31 PM 726 Views
What was it on? - 24/09/2010 06:22:35 PM 633 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe - 24/09/2010 06:16:22 PM 580 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 24/09/2010 09:38:05 PM 768 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 25/09/2010 05:49:05 AM 750 Views
Real quick - 25/09/2010 12:03:51 PM 726 Views
Self-study can be worth as much as formal classroom study, I suppose - 25/09/2010 03:43:14 PM 727 Views
Certainly it can. - 26/09/2010 12:35:56 PM 727 Views
You know, gen eds typically include a language. *NM* - 26/09/2010 07:28:57 PM 284 Views
Yes, but other things as well. - 26/09/2010 08:08:20 PM 667 Views
Interesting - 27/09/2010 03:14:00 AM 829 Views
Re: Interesting - 27/09/2010 11:04:37 AM 732 Views
You don't have to prove it's economically valid? - 27/09/2010 08:31:46 PM 744 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 25/09/2010 04:54:40 PM 868 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 25/09/2010 07:38:29 PM 791 Views
The amount of German is more surprising. - 25/09/2010 07:55:29 PM 541 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 26/09/2010 12:07:19 AM 811 Views
They should have asked about second languages rather than foreign languages. - 26/09/2010 11:34:27 AM 646 Views
Aye, they should have. - 26/09/2010 12:26:51 PM 766 Views
Re: /Survey: Foreign language knowledge in Europe (and elsewhere) - 27/09/2010 03:18:30 PM 708 Views

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