Foreign languages should be required classes in schools.

[GreenJesus]

I learned french in high school and college but haven't used it since so I barely remember most of it.

[Milchshake]

Not really. Most diploma requirements have it rolled into a general language/arts/coding requirement. Which is fine.


It's weird seeing grown-up gamer/anime addicts that think that highschool is thee defining moment in some grand fate.

Is this level of fatalism a cultural or personal thing? I'm thinking that people who score higher on the F scale are more fatalistic.

[Tojara]

What I learned of French in elementary school is enough to get me by to be perfectly honest. I can't really construct a sentence but I know enough words (along with the obvious ones) to get by if I were to visit Quebec or France (two places I wouldn't really care to visit anyway). The French immersion I took in High School was a complete waste of time and I dropped out of it a couple years in though.

Whether they should be required or not should be entirely on the schools budget and the region of the world you're living in. I don't think it's unreasonable (at an early age anyways) if you're living in Canada that you have French classes in your curriculum to learn some basic words, but pushing it beyond that unless you're literally living in Quebec or perhaps New Brunswick seems stupid. Similar note, but if you're in the U.S and the state (or surrounding states) have heavy a Spanish influence it's not completely unreasonable if the schools budget allows to push for classes to learn *some* Spanish. People are largely critical of how we aren't taught things in school that applies to the real world and learning certain languages (again, depends on region) absolutely helps and has real world application.

[eschatological]

In NY we were required to take 4 years of a foreign language. Is that not standard?

In college, part of the core curriculum was at least a level 201 class in a foreign language, which is 3 semesters if you do 101/102, then 201. I did go to a private university in Boston though, the NE seems to already have these standards.

[Shadowferal]

It's weird seeing grown-up gamer/anime addicts that think that highschool is thee defining moment in some grand fate.

Is this level of fatalism a cultural or personal thing? I'm thinking that people who score higher on the F scale are more fatalistic.

I don't know about gamer or anime addicts, Public High school is what many can afford.

[Stelio Kontos]

Another good reason to mandate bilingualism/multilingualism is then we can stop hearing stories about idiots getting butthurt at tourists/immigrants for not speaking English in the US.

"Hurr durr in America we speak English", that's nice, Karen, and when I need to speak to you or anyone for work or business I do speak English, but I will speak whatever language I wish on my own time hanging out with family. If you can't understand two people speaking Greek, or Mexican, or Vietnamese or whatever, that's not their problem or your business.

[Stelio Kontos]

that attitude still exists in countries that have several languages... i have been told to speak swedish when i talk to friends or family in estonian or russian...

I guess you can never get away from those types of folks.

[TommyV]

I have a question for those that speak Spanish. Are there different accents, depending on what country you come from?

Much like here in the USA, and of course other countries, the are many different accents. I assume there are for other languages as well. So,when speaking in Spanish can you tell where they are from? Can Mexicans tell right away that you are from El Slavador, and vice versa? Or say someone from Venezuela can instantly tell when someone is from Chile?

Sorry, I find accents fascinating.