I have to take a foreign language in college :/

[Dr.Optic]

I just found out that I have to take a foreign language in college as part of my major. I am not too fond of doing this. I studied three years of French, but I decided not to take it my senior year. I am pretty rusty at it. However, I don't want to take a foreign language in college again. I am attending a private liberal arts college, however, I am not looking forward to studying French again. Does anyone have any experiences with this?

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[Kawasaki21]

I’m a current college junior so I’ve gone through this. Took 2 years of Spanish in high school and had to take a semester of French in college. It’s not fun but you have no choice. I’d recommend looking into other languages — perhaps looking into learning an entirely new language would spark your interests more than looking at French again; however, at the same time taking French, albeit boring for you, would practically be a free A.

So I guess decide what’s worth it to you: getting the A or getting to actually learn something new and potentially intriguing.

 

[theKingLT]

I just found out that I have to take a foreign language in college as part of my major. I am not too fond of doing this. I studied three years of French, but I decided not to take it my senior year. I am pretty rusty at it. However, I don't want to take a foreign language in college again. I am attending a private liberal arts college, however, I am not looking forward to studying French again. Does anyone have any experiences with this?

Does your school offer American sign language? I've learned and taught a few different languages and many people who say they don't enjoy learning languages have a much better experience with ASL. There's no writing and you can fingerspell and mime signs you don't know, allowing you to hold normal conversations with Deaf or other fluent signers very early on in the language learning process

 

[Dr.Optic]

I’m a current college junior so I’ve gone through this. Took 2 years of Spanish in high school and had to take a semester of French in college. It’s not fun but you have no choice. I’d recommend looking into other languages — perhaps looking into learning an entirely new language would spark your interests more than looking at French again; however, at the same time taking French, albeit boring for you, would practically be a free A.

So I guess decide what’s worth it to you: getting the A or getting to actually learn something new and potentially intriguing.

I can bare with that. I was dreading the fact that I had to take it for four years or what not. But I can handle that. I liked my teacher and all in high school, but going past French III didn’t seem like it would help me. I can speak Vietnamese. So I guess I’ll gut out French. Thanks for the response!

 

[Dr.Optic]

Does your school offer American sign language? I've learned and taught a few different languages and many people who say they don't enjoy learning languages have a much better experience with ASL. There's no writing and you can fingerspell and mime signs you don't know, allowing you to hold normal conversations with Deaf or other fluent signers very early on in the language learning process

I don’t think so, but I would definitely look into that. ASL sounds super cool and it’s useful from what I’ve experienced with shadowing so far.

 

[PapaGuava]

I took German I in college and that was fun haha. I'd definitely just try something out for a semester to cover the requirement if you have no plans of learning a language for the long term.

 

[longhaul3]

Take Spanish. If you become an MD and work anywhere there is a significant Spanish-speaking population (i.e. most regions of the US) it will save you YEARS of frustration with phone interpreters over your career. And even if you don't learn enough to speak it by the time you graduate, patients always appreciate when you can make an effort and say a few words in their native language.

 

[QofQuimica]

Anything you go into with the attitude that you don't like it and don't want to do it is going to be worse than it would be if you approached it with a more positive attitude. That being said, maybe part of the problem as others have alluded to is that French isn't terribly useful in your day-to-day life, and you'd enjoy studying a language more if you knew there was a way you'd be able to use it. What is the goal of the foreign language requirement? If you're a physical science major, learning German might be useful for reading old literature. If you already speak Vietnamese and would like to increase your depth in that language, taking Vietnamese-language literature or history classes might be enjoyable. If you'll be practicing in the US and you want to learn a language that would be helpful on a day-to-day basis, Spanish is probably your best bet as the user above me suggested. Arabic might be useful in certain parts of the country too, but that's a much harder language for a native English speaker to learn.

 

[Dr.Optic]

Thank you for all of the replies guys! I will definitely look into talking Spanish in college then. Coming from a rural community, there are quite a few Vietnamese people in my rural town, and I think that knowing the language will be useful during practice. I guess that might as well make sense to try to learn two common foreign languages in my community. Thank you all!

 

[siliso]

If you can bake a cake, you can build a bomb. If you can learn sciences you can learn a language. It’s only content, the software is preinstalled in your brain - especially if you speak English and you’re studying a romance or Germanic language. Agree that Spanish is the most widely useful and easy to acquire as an English native speaker.

 

[theKingLT]

If you can bake a cake, you can build a bomb. If you can learn sciences you can learn a language. It’s only content, the software is preinstalled in your brain - especially if you speak English and you’re studying a romance or Germanic language. Agree that Spanish is the most widely useful and easy to acquire as an English native speaker.

The problem is the school system teaches sciences well (not always but generally) but does a horrible job with languages.

OP if you just want to get through your gen eds I recommend just doing french for the easy A. If you really want to learn another language take Spanish but understand that to be successful (in learning, not in class) the majority of you're time and effort will need to be spent outside of class with language exchange partners, netflix, YouTube, etc.

 

[puahate]

I was trash at forgien languages