High School Foreign Language Classes Sufficient?

[relentless11]

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I was browsing through some of the schools and found a few that saw language classes as beneficial...specifically college ones. I took about 3 years of Spanish in high school and i still retain most of it since i do use it every now and then.

If that is the case, where would i put it in the application. I definately don't have room for it in my personal statement. I also speak Vietnamese. Definately multiple language skills are important, but really where would they go?

 

[jlee9531]

unless you can say that you are fluent in those languages then you can mark it down in the amcas application saying that you are fluent.

i took 5 years of spanish but i did not mark it down in my amcas because i dont consider myself fluent...so if it some interviewer busted out his spanish there would be no way in hell that i could respond back to him in spanish at the level he expects...

i just take solace in the fact that i can at least understand a little bit. a personal victory 😉

 

[relentless11]

Originally posted by jlee9531
unless you can say that you are fluent in those languages then you can mark it down in the amcas application saying that you are fluent.

i took 5 years of spanish but i did not mark it down in my amcas because i dont consider myself fluent...so if it some interviewer busted out his spanish there would be no way in hell that i could respond back to him in spanish at the level he expects...

i just take solace in the fact that i can at least understand a little bit. a personal victory 😉

Hehehe, yea thats true.

 

[CalBeE]

The way I'll judge if one's relatively fluent is if you can interpret common conversation in a clinical setting into that foreign language. Things like, "I would recommend you to rest and recover now and have a flu vaccine every year, instead of taking antibiotics, because what you have is an infection caused by virus."

 

[Disgruntled One]

do they offer foreign language classes that cover some sort of clinical jargon?

i took 4 years of spanish in HS, and ive taken spanish in college all the way up to advanced conversation (though i did take the 2 most advanced classes pass/fail). I can easily hold a conversation with someone, but in a medical setting, i would suspect that i would often come across words i dont know.

 

[CalBeE]

Originally posted by Disgruntled One
do they offer foreign language classes that cover some sort of clinical jargon?

i took 4 years of spanish in HS, and ive taken spanish in college all the way up to advanced conversation (though i did take the 2 most advanced classes pass/fail). I can easily hold a conversation with someone, but in a medical setting, i would suspect that i would often come across words i dont know.

I see what you mean. I'm in charge of testing and training new volunteer interpreters at a hospital. There are many people who can speak the language, but not fluent enough to interpret. I just feel that when medical schools say they want people who are fluent, they want people who can carry out conversations in clinical setting in a foreign language (Not hard vocabs, but just the common terms)

 

[relentless11]

Originally posted by CalBeE
I see what you mean. I'm in charge of testing and training new volunteer interpreters at a hospital. There are many people who can speak the language, but not fluent enough to interpret. I just feel that when medical schools say they want people who are fluent, they want people who can carry out conversations in clinical setting in a foreign language (Not hard vocabs, but just the common terms)

Some medical schools do actually offer a class for medical terms. I know ours do. Not sure if undergrads can take it though.

 

[NotChoCheez!]

One thing that's saved my behind a couple times while translating is that once you get to the "technical terms," they're exactly what you expect them to be in Spanish. Since both English and Spanish medical lingo comes from Latin mostly all you have to do is take the word you already know in English and pronounce it as you would in Spanish.

What you do have to worry about are common, non-technical words like parts of the body, common names of diseases (cold, flu, Moctezuma's revenge, etc.) These are easy enough to acquire if you already speak at a conversational level. Just go have some conversations about the subject.