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What foreign language do you learn in at school in US, UK, Canada, Australia and another country?

 

I am interested because of course here in Japan we learn English.

 

What do you think of English education in Japan?

 

Thank you, I am interested in the asnwers.

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well, first i would have to correct your english a little...

 

u say "in Japan we learn English"

 

of course that should be

 

"in Japan we do English" or "in Japan we study English"

 

the 'learn' bit is quite debatable.

 

in Australia, my guess would be the majority of students do nothing. the option is open to take a few foreign languages thru school but i didnt make it passed the first compulsory semester.

 

its a pretty shitty situation. i think more attention should be given to teaching language in english speaking countries.

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I believe it is very common, if not a requirement, to study 1 foreign language in high school...some universities have it as a requirement as well...

 

I studied Spanish in h.s., but japanese has booted that out of my brain...

 

grew up bilingually too (english and hebrew)...

 

languages are cool...want to learn more...

 

danz

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In the UK it is usually French and German for the most part - well it was when I was at school anyway \:\)

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There is a huge range of language courses on offer at secondary schools in Australia. I studied French and Japanese in my first year of high school and then decided to do Japanese from then on. A language was compulsory until the 3rd year of high school when you chose a load of electives. I was lucky and had a great teacher who was enthusiastic and a nice person. Looking back on it, her Japanese wasn't the best but she really encouraged everyone and made the subject matter interesting. A few friends at high school also did Chinese, Korean, German and also French but it depends whether your school has the funds to run classes where there are only a few students in each class. And with the state of the public education system now in Australia you would have to go to a private school if you intended to do some way out language like Greek or even Latin.

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I have to agree with you there danz... languages are a way cool skill to have. They open doors that you never would have imagined even existed.

 

People in English speaking countries are often really lazy in learning foreign languages as they believe that everyone should learn English and that English is the globally accepted communication tool. Especially in Australia where we are a fair distance from non-English speaking countries people just don't bother. From my experiences people in the UK seem to be more up for learning a foreign language. Perhaps that is because they are very close to Europe and can be in a different country in a matter of a few hours. For Australians, it takes 5hours in a plane just to get from one side to the other!

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At my high school in NZ (you start when you are 13) you didnt have to learn a language, it was one of a whole host of electives. We had German, Japanese, French, Maori, Spanish and Samoan if I remember right.

 

Hardly anyone in NZ can speak another language, in fact when I think about it, teachers aside I dont know anyone that would be "fluent" (maybe I know the wrong people). I have to admit that speaking English makes you lazy, wherever you go chances are that people speak English, more so than another language. I am glad that I learnt Japanese rather than one of the other options, although it is much harder (compared to German - 4 years study) but Ive mooched a lot of money off the Japanese government! \:D

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In Canada we have to study French. Though I never picked up much of it I have quite a few friends who are Bilingual.

I even have a few friends who speak three or four langauges though usually they are imigrants.

 

Chris.

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Yeah in the UK it is a choice of Spanish, German or French.

 

But no-one bothers to study it 'cos they all speak english anyway' (actually most europeans i have spoken to hate using english and rightfully resent us brits being so damn lazy).

 

I love studying Japanese. Its useful to me in everyday life, but I just enjoy it for the intellectual challenge. Also, I find I am learning a lot about my own language, and language in general.

 

But most interestingly, I find I am learning a lot about the relationship between language and culture, and how your language can actually affect the way you look at the world to some extent.

 

I heard that Japanese is about 6 times harder to learn for English speakers than a roman based language like french or spanish. I think it was the army (or something like that) who made this fact up, as they would devote 10 weeks to teaching french etc to their cadets, but 60 weeks for teaching Japanese.

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In the states, it pretty much depends on what your school offers, but I think almost every school offers at least spanish or french starting from junior high. My school offered spanish, french, and latin. I studied french for about 3 or 4 years, but I was a bigtime slacker in high school, so I didn't really learn much. In hindsight I wish I had taken spanish because it's easy to learn, and very usefull in the states.

 

Learning Japanese is a challenge, but I think languages are so cool, and reveal so much about a culture, so I definitely plan on studying something else after this...

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at my high school you had to study latin for a year. then you could pick one modern language for 3yrs or 2 moderns for 2 years each. you could choose from french, spanish, german, or russian. i did latin for 2 years, french for 3. kind of a waste bc by the time i got to college, i had forgotten a lot and had to start all over again with french. it was way easy the second time around, but now i wish i had done japanese then. i could probably speak it pretty well now if i had.

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In the US I think the high school requirements are state by state. I was required 2 years. I took French and Spanish. University is case by case too. My Uni required 4 semesters. I took Japanese.

 

CMWEBB, In Canada you HAVE to study French? Nationwide? IF so, why's that?

 

In Hawaii we all speak a pretty mixed bag of languages. Most everyone mixes in some English, Japanese, Hawaiian, Fillipino (Tagalog), some Chinese, etc. Mainlanders must have a hard time understanding us. confused.gif Broken English is main though, for most.

 

Americans gotta be the laziest language learners of developed countries. Generally, our efforts are half-assed at best. Speak English!! Our National motto

 

Latin: usefull in Law School

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well latin is meant to be the building blocks of other european languages, so supposedly if ou leanr latin first, you can learna bunch of other european languages much faster and thoroughly. Thats what I was told when I studied it back when I was 13 anyway.

 

Caecillius est in horto laborat.

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