Who wants cheese?

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The POLL to accompany my post about languages. As usual, I cut myself off because I ran out of time, and not necessarily because I finished asking everything I wanted. So take note: there may be follow-up questions! XD

For the purposes of this poll, we will use the following definitions from Wikipedia, that bastion of academic rigor and accuracy: (Also see this article on multilingualism.)

Language fluency is used informally to denote broadly a high level of language proficiency, most typically foreign language or another learned language, and more narrowly to denote fluid language use, as opposed to slow, halting use.

Conversational means able to carry on a casual conversation, but not necessarily without halts in speech, or gaps in vocabulary.

Skip any questions that don't apply. Pretend that it's not weird I spend so much of my free time coming up with meaningless LJ Polls written in unneccessarily-academic language.


[Poll #1706752]

Please leave any details you're willing to share about your language abilities and experiences learning foreign languages in the comments below!

Comments

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In highschool I took French for... well, one and a half years, and then I tried to get into the class in the third year, but they didn't run one because no-one else wanted to learn it, because the Italian teacher was a complete idiot and let the class run riot.

This is what pissed me off about the Spanish program at my school. My school offered a choice of French or Spanish for language study. (They also offered German and Japanese, but only the first two levels of each. Conversely, I took Spanish 1-5 and then Advanced Placement Spanish.)

French was considered the more rigorous, prestige language, and Spanish was considered "easy" and a blowoff. (Racist, if you ask me...) While I don't think one language is particularly easy compared to the other (they're both Romance languages, for Christ's sake!), people chose their language according to that stereotype. Therefore the French students got to do cool things like take field trips to Toronto to see Phantom of the Opera, and the Spanish classes were packed with idiots who disrupted learning for everyone else.

Of course, by the time I got to AP Spanish, there were only 7 of us who took the course. Oh, and I managed to pass out of the language requirement at university, while my friends who took french had to suffer through two more years, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. :P

So, instead of continuing with my Spanish and going for real fluency, I took two semesters of Latin and one of Middle English. *shrugs* IDEK!

(So yeah, I'd totally count Old English as a language!)

(Oh, but I hate Beowulf. It's just a personal prejudice after being forced to study it in three separate courses!)

All that said, I suspect that they don't make you take another language in America as a child?

To be honest? I couldn't tell you. It's one of those products of our crazy federalist government: education, for the most part, is one of those powers granted to the states, and is therefore different across the country. There are, nominally, national standards, but there's still a ton of variation from one place to another. (Even within states.)

I can only speak to what it was like for me, in southeast Michigan 20 years ago.

No, they didn't make us take a language. We didn't even begin any sort of foreign language class until fifth grade. (Age 10-11) That class lasted only part of the year (our academic year was divided into trimesters) and was a survey course of different languages: French, Spanish, German, and Japanese. (Students who took band didn't even have that--"band class" replaced the other electives.) We didn't begin serious study of a language--with the goal of actually speaking it--until 8th grade. (Age 13-14) Even then, it was not required, but merely strongly suggested, as most universities will want you to have language experience, and require a course of study to earn your degree.

It's not at all unusual to be surrounded by different languages where I live. I wouldn't claim 25% across the board, but depending on where you are, you could easily find yourself in the minority when speaking English.

Growing up, my school had a very large Japanese population, due to our proximity to the auto industry. (See my response to jesterjoke for more details!) And at least half my friends growing up had immigrant parents. (This was slightly unusual, and particular to my social group.) However, though my friends usually understood their parents' first language, I rarely heard them speak it. It was very common, for instance, for my friend Fai's parents to speak to her in Cantonese, and her to respond to them in English.