Quote:
Originally posted by Undertoad
No, it wasn't a matter of local differences, it was more a matter of a massive faiilure to communicate with even the most basic vocabulary and tenses and whatnot.
I take it to mean that the school system wasn't really interested in making me bi-lingual. That would be impossible to promise. What would be possible to promise would be "four years of language education for college-bound high-schoolers", and that's what I got.
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I hated taking foreign language in high school. I took 2 years of German...and that was the dumbest thing I ever did. Take a language that I knew I would never use practically. (No offense, Hubris.)
Since I left high school (in 1994), they seem to promote foreign language more strongly, and seem more devoted in getting people to actually USE it. That sucks though Tony...were you actually looking forward to using it?
When I got to college, at Southeast Missouri State, we only had to take 3 hours of a "communications" class. Southeast had a unique curriculum, and the "basic" classes were broken down into a variety of categories. "Communications" was not only several languages, but theatre, public speaking, etc.
Then, I transferred to UM-St. Louis...and 13 hours of foreign language was required (3 classes--5, 5, and 3). I took 16 hours total--and had I continued to use Spanish, I would probably be highly fluent in it now. At first, my whole rationale was "I just want to get this shit out of the way, so let me take the easiest one--Spanish." But then, I met various friends, and many of them spoke Spanish, so I had the opportunity to use it. Then, when I started going to Chicago on a regular basis, I saw how helpful it was. That dramatically changed my attitude regarding foreign language. Plus, I had a good professor, who made it fun to learn.