Tonight I talked with a junior at another high school. It came up that he got a C- in French and he was upset because he said “I actually worked in that class.”
“Parles-tu francais?” I asked.
“Non,” he replied after hesitation.
“No wonder you didn’t get a better grade.”
Later, he told me he was in French Six class (third year French).
NOTE : He goes to the high school with the strongest foreign language department, at least by reputation, in the region. They even teach Greek there, though I have never been clear whether it was modern, ancient, or both. Therefore I was slightly surprised.
when I went to Spain the summer after my senior year, I had only finished my second year in Spanish. (I had actually failed my freshman and junior years.. immaturity, i guess.) The people who I went with were all in their 3rd or 4th years and I had, on more occasions than not, to order food for them or buy other things and translate books and pamphlets and whatnot. and i had to do all the haggling in morocco, as the locals didn’t know english that well… which is understandable on their part.
It’s actually pretty common to find people who pass four or so years of a class, but retain none of the knowledge which they had supposedly learned. kinda sad, really.
I think it is a “use it or lose it” thing. When I lived in Sydney I knew more French speaking people, New Caledonians, north Africans etc. so my French was good. I just don’t know any French speaking people in Adelaide so it is deteriorating. We now have some African immigrants who speak a French dialect arriving in Adelaide so maybe I might eventually get some neighbours who speak French.
We also had that most useful type of French lessons at school - a real French teacher who absolutely refused to speak any English in class!
Not necessarily. A cousin of mine who is a doctor (a white-collar job) got hired over other candidates at a clinic which serves a lot of Spanish speaking customers because of her fluency in Spanish. And she only started studying Spanish in college.
Also in Southern Florida, there is a large class of affluent Spanish-Speaking Cubans, which certainly encourages learning Spanish. When my father and uncle were trying to sell some of their property there, they lost a good deal because some Spanish speaker buyers did not speak good English and they did not speak good Spanish. We settled on another deal which was similar in price, but had there not been that other deal they could have lost some serious money by not speaking Spanish (just as those Cubans would have lost a house).
immaturity, i guess.) The people who I went with were all in their 3rd or 4th years and I had, on more occasions than not, to order food for them or buy other things and translate books and pamphlets and whatnot. and i had to do all the haggling in morocco, as the locals didn’t know english that well… which is understandable on their part.