Re: beginner

> > Here in Brazil we
> > have
> > english classes in our schools (recently, spanish
> > too). Do you have something familiar in the schools
> > of
> > your country?
>
> When I went to school in California, USA in the 1950's
> and 1960's I had the choice of Spanish, French, German
> and Latin. I took Latin and German both. for 2 years.
>
> Today, my grand daughter here in Oregon, USA had her
> choice of French, Spanish or Japanese.
I envy high schools which have more language classes... I go to a
small religious private school, and until very recently we only
offered Spanish (our French program was started last year and only has
one teacher).

Of course, our school is very small and Spanish is generally more
useful here in Southern California than possibly any other foreign
language, but it still irks me to have very little choice in which
language I could study at school. It doesn't help to have giant public
schools nearby with programs in Spanish, French, German, Japanese,
Chinese, and possibly more which I'm not aware of...

> Clearly the opportunities are available, but it still
> seems very few Amercians bother to learn another
> language.
That's very true--most of the students at my school see the foreign
language requirement as completely unnecessary, and insist that if
they were to learn Spanish, they should learn the
heavily-American-influenced Mexican Spanish used here instead of the
Academy in Spain's Spanish (I forget the name, apologies :).

Sharon.

--
Matt: But yeah, Latin would be cool. Plus, when you say to people "I
can speak Latin, pitiful worm!" they'll be like "Omfg, he be learned!"
Matt: and they will cower before you.