Mandatory Arabic classes coming to Mansfield ISD

My Spanish teacher decided somerehere halfway through the first quarter not to teach us. Plus I think she's going senile.

So yeah, I'm looking for independent Spanish lessons.

I've been using Rosetta Stone for Russian the past few days, it's fucking hard. Especially because of the alphabet, H makes the sound N makes, and N makes the sound E makes, and the upside down h makes a chuh type sound. The thing that is hard is to disassociate everything you learned in your first language, with a language this different, using a frame of reference hinders you plenty.

Not too keen on maing languages mandatory. Certianly not Arabic. The school should focus on why it would a good idea to learn Arabic/French/German/etc. and give a compelling argument for taking it.

Why would making a language mandatory be a bad thing? It's a forgone conclusion for anybody planning on a decent college.

Being in a school that has two optional languages, the one that's pushed more (Spanish) has a grand total of a dozen students per class. German on the other hand, has around 30 per class.

That doesn't work, is my point here.

I meant making one language mandatory. At least in America, it's better to make learning a language mandatory, but let the students choose which one they want.

I'd be all for making several languages mandatory if I didn't think it'd completely sink my grades.

We should really be learning in English and Spanish from kindergarten on. It's the second most spoken language in the United States and it's creeping up on English.

In high school we should be required to pick another language to learn.

At the same time, I'm in favor of making English the offical language of the Government and all documentation.

My younger siblings are learning Spanish starting at Kindergarten.

I didn't really have that luxury. :/

We should really be learning in English and Spanish from kindergarten on. It's the second most spoken language in the United States and it's creeping up on English.

NO

I was forced to take Spanish in Middle School and I hated it. I never learned a single thing in it at all. Fuck Spanish, French and Italian are the true Romance Languages.

edited 9th Feb '11 3:30:48 PM by Chagen46

French is even further from Latin.

I wouldn't be too surprised if you didn't learn a thing because you decided not to learn a thing. It's quite common for students to do that in courses they don't want to take. For example me when I either hate the teacher for personal reasons or it's health class.

Although we all know that at the high-school level that if a kid doesn't know that smoking is bad for them, they're not likely to be set straight by that class.

To be fair, that was during a shameful moment in my life where I was racist towards Mexicans (due to years of suffering bullying and racism from a cetain group of them) and hated everything associated with them, such as Spanish (I got over it).

edited 9th Feb '11 3:38:07 PM by Chagen46

Meh, because of where I live I've learned enough Spanish to get by, but the idea that everyone in the US should learn it doesn't sit well with me. We need to get off our butts and actually make English the official language.

Lo siento que no gusta español.  ^translation

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Although I wish I knew more Spanish than I do, then I'd help out with the Spanish TV Tropes. I do have the pronunciation down pat (native speakers have told me such), but my vocabulary is very limited.

@Barkey: Ain't Cyrillic a bitch?

Yeah, it's a real doozy.

I remember looking at the chart and thinking " I is m, O is kh?!?" It took a while to get the hang of it. The fact that my instructor is/was hot and only 8 years older didn't help.

edited 9th Feb '11 4:42:40 PM by Kino

@Best Of: German, English and Latin is a really great language combo, I took it in school. Lot's of stuff, like grammatical rules or vocabulary are present in at least two of them. If you understand it in one language you get it in the other. If you know the consonant shift German made you get really around to seeing the connection between both.

edited 11th Feb '11 3:36:29 AM by myrdschaem