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My son will be a H.S. freshman next year and has stated that he wants to take 2 foreign languages throughout high school. He will have to give up his study hall to do this.
He has been taking French for several years, so he will be placed in Honors French 2 as a freshman (the AP track). He also wants to add Spanish 1, which he has little background in. All his friends are taking Spanish and he sees how useful it is.
He seems to have an aptitude for languages. He picked up French very easily (straight A's) and has nearly a perfect accent (according to his teacher). He has always been good at voices/impersonations/music so that doesn't surprise me - he has a very good ear. He is a quick study on learning vocab, sentence structure, etc. He is interested in foreign travel, intl. politics, etc.
I am wondering if taking a full H.S. load with 2 foreign language courses, plus all Honors courses, will be too much. Should I encourage him to look at taking Spanish classes outside the high school? I have heard that the H.S. language courses are relatively easy (e.g. have heard they are an easy "A") compared to the other coursework he'll be taking.
Will it be confusing / overwhelming for him to be studying 2 languages at once? Does taking 2 languages give him any advantage in the college admissions process?
Just curious if anyone has experience/advice in this area.
It is typically odd in American high schools to study one or more foreign languages in-depth but it is very normal in many places. Here (Quebec), students are generally bilingual French-English by graduation and many are also trilingual (Spanish).
I would greatly encourage your son to do this, as it presents itself a number of opportunities in later life (aside from travel, Spanish is in obvious demand in the US for business/public service work - you would be surprised as well the opportunities it opens up to Canadian business, which has nearly 25% population French speakers).
Learning French and Spanish together is great because one tends to reinforce the other, they are both similar in grammatical structures that are different from English (such as reflexive verbs). That and learning languages has been shown to increase overall intelligence, the more you think, the more you think.
I'm incredibly biased as I teach ESL and my kids are both in bilingual education (which is a standard here) but I say go for it. At worst, he can travel with it and have fun when young At best, good business opportunities. I'm sorry, I don't know how it affects US college applications - but I do highly encourage you to consider a semester abroad for him in a country where the language is native.
Absolutely he should do it, there is only benefit in learning multiple languages, especially given your son's interest in international relations. It is easier too to learn Spanish after French, not the other way around.
My kids are at an international school and everyone is required to take a third language beginning at middle school.
From what you say he has an aptitude for languages and he wants to do it, so let him.
My elder son took Latin and French his freshman and sophomore years. I took Italian my senior year while also taking Spanish. Italian was a laughingly easy A because it's so close to Spanish, and I really needed to bring up my GPA!
... I have heard that the H.S. language courses are relatively easy (e.g. have heard they are an easy "A") compared to the other coursework he'll be taking....
My son coasted through high school (slacker) but had four years of straight A's in honors Spanish. He also took it in junior high. I took a semester of it in college (night class), showed him some of the material, and he couldn't understand it! In his high school, I'd say it was too easy.
My late wife spoke five languages. She could spell anything! (I always said she could proof-read the dictionary.) I think spelling was easy for her because of her command of so many languages -- that and because she was just naturally so darned smart.
I'd encourage him to go for it -- much better than study hall!
A child who wants to challenged.
Awesome. Great.
"Study" Hall is a complete waste of time.
By the way.
After learning French, he will see Spanish as trivial. I am serious about this. His biggest problem is is going to pronouncing "le" correctly when he is speaking.
(I took 2 years of Spanish in high school and then French much later as an adult. Many concepts transferred as they have the same root structure.)
Let him do it. I took three languages (Spanish, French, Latin) in high school because everything else besides the different art classes were boring.
The only times I overlapped language courses was when I took Latin and Spanish. The only reason why it was difficult was because I was taking a full course load at my high school, and then decided to take Latin online in addition to all of the other classes I was already taking.
I don't think it will be that difficult. I wish I would've stuck with languages in college.
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At best, good business opportunities. I'm sorry, I don't know how it affects US college applications - but I do highly encourage you to consider a semester abroad for him in a country where the language is native.
Yea!
