My school had Spanish, French, or German.
As a Japanese native, the only foreign language I studied at school was basically English.
However, as part of my ancient Japanese language education, I studied classical Chinese literature written in Chinese characters, from which hiragana and other Japanese characters are derived, so ancient Chinese might also be included in the list of foreign languages I learned.
My middle school had English, German, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek.
That sounds amazing. In my high school I was the only one who signed up for Latin so they put me in Spanish instead…
Everybody picked English as first or second foreign language. Most picked Spanish as second language, the best students (or kids from solidly middle-class families) picked German as a first language, to get into the “good” group. Latin was an elective for nerds, Geek for Über-nerds.
I did grammar school, so we had:
- Dutch (our native language)
- English
- French
- German
- Classical Greek
- Latin
- Chinese (optional course)
Dutch and English were all through school, the other ones you took for 2 years and then picked two languages to follow through on, one of which had to be Greek or Latin. I did German and Greek.
English of course, the language of the invaders
We had to choose 2 of English, German, Spanish, French, Italian. We had the option of Japanese as extracurricular
Man I wish we had japanese when I was in school. I was completely unmotivated to learn french, and yet I still manage to understand some basic sentences. I bet I would have been way more motivated and probably would have remembered more if I had the option to learn japanese.
In my part of Australia we had to learn Japanese between the ages of 10 and 14, after that is became optional.
I know my producer’s schools had only Spanish, though one school he went to had ASL (American Sign Language) in addition to Spanish. However, there was one college that offered Japanese, which he would have loved.
I only remember French, Spanish, or German (this was back in the 90s). My kids have all those plus Japanese, Mandarin, and ASL to choose from
Spanish, French, German, Latin, and if you wanted to learn Italian, you could go to the sister school in the morning for that class and then come back by bus.
In my hometown, it was Spanish, Latin, German, French, or ASL (I know, I know, not a foreign language. Arguably Spanish isn’t either, but anyway).
But each school only had one, so you only got fo choose if you had enough free periods to drive across town three times a week.
My school had Spanish. I learned Latin once I was in college.
In US, had French and Latin, plus of course English.
I think mine only had French or Italian. I’m Canadian.
In my US public school: French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Latin
Edit: just checked their website to see what they do now, AP level French Spanish, Italian. And apparently have an ASL class. No more Russian
French, Spanish, and Latin.
Does English count in the USA? 😆
Considering the average USA reading level, might as well
Mine didn’t even have French all the way through - you had to do it by correspondence or go the the local French immersion school. Which is barely constitutional in Canada.
Can you elaborate on the constitutionality of that to an American.
IIRC the right to education in either official language is in there. Ditto for other government services. Language rights are serious business in Canada.
The country started as a pretty forced union between the Quebec, populated by Francophones, and upper Canada which was full of Loyalist refugees and escaped slaves and things. Keeping the peace between the sides was paramount if the British wanted to keep their united bulwark against American expansion going. Even so, Quebec came pretty close to separating a couple times in the late 20th century.
Stuff like free speech and basic human rights is actually in a separate, later document.
My school was all boys and when we asked how it was legal to discriminate based on gender, they said that in this instance they are not saying girls can’t go to school and other options were available to girls who wanted to go to private schools.
With that being said, I’m not sure the logic makes total sense, but there were two all girl schools about a block away.
