What second languages did your high school offer courses on?

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Spanish, French, German. Did Spanish for 3.5 years (dropped it for my final semester cuz I didn't get along very well with my Spanish IV teacher) and French for 3 years (started sophomore year cuz I liked Spanish class the previous and wanted another language learning class, I initially had a hard time choosing between French and Spanish when I was registering for classes in 8th grade)

[politicallefty]

I'm pretty sure it was just Spanish, French, and German. That seems to be an oddly common response here. I do know Spanish was very popular and classes were filled to the max. I assume Asian languages aren't offered as much due to the higher complexity in learning them (particularly learning new writing systems). My dad told me that his high school offered Russian, which he took a semester of.

I think we'd be a lot better off if we started teaching second languages in elementary school instead.

[Arson Plus]

I assume Asian languages aren't offered as much due to the higher complexity in learning them (particularly learning new writing systems).

Also, the lack of teachers which specialize in Asian language teaching.

[Cokeland Saxton]

Spanish

[Vosem]

School district offered six years of Spanish or French, and four years of German or Latin. I took six years of Spanish, and by the end of it got a 5 on the AP exam (and then continued for the first two more years of undergrad, earning a minor); I now speak fluently (albeit with a heavy accent) and have used Spanish professionally. (Apparently this means I am part of a minority of less than 1% of Americans who are proficient in a language they learned in high school).

Also took two years of Latin in grades 11/12, mostly for the community and NJCL, which was a lot of fun. In hindsight, I wish I had done more foreign language stuff in high school: I'm pretty good at it on the whole and I enjoy reading about different cultures enough that I would inevitably find a use for pretty much any language.

[Roll Roons]

Spanish (which I took), French and Mandarin.

I want to say they had Arabic, German, Latin and Japanese as electives, but very few people actually took any of those so they were effectively just independent study.

[Battista Minola 1616]

I went to an Italian scientific high school so it wasn't really a question of what was being offered - you study English and Latin (although I don't count Latin as a foreign language except in the sense that the past is a foreign country). Some high schools with a non-linguistic focus may have specific classes or extracurriculars with more languages but mine did not.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Only Spanish. The German teacher left the year my class would have had the choice. One of the reasons to avoid sending your kids to a small school, I guess.

[HillGoose]

i dont remember that far back

[Del Tachi]

French, Spanish and Latin

[Anti-Trump Truth Socialite JD Vance Enjoying Juror]

Italian, Spanish, French, and a Mandarin Chinese honors course

Took Italian for 5 years.

[Kamala's side hoe]

I assume Asian languages aren't offered as much due to the higher complexity in learning them (particularly learning new writing systems).

Also, the lack of teachers which specialize in Asian language teaching.

My middle school started offering Mandarin the year I started 6th grade. If I remember correctly, the first teacher was a Chinese immigrant lawyer-by-training who was fired or dismissed due to not knowing how to properly teach or discipline students. Don't remember what happened to Mandarin as an option after I graduated. I opted for Spanish, as did most other Chinese Americans in my grade.

At my high school, the options were Spanish, French, Japanese, and German.