What foreign language(s) have you learned in school?

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

What languages have you taken in school? Anything from preschool to university counts, although I'm mainly thinking of high school and college classes. I'm currently taking Spanish and French classes, and I also plan on taking German in my senior year, so I'm voting for that, too.

[Santander]

Mandarin
French
Swedish
German - got kicked out of class on the first day when I said the reason I was taking the class was to read Mein Kampf in the original German. Little did I know one day I would be married to a German citizen, lol.

[Mr. Smith]

Elementary School:  Francais e[t] Italiano
7-12 School: Espanol
College: Deutsch

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

4th grade: Plattdüütsch
5th-12th grade: English
7th-13th grade: lingua Latina
9th+10th grade: Français
11th-13th grade: Español
university: ῾Ελληνιστί

[dead0man]

In 8th grade we had a class that gave us a few weeks of all the languages taught at the HS....German, Spanish, French and Latin (there were some Russian and Japanese classes, but not 4 years worth like the others).  I didn't vote fore French or Latin in the poll.

1 semester of German as a HS Freshman...it didn't go well

2 years of Spanish...only because I was told I was going to college and 2 years of a foreign language would help or something, idk.  It was a waste and didn't really absorb much.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I took French in 11th and 12th grade and my Freshman year of college. I would have preferred to take Spanish, but my high school only offered Spanish I because there wasn't enough demand to offer a second year of Spanish and I wanted two years of a foreign language for my college applications, which locked me into French.

[bagelman]

freshman high school spanish in senior year.

[Astatine]

English: 5th-12th grade, plus some bilingual subjects (History 8th-12th, Geography, 7th-10th, Biology 9th-10th)
French: 1st-4th grade and again 6th-9th grade
Spanish: 8th-10th grade

[Alcibiades]

French
German
Latin
Ancient Greek

[parochial boy]

German from 3rd grade, where I spectacularly failed to learn anything at all

"English" from 4th grade, as in, because my Dad is a native English speaker I got to do a "cours de langue et culture d'origine" (culture and language of country of origin) thing instead of learning English as a foreign language. Which was amazing, and I probably came out of speaking worse English than I went in to.

In middle school I started Spanish, and once again abysmally failed to learn anything

Then two year ago I moved to Zürich, and managed to learn German pretty quickly - because motivation and actually using a language in practice is far more effective way of learning than being a bored school kid watcing the clock because "when am I ever going to use german in my life, lol"

[SingingAnalyst]

Latin, privately, 1.5 years, Grades 5-7
Spanish, 2 years, grades 10-11

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

German - 5 years in high school + 8 years of self study
Italian - 6 years self-study + 2 years at ItalCultura
Swedish - 3 years, of which 1 year in university


Didn't vote for it but in 3rd grade the school had a pilot program to introduce Spanish to us by reading a children's book originally from Mexico that was primarily written in English but threw in Spanish words in every sentence. I don't remember exactly what the program was but it was cancelled after a year.

All i remember is learning that "brown" is "colors de caffe" and mispronouncing the name Jose with a hard-j (rhymes with Bose) and the whole class laughing at me. There were many Mexicans in my school but none named Jose!

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

German - got kicked out of class on the first day when I said the reason I was taking the class was to read Mein Kampf in the original German. Little did I know one day I would be married to a German citizen, lol.

Your wife is German? This explains many things.

[Former President tack50]

Well I am a native Spanish speaker so I guess I'll count that

I also learned English obviously. I also learnt German in school, and got quite a high level back in the day but it's incredibly rusty now since I never use it.

Finally, I had like 1 year of French in primary school for some reason, but I have forgotten everything about it; wouldn't even get to A1 level (not even close).

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I studied English in elementary school, middle school, high school, and even university.
I studied Latin in high school, although we didn't perceive that like studying a foreign language.

I am going to count my native Italian as well to prop up its numbers.

[Continential]

French.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

German from 3rd grade, where I spectacularly failed to learn anything at all.

Are all Swiss pupils required to learn German, French, and Italian? Or does each canton have its own rules?
I moreover wonder how the language barriers are overcome during military service, which you guys still have.

[parochial boy]

Are all Swiss pupils required to learn German, French, and Italian? Or does each canton have its own rules?
I moreover wonder how the language barriers are overcome during military service, which you guys still have.

It depends on the canton, but in practice it's one other national language (although virtually never italian) + English. It used to be the case that you did French/German first, and then English, but in quite a few cantons you now do English first. A few people have tried to make this a controversy, but in practice, most people just kind of recognise that it makes sense.

I did military service in a French brigade. So it was about 85% in French, 10% "let's compromise and use English" and 5% "I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing".

Some friends wound up in bi/multlingual brigades though, and they just wound up having a really hard time. But also learning a lot of Swiss German.

[Santander]

German - got kicked out of class on the first day when I said the reason I was taking the class was to read Mein Kampf in the original German. Little did I know one day I would be married to a German citizen, lol.

Your wife is German? This explains many things.

By citizenship, not ethnicity.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

German - got kicked out of class on the first day when I said the reason I was taking the class was to read Mein Kampf in the original German. Little did I know one day I would be married to a German citizen, lol.

Your wife is German? This explains many things.

By citizenship, not ethnicity.

What is her ethnicity if you don't mind me asking?

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Not necessarily learned (my parents got me started on learning these languages early), but I took French and Spanish in middle and high school. 

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

It depends on the canton, but in practice it's one other national language (although virtually never italian) + English. It used to be the case that you did French/German first, and then English, but in quite a few cantons you now do English first. A few people have tried to make this a controversy, but in practice, most people just kind of recognise that it makes sense.

The same discussion was launched in some parts of Baden-Württemberg and in some parts of Berlin two decades ago, where pupils learnt French as their first foreign language owing to the occupation by the French after WWII. Meanwhile they all learn English first (unless they attend a foreign language school).

Do the German-Swiss pupils learn German German or Swiss German at school?
And what about those Swiss who learn German as a second language? Are they taught genuine German or the funny-sounding Swiss variant?

I did military service in a French brigade. So it was about 85% in French, 10% "let's compromise and use English" and 5% "I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing".

Some friends wound up in bi/multlingual brigades though, and they just wound up having a really hard time. But also learning a lot of Swiss German.

The Swiss Ministry of Defence doesn't handle that problem satisfactorily enough in my estimation.
I mean what happened when you are not able to obey orders, or if you have to do a test and can't write the answers or even read the language the test is written in?

[Torie]

I studied two foreign languages in school. I would like to take this opportunity to observe that "studied" is not a synonym for "learned." Thank you.

[parochial boy]

The same discussion was launched in some parts of Baden-Württemberg and in some parts of Berlin two decades ago, where pupils learnt French as their first foreign language owing to the occupation by the French after WWII. Meanwhile they all learn English first (unless they attend a foreign language school).

Do the German-Swiss pupils learn German German or Swiss German at school?
And what about those Swiss who learn German as a second language? Are they taught genuine German or the funny-sounding Swiss variant?

We learnt High German, even today I can barely even form the vaguest idea of what they're going on when they something like "Mir stöh ufem gipfu und luege nüberd alpe niiih". It's not even written formally either, so would be going on impossible to learn without already speaking pretty good German.

I didn't go to school in German CH, so can only go by what I've sort of gathered - but I believe they do classes in High German, even though sometimes you might get a teacher talking to the class in dialect, but otherwise setting exercises/writing everything in standard German. There's constant flipping between the two, like writing is almost always High German - with the exception of things like whatsapp or the like where it flips back and forth depending on how formal the context is - and it can be a bit surreal when you wind up watching some video or something where they are talking in dialect but there are subtitles in Standard German and there is like no perceptiible link between what is being said and what you are reading.

The Swiss Ministry of Defence doesn't handle that problem satisfactorily enough in my estimation.
I mean what happened when you are not able to obey orders, or if you have to do a test and can't write the answers or even read the language the test is written in?

Anything written is in your choice of language so that's not an issue. As for the rest, well, while there are segments of the army that know what they are doing, the institution as a whole is deeply amateur, and not really taken very seriously by the country as a whole. My experience of it basically wound up as you go do it without any enthusiasm, try to muddle through as best you can, then try to find some way of getting decomissioned early.

[Lechasseur]

French (can't say it counts as a foreign language though, it was that language of instruction all throughout school)

English (can't say it counts as a foreign language though, given I speak it at home, but it was mandatory to take it so I got a waiver from going to class and just took the exams, where I obviously got the best grade haha)

German (only foreign language in which I can put more than 2 words together in lol (I'm about B1 level); took it from 7th-12th grade and then in the first year of my graduate program)

Spanish (took it 10th-12th grade, can more or less read in Spanish but definitely can't speak it)

Greek (Ancient) (8th-9th grade)

Latin (7th grade)

Dutch (6th and 9th grade)