<p>Hi – I posted this in the college admissions section but got no replies, so maybe this is the appropriate forum. My son is going to be a freshman in high school and is able to go into Latin 3 in high school. He will be going to a public school with many budget cuts. They have eliminated Latin 4 and they say they offer AP Latin in the school profile, but it’s really independent study sitting in the Latin 3 class, and who knows if they’re even going to keep that next year (they are also eliminating Latin 2 next year.) My question is, when colleges recommend three years of language, what exactly counts? Is it the LEVEL attained, or actually YEARS taken? Someone told me that middle school only counts as one year of language and if that’s the case, my son may be in trouble. There is another high school in the area that offers Latin 4, however his school won’t accept that for his transcript. The other option is having him take Spanish 1 to avoid making any mistakes, as Spanish is always offered, levels 1-4 and AP. But then he’s starting over and will have to take four more years of language. Please advise!</p>
<p>S had 4 years of Latin (5-8) and 4 years of Spanish as his hs did not offer Latin. D had 3 years of Latin (6-8) and will also have 4 years of Spanish because she did not want to continue with Latin in hs. I don’t think this is that uncommon.</p>
<p>I’m prejudiced because I am a fan of learning foreign languages and my kid chose to take 2 languages through AP in HS. The scheduling at our HS allowed a student to take an extra course by sacrificing all study halls, which is what he did.</p>
<p>Could your son take both Latin and Spanish next year? That way he would have his bases covered no matter what happens with the Latin program. And he would have the life advantage of learning an additional living language.</p>
<p>Because my S was already accelerated in French–as a freshman he was in French 3, just as your son will be in Latin 3–he was able to study some Spanish over the summer before freshman year and actually start at the Spanish 2 level. (Spanish 1 is apparently a very slow-moving class, and Spanish is a comparatively easy language to learn.) Would your S be interested in doing that?</p>
<p>You will have to check each college or university’s policy about whether it is the number of years or the level completed (it would be more sensible to use the level completed, but they might not all be sensible). Also, sometimes a sufficiently high score in the SAT II or AP test in the language may suffice at some colleges or universities (for example, the [University</a> of California](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/freshman/requirements/a-g-requirements/index.html]University”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/freshman/requirements/a-g-requirements/index.html) allows testing out of the foreign language admission requirement).</p>
<p>But note that universities’ graduation requirements may be higher than their admission requirements. While UC requires two years in high school or certain test scores for admission, [Berkeley’s</a> College of Letters and Science](<a href=“http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/requirement/fl.html]Berkeley’s”>http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/requirement/fl.html) requires three years in high school or higher test scores to fulfill the graduation requirement if one does not take language courses at the college or university level.</p>
<p>Having Latin may make Spanish easier. If he hangs out with native Spanish speakers in school (probably not hard to find in Southern California) and talks to them in Spanish, that might help make the language “stick” better.</p>
<p>To the best of my knowledge, in most cases, it’s the number of levels that count. </p>
<p>But your son might want to study some Spanish anyway.</p>
<p>Spanish and Latin are closely related languages. Sometimes, when a student who has a background in one language wants to study another one that is closely related, it is possible for the school and the student to work out a plan for accelerated study.</p>
<p>For example, I know of an instance where a girl who had studied French through Level 4 wanted to learn some Spanish. The school provided materials for her to learn the content of Spanish 1 over the summer (not as difficult as it sounds if you know a lot of French), and she did some work with a tutor on spoken Spanish and pronunciation. She then went into Spanish 2 in the fall, and with a little initial help from the teacher, did just fine. </p>
<p>If your son wants to continue his language study after Latin 3, but there’s no real Latin 4 or AP Latin at his school, perhaps he could work out a plan with the school that would enable him to start Spanish at a higher-than-usual level. Spanish 1 could be excruciatingly boring for a student with three years of Latin under his belt, but Spanish 2 might not be.</p>
<p>I took AP Spanish Lang and AP German junior year, and started with French II this fall. The romance languages are really interrelated, and because they’re all based on latin, I assume that apples to them as well. I did NO prep work for French II (I was in russia for the summer and “neglected” to bring my textbook and pronounced things in spanish for about a month, and then caught up enough that I was bored.</p>
<p>stay away from spanish. too many people are taking that and too many people already know it. take something like german because not that many people take it. plus, germany is the powerhouse of europe so it might come in handy in the future. lots of people know spanish so if you dont know it it doesnt really matter</p>
<p>ilikepizza, German was taught in junior high in the 1970s, but not in my high school, & I really dont know of any schools in our area teaching it now.
Spanish is useful both traveling in the US & the globe. French is useful in Canada, Europe & parts of Africa.
Schools locally generally offer Spanish, French, occasionally Latin but not usually past 3rd year in high school & Japanese &/or Mandarin.
Some high schools are also offering ASL & more colleges are also expanding Middle Eastern depts including teaching of Arabic.
Either French or German would be important if you are planning grad school in the sciences.</p>
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<p>From the point of view of learning a useful language, you may be right.</p>
<p>From the point of view of having the desired number of years of study of a language for college admissions purposes, the situation is different.</p>
<p>One way in which financially strapped school systems are decreasing their budgets is by offering fewer foreign languages. German, Latin, Russian, or Chinese may be offered this year but dropped next year. In some places, even French may be at risk. But Spanish is the one language that always seems to be offered.</p>
<p>Teaching of German is very much disappearing in this country. Sad here in Wisconsin, where it is so much a part of the cultural heritage. </p>
<p>My impression has always been that level of a language is the goal for college admissions, and ultimately for some academic fields of study. But if not practical, that can be stated on an application. One of my Ds started Spanish 2 in HS after several years of French. </p>
<p>I’d never say Spanish is a bad choice. It is the one language that might actually be useful in many parts of this country, and one reason Americans are not good at languages is because of little need to speak anything else. For people who are only going to study one language, it makes good sense to learn the most useful one. But it is a mix, as you certainly want to support a broader swath of language education than just Spanish in American schools. </p>
<p>Due to family linguistic interests, I had my Ds start with French, as is easier to pick Spanish up later (which they have done, or will do) rather than vice versa. And I’m always glad I studied German, as I’d have little reason to pick it up later in life.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your replies. I think I may talk to him about taking Latin 3 and possibly at the same time, taking Spanish 1. Actually, knowing Spanish in Southern California is very helpful as about half of the population here is Hispanic.</p>
<p>I think hispanics as a population are becoming so present in many areas, it will be a disadvantage if you don’t know Spanish.
I think the reason why so many are taking it, is because it is so common & that would be a good reason to* take it*- not a reason not to take it.</p>
<p>Both D’s had Latin, older D had it for two years in middle school as a lang- younger D just had it in middle school as part of a humanities course. ( it helped both of them in their science studies)
Older D went on to take a year of Spanish in 8th grade & through the 5th year in high school. Younger D only took through third year of highschool because they had a sub most of the year & so for AP she didn’t feel she was prepared.
In college she is taking a brushup course to get ready for her Costa Rica trip & will do a short immersion program while she is there as well.
I wish I could learn a language- I have tried, but I am dyslexic and still can’t keep grammatical constructs straight. Guess I will have to do an immersion program myself!</p>
<p>( Younger D did tell me that if we want to see her when we are retired, we will have to come to the country she is living in, so we should be prepared to learn another language!- well at least it sounds like it will be someplace we can get to 
)</p>
<p>I’m doing immersion Tamil this summer (five days a week, 6 hours a day). Now if I could only convince my Indian family to speak to me in Tamil rather than English (though no problem for the cook and driver, as they won’t speak English - even though they can…)</p>
<p>I think taking both would be great. It’s a big problem in many public schools where the foreign language offerings are getting cut. Here, many schools basically only offer Spanish and French. </p>
<p>How does your high school do in terms of students going to selective colleges?</p>
<p>My son was encouraged to take German several years ago, primarily because the teacher at his high school was ‘really cool’. Several of his friends were following that advice and he decided to join them. Worked out well for him…Is it true that German is considered to be a ‘research’ language? Not sure what that means…</p>
<p>I think it depends on the school. I do remember the question being asked if it is the level acheived or do the 3 years have to be in HS at admissions sessions. At least two of the admissions folks said it had to be 3 years of one language taken in high school, middle school did not count. Give the admissions dept of the schools you are interested in a call.</p>
<p>Re: post #15
</p>
<p>German used to be THE language required for science students in the 60’s-70’s. Because a great deal of scientific literature was published in German and translations were usually not readily available. To do research (esp grad level research), one had to be able to read German.</p>
<p>That is no longer true as currently the most prestigious science journals are published in English. English has become the defacto international language of science. </p>
<p>Also translations are much more readily available than they were 40 years ago.</p>
<p>~~~~~</p>
<p>D2’s high school offers Spanish, French, Latin (if there’s enough demand), Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese and Russian.</p>
<p>In my d.'s graduate program (at Princeton) in the humanities, German plus one is required. (She actually has to have four because of the nature of her research.)</p>
<p>Believe it or not, our public high school does extremely well in terms of students going to selective schools, even more so than the two local private schools.</p>
<p>My D is a Spanish major in college…she had been very nervous in class and afraid she would not do as well as the native Spanish speakers. FYI- just because you can speak English does not mean you can write a decent paper in English…same goes for Spanish (or any other language I would presume). Only her fellow students who are excellent writers are doing as well as she is. </p>
<p>I am glad she decided to have her second major in Spanish…in California (or North America!) that is just an added bonus for future employers to consider when hiring. “Do we take the qualified applicant who speaks two languages or the qualifies applicant who speaks only one?”</p>
<p>I would think Latin would be very useful at the college level—maybe your son can take Latin 4 at the local junior college?</p>