<p>I’m entering as a Freshman in the Fall, and I’ve taken Spanish for two years. Languages come naturally to me, but they aren’t my passion. I just think that they’re fun to learn, and a wonderful asset. I do, however, want to speak Spanish and French fluently (Arabic too, but I’m getting ahead of myself). I’m at an intermediate level right now in Spanish, so would it make sense to just take one more year of Spanish during freshman year of college, self-study it, and start French from sophomore year onwards?</p>
<p>I ended up getting a double degree with French. I’d say study it until you are fluent, no matter how long that takes. Also, if you are serious, try to get a semester in a Spanish-speaking country. After you really have Spanish under your belt, take on French and/or Arabic. But the reason I ended up with the major in French was that I knew that if I stopped short of fluency I’d lose all I had learned. In continuing I ended up with so many credits that a minor seemed like a no-brainer, and after that, I figured, what the heck, and kept going until I had the major.</p>
<p>Studying for a semester abroad was absolutely the key to my fluency in the language, which I retain to this day, almost 30 years later.</p>
<p>Good luck - we need more polyglots!</p>
<p>Move to Morrocco and learn all those languages at once (Arabic, French, Spanish…and you can speak English too).</p>
<p>I’d agree w/ mom2…it is scary how quickly you “lose” a language. It doesn’t take a long time. You can get back to speed, but you never go back to where you left off. I read French very well, and could write half decently, but I stopped taking the language before I could speak it where a French person could understand me, and before I could easily follow a conversation that I didn’t know what they were talking about. Even of the stuff I once knew, I realize how much I’ve totally forgotten since college days. </p>
<p>You will find that after learning one European language, learning others is much easier…a lot of the difficulties in learning a language come in getting your mind to stop thinking in English, being OK with the whole noun gender thing, and sentence structure differences. I have enough knowledge of German and Spanish (from adult ed classes) to get by successfully when I travel, but I’m afraid I can’t say I’m fluent in any language. However, after a week or so immersed in a different language/culture, you find yourself being able to say/understand a whole lot more than you realize.</p>
<p>D2 is considering majoring in Spanish (or languages in general in college …she’s a sr. this coming year). She’s fluent in Spanish (got a 5 on the AP Language), and will be taking AP Spanish literature this coming year. She’ll also be in German 3 at the same time. Go with the advice above…get fluent in one, then branch out.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes, get fluent in one and branch out.</p></li>
<li><p>French is somewhat more challenging than Spanish, because harder to pronounce, harder to hear, and more diacritical marks. </p></li>
<li><p>Arabic is much, much more challenging than either. I know someone who took three years of Arabic in college, then lived in Cairo for two years, and then lived in Jordan. It wasn’t until the end of his time in Cairo that he really felt fluent, and he wasn’t close to being able to pass for a native speaker. Plus, the alphabet itself is difficult. If you really want to learn Arabic, you need to allocate a lot of time to it.</p></li>
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