<p>I know it depends on the school, professor, etc. but I’m considering taking a first year Spanish class as an elective. This is going to be my freshman year and I never have tried learning spanish before. The course is a full credit so it will continue through to my next semester.</p>
<p>Do you think it will be relatively easy? I’m just hoping it won’t be hard. Also what do language courses usually consist of?</p>
<p>No. Languages are not easy unless you have background in them. Out of the languages though, Spanish is probably the easiest. </p>
<p>They consist of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. All the things you would think they consist of lol.</p>
<p>Haha, no. All Languages are hard unless you have some background experience to start with. If you don’t need it and aren’t actually interested in learning the language don’t take it. if you’re looking for an easy A and are a decent writer i’d suggest a creative writing course. Usually not a lot of homework and few tests.</p>
<p>language classes are generally not easy and a lot of homework. at my school, beginner language courses run 5 days a week, so there’s that. i started at intermediate german (took 3 years in HS and it still wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t very hard) and we met 3 times a week but had a sizable amount of homework every day. it was my heaviest class homework wise, but it wasn’t that hard. i’d imagine it would be harder starting from scratch.</p>
<p>The course I’m taking though is an Introductory to Spanish, and it’s the lowest number so the easiest spanish course available. It also says this course if for those with little to no previous knowledge of spanish…</p>
<p>^That’s what it says for all beginner language courses. Trust me that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. And you should expct a fair bit of work. Nothing overwhelming, but nothing light either.</p>
<p>The prof on ratemyprof is rated a 4.2 for easiness though, ha I think I’m going to take it.</p>
<p>Some people are better at learning languages than others. If you’re one of those, the class will be fairly easy. If you’re not, it may be more difficult.</p>
<p>In the US, Spanish is a fairly common language which makes it work knowing anyway.</p>
<p>How easy the class is depends on how good you are at learning languages and if you have a background with the language, or in the case of Spanish a similar language like French or Italian.</p>
<p>My son is pretty much a straight a student but he didn’t do too well in spanish, good luck with it.</p>
<p>Some people had me banging my head on the desk with spanish because I was thinking “how the hell can this person be struggling with something so simple???”. So clearly learning a new language might not be easy for everyone.</p>
<p>BUT, on the whole spanish isn’t a technically difficult language to learn. There’s exceptions to all the lexicon (might not be the right word), but usually you don’t get into those until spanish II / III. Especially a college prof getting unanimously good reviews on ratemyprof…usually indicates it’s an easy class regardless of what subject.</p>
<p>At my college, Spanish has a pretty good reputation for being a massive GPA killer. I took 4 years of high school Spanish and got into 3rd semester Spanish here, and I still feel like I’m one of the weaker students in the class.</p>
<p>Uh no. My into language class had 5 credit hours and met twice a week and had a lot of homework as well.</p>
<p>I took 4 years of Spanish in high school, so I was able to skip three levels of Spanish in college and, let me tell you, if you have taken Spanish up to at least third year, it’s easy. My class meets up twice a week and has online assignments. And while the online homework gets tedious, it’s almost everything you’ve done before. Although, if you haven’t reviewed in a while, then it might be a little hard so you have to go back and review some rules/concepts. If language was easy for you in high school, it wont be killer in college…unless your professor is absolutely god-awful.</p>
<p>^ The OP has never taken spanish before. Do people ever read? Oy.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t consider a class like Spanish as an “elective”. Usually an elective is something that you take for fun and that probably won’t require extra stress to your course load. But it is perfectly okay, and even a good thing, to sometimes take extra classes just because you’re interested in the subject and you think the skills would be helpful. It’s no secret that knowing Spanish (or any second language) can really benefit you when it comes to applying for jobs. </p>
<p>If your course load is not too heavy already then why not try it for awhile? You can always drop the class (BEFORE THE DROP DEADLINE) if it looks like it’ll be too complicated. A lot of people go into Spanish without experience, and a lot of people (like me!) who had Spanish in high school don’t remember it that well.</p>
<p>As for how easy it will be? The first level of Spanish wasn’t too difficult for me, but level of difficulty is different for everyone. Language classes require a lot of homework; Spanish was always one of the only class where I had actually homework problems to do every night. If you really want to learn the language it’ll require patience and lots and lots of practice. Final exams can be tricky and you’ll have to keep track of all the concepts you’ve learned all year. This is different than just memorizing all of the concepts; you’ll have to actually practice and be able to use these concepts when speaking, writing, and reading the language.</p>
<p>If you’re honestly interested in learning a second language then I say go for it. If you’re just looking for an easy class foreign language classes are probably not where you should be looking.</p>
<p>If you’re not looking to take further language classes, it’s a waste of your time because one year won’t make you fluent. And it’s not easy, even if it looks that way on ratemyprof…maybe it’s easy /for a Spanish class/ but it won’t be easy compared to other classes. Take an art or PE class or something.</p>
<p>I found Spanish to be more difficult than precalculus. I still managed an A, but, it’s a class that requires a hefty time commitment. I probably spent more time on it than I spent on my other three classes combined just to be able to learn the material.</p>
<p>If you’ve never taken a language class before, you are probably required to take at least 8 credits of language to graduate anyways. In which case, might as well take it and take the next level next semester. Get with a counselor to find out if you need foreign language still to graduate.</p>
<p>^^Exactly. I consider electives classes i’m interested in and don’t need to graduate, but they won’t give me a significant amount of course work. A language course almost always incluedes you having homework every night. Its a hefty time commitment. If you’re only taking it for one year though why even bother at all?</p>