Well I'm going to be a Freshman this year (AARRGGHH!!) and I'm taking German 1. I wish I could learn something like Russian, but my school doesn't have it so I figured German was closest to it. Besides, if you know German you can understand all the guys at the Nurburgring! (If I ever go there)
I have studied, in various levels, French, German, Latin (bah!) and Japanese. I have GCSEs in French and Latin (a qualification gained at age 16 in the UK, which basically means I can get by, especially in La Rochelle) and have the equivalent of an A-level (a qualification gained at age 18 in the UK) in Japanese.
My contribution here... twelve years of Finnish, ten years of English, six years of Swedish and two years of German. According to results of my final exams two years ago I speak and write better English than Finnish...
I took a year of German, and that was good enough for me. I still use it quite frequently, and would love to further my learning in it, but not for a grade in school. I managed pretty average grades (B/C range) throughout the course, which is much better than the time I failed-out of Japanese in High School, so I'm happy about it.
Germanic languages are far more easy for me to pick up on than those that are based heavily in Latin (Italian, Spanish, French), and I'm not certain why. I'd love to pick up on some Italian one of these days, but German appears to be my thing for now...
I had to take both German and French in years 7 to 9, but the in Year 10 we were able to either continue with both German and french, drop one and take up Spanish, or only take one language.
I found German and French pretty easy in years 7 to 9, so i decided to to have a challenge - that being to learn 5 years worth in just 1 and a half years - and took Spanish!
@Nissan R92CP:- Mis clases fueron dificil, aprender rapido y muchos muchos deberes!
Spanish GCSE wasn't that hard and I also did it from year 10 to year 11. Passed with an A
Then I took it for AS level and realised that I really have no natural ability when it comes to languages. I struiggles through the year, and will hopefully get a C, and that's a big hope. But then again, I never expected an A at GCSE.
French to a good level but dropped it for German. Would have done better on a GCSE at French... Learned Italian at Worcester college while doing my sandwich placement (the second one, I think.)
Forgotten the lot, pretty much. Had a PA who became a project co-ordinator who spoke Swedish. We went up to Nissan in Sunderland and we were talking about it and how similar it was to other Scandinavian language when she turns round as if to listen out for something, turns back and says "those two guys outside are speaking Norwegian."
After a couple of seconds, the Nissan guy laughs and says "Nay, get oot - they're bloody Geordies!"
Our school only had Japanese and French. I did Japanese for 5 years, loved it but it's pretty hard. Especially reading and writing - for my final exam I had to know all 46 hiragana, all 46 katakana and at least 300 kanji (100 of those were recognition only, though).
Year and a bit later and I can hardly remember any of it. Shame, really..
My problem with Japanese was that there weren't English, or for that matter Latin, words that you could associate with, thus making it very difficult for me to remember anything. Throw in the aforementioned symbol systems, and I gave up.
IMO, you'd have to be an idiot to not understand some basic German. Maybe its the high concentration of the German folks around here, but most people know the pretty basic stuff: Jah, Nein, Was ist du Machen? etc.
Japanese? I remember a few words here and there, but it was really only the greetings that stuck with me...
