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Are languages REALLY that tough?

I LOVE languages, absolutely adore them but I have been quite put off them when choosing my GCSEs because of how strikingly notorious they are for being difficult. I did pretty well in our yr10 (sorry, I don't know the English equivalent) Spanish, the language I favour, transfer but my confidence has been knocked by the warnings and such online. I either do geography GCSE or Spanish GCSE, but I can't figure out which one.
My "plan of action" at the moment is to do Geography, and if I find it brain-numbingly boring to switch to Spanish, and in the case that I enjoy Geography- to just do Spanish as a hobby/in a course. (I'm not doing a career which would 100% require Spanish).

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Reply 1

BlueIndigoViolet

depends on the language...

French/German is ok for me...

Russian - absolute nightmare... the pronunciation that you never get right, although it literally sounds the same, and the alphabet (yikes)

Reply 2

dizzdizzie

Thanks!
I really enjoy languages and would be willing to work at them, this may be different from school to school but if I do end up doing a language.. dear god do I hope we get to prepare essays in advance..
French and Spanish would be in and around the same difficulty right?

Reply 3

NetNeutrality

doing double languages is hell but i just finished french yesterday (best feeling ever) if you get to choose i'd say geog especially if you're not considering going into languages further, geog might be more useful (i chose history so idk what geogs like but yea)

Reply 4

londonmyst

Yes.
I was so hopeless with languages throughout primary and secondary school that I was the only student ever to be granted an exemption from them.
I struggled with presentations and speaking & listening for gcses too.

Reply 5

dizzdizzie

Yeah I am leaning more towards doing geography and just doing spanish later in life in a course/app or something- I am not going anywhere near A Level languages lmao. I'm choosing history as well! I hope I won't die..

Reply 6

username4310824

Don't let it put you off. When I told people I was going to do two languages at GCSE and A-level everyone thought I was mad and online articles that went on about how difficult languages were at these levels didn't help either. However, it really is down to your work ethic. If you're dedicated and willing to dedicate a bit of time to them every day then you'll be absolutely fine. If you are one of those people that like to cram right before an exam then I wouldn't recommend it.

Reply 7

dizzdizzie

Sorry to hear that London, but at least you probably weren't looking to do them anyway- I'm hopeless in IT so I'm staying over here with my crappy wee powerpoints and far away from it!

Reply 8

dizzdizzie

I do have a pretty good work ethic, but the thing that drags me down is fear of failure- I always find that my revision is 50% panic and 50% actually revising.

Original post by MinaBee

Reply 9

NetNeutrality

neat, it is apparently a lot of content but at least you get trips with geog lol i wish i chose it over art

Original post by dizzdizzie

Reply 10

Coolkitkat23

no, revise vocab and grammar then you'll be where you want to be.

Original post by dizzdizzie

Reply 11

dizzdizzie

Aww I've heard things about art being really demanding in workload, I wish you the best! I seem to be ok at learning large amounts of information but it does make me panic sometimes (I get pretty bad test anxiety). However the way that my new school does geog is (idk if this is done the same in every school) they do 1 exam for geography in yr11 for 60% and then another in yr12 for 40%. Maybe that would help a wee bit?

Original post by NetNeutrality

neat, it is apparently a lot of content but at least you get trips with geog lol i wish i chose it over art

Reply 12

dizzdizzie

Thank you, with Spanish is there much content?

Original post by Coolkitkat23

no, revise vocab and grammar then you'll be where you want to be.

Reply 13

hello_shawn

Language learning has dropped significantly in the UK over the past few years...
-English being a global "lingua franca"
-Government no longer making GCSE in language compulsory
-A shortage of language teachers in the UK, and very few institutions mandating language learning from an early age, when language is picked up more easily
-Hence, the currently ridiculous idea here of beginning to learn a new language aged 11, learning it for five years for GCSE and being no more fluent than a nine-year-old native. (The Germans and Dutch speak better English than some in the poorer native British settlements, because, guess what, they started learning English at the age of four.)
OP, doing a language can only benefit you in the long-term. It doesn't matter which one as long as you find lots of opportunities to use that language, whether writing or speaking.

Reply 14

Coolkitkat23

i do german, but my friend does spanish and german, she'd much rather do spanish o o f, because the writing and translating are apparently easier with less tenses

Original post by dizzdizzie

Thank you, with Spanish is there much content?

Reply 15

dizzdizzie

Thanks! I'll definitely take that into consideration when choosing!

Original post by Coolkitkat23

i do german, but my friend does spanish and german, she'd much rather do spanish o o f, because the writing and translating are apparently easier with less tenses

Reply 16

tamil fever

Depends on what you would enjoy and how much effort you would be wiling to put in for both.From your post you seem to love languages but you are put off by comments online.But you are different to those people and so may find it different and more enjoyable and easier.I would say first familarise with what you are going to lean for each subject and if you think you are capable and will be wiling to put work in then go for it.

Good Luck

Reply 17

sqrt of 5

Original post by dizzdizzie

i do 3 languages at gcse: french, spanish and italian. i absolutely love learning new languages but all you need to do at gcse level is to learn vocab and phrases and of course work on your pronunciation

Reply 18

dizzdizzie

So would I be better off just doing it as a course outside of school, maybe after uni or something? I'm aiming to do a job in either medicine or teaching sciences- I don't think that, although I love languages, they'd be much use.

Original post by hello_shawn