La Sociedad Española

Becca

Gracias, or indeed grazie! *I* don't know how I study all 3 languages at university, hence my giving up of Spanish after this year. :rolleyes:

I'd love to do 3 languages! If I go to Bristol I can do Czech in the second year, and in Durham I could do Serbian/Croatian :biggrin:

Reply 382

*Farfalla*

Paddy...

Just wondering as you're the only one i've noticed who's also doing the spanish interpretation option for A2..... how are you setting about revising for this?

Reply 383

paddylad

I'd love to do 3 languages! If I go to Bristol I can do Czech in the second year, and in Durham I could do Serbian/Croatian :biggrin:

Yep. I know people who do Serbian/Croatian. Sounds CRAYZEE!

Reply 384

I'd prefer to learn a language that was more 'useful', ie. Arabic, etc.

Reply 385

*Farfalla*

Paddy...

Just wondering as you're the only one i've noticed who's also doing the spanish interpretation option for A2..... how are you setting about revising for this?

I haven't yet, and it's on Friday :afraid:

I'm going to go thru my vocab book, writing down all the vocab related to the 5 topic areas and do my best to learn it!! It's really irritating tho because my teacher keeps testing us on the most obscure voab ever, I hate her so much she's so up herself!!! :mad:

Anywho...
I'm just going to go into translation mode this week and make people speak things in English/Spanish for me to translate!
Brimstone: I'll be doing Russian and Spanish, I think I can take modules in a slightly less used language :p:

And no way am I taking Arabic up with 2 other languages at uni!!

Reply 386

paddylad

Brimstone: I'll be doing Russian and Spanish, I think I can take modules in a slightly less used language :p:

And no way am I taking Arabic up with 2 other languages at uni!!

How useful would you say Russian is? Do they really speak it anywhere outside of Russia/Eastern Europe?

Reply 387

Usefulness of languages... great topic!

I don't think that Russian is widely spoken outside Russia and Eastern Europe. However it all depends on what you are up to. If you want to work for a Russian company or in Russia it would be very useful considering that Russia is a growing economy.

Same goes for Arabic: Does anyone outside the Arab world speak it? But it's also a growing economy, hence interesting for European companies, etc.

Do you see what I'm up to? There's not such a thing like an inherently useful language. Even Croatian could be very useful if you want to be a diplomat or if you work for an company that operates there.

In my opinion the most important thing is that you are good in a language which requires that you love learning it. Only at a second step you could try to figure out if you'd rather want to live and work in Russia or in an Arab country. Plus, there's always the opportunity to work at the European filials of Russian companies or for European companies that operate in Russia.

Reply 388

I think some people confuse the 'usefulness' of a language with how widely it is spoken. I would say all languages are useful and worth learning, but with certain languages (eg Spanish, French, Arabic) you are going to have more opportunity to use them, thus rendering them 'more useful' in some people's eyes than say, Dutch or Czech.

Reply 389

Becca

You needed less than half of the words to express my point. :biggrin:

Reply 390

Jammertal

You needed less than half of the words to express my point. :biggrin:

Hehe, great minds think alike, but some use more words!! :biggrin:

I am quite concise generally. I'm always massively under the word limit for essays so I have to go and find extra quotations to bulk them up a bit!!

Reply 391

brimstone

How useful would you say Russian is? Do they really speak it anywhere outside of Russia/Eastern Europe?

Very useful for me, as I hope to be a diplomat :biggrin:

I would quitelike to learn Czech actually, I've always wanted to go to Prague (any excuse lol) :biggrin:

Reply 392

Luvbug

Hola! Me llamo Emma y he estudiado espanol para 7 anos, y el martes proximo tengo mi oral! Estoy muuuuuy nerviosa, puedo ser un miembro de ese grupo?

I'm going to Prague this summer with my friends! We were going to go to St Petersburg but one of my friends who lived in Russia said it wasn't the smartest idea for four 18 year old girls who don't speak Russian to go on their own. So we decided to go to Prague! Why did you decide to do Czech over Portuguese in your second year paddyland? If your good enough at Spanish methinks you can take portuguese too? (At Bristol anyway)

Reply 393

Becca

Hehe, great minds think alike, but some use more words!! :biggrin:

I am quite concise generally. I'm always massively under the word limit for essays so I have to go and find extra quotations to bulk them up a bit!!

Lol, yes. And I annoy my teachers by writing whole books for exams. :biggrin:

Oh well, in my last post it was rather the fact that I still struggle to express myself in English, although I've learned it for 9 years now.

Reply 394

Jammertal

Same goes for Arabic: Does anyone outside the Arab world speak it? But it's also a growing economy, hence interesting for European companies, etc.

But the Arab world encapsulates approximately 300 million people, excluding those who speak Arabic outside of Arabia

Reply 395

Jammertal

Lol, yes. And I annoy my teachers by writing whole books for exams. :biggrin:

Oh well, in my last post it was rather the fact that I still struggle to express myself in English, although I've learned it for 9 years now.

Jammertal, before I knew you weren't an English speaker originally, I wouldn't have guessed it. How good were you about 5 yrs into learning it?

Reply 396

Hehe, I take it as a compliment. :biggrin:

5 years... hmmm, you've to bear in mind that I was only ten when I started English. Normally a good age to start new languages, but language teaching is here really really basic at that age, so I've hardly learned anything in the first three, four years. Or at least I didn't realise it. Plus, I wasn't very motivated that time to learn anything.

I think I had quite early (after these 4 years) good reading skills, but writing or even speaking was a pain. Until year 11 I always got bad marks because I committed too many mistakes (about 7 on 100 words) since I always wanted to use the same hardcore grammar structures as in German.

In year 11, I exposed myself more to the English language, i.e. read Harry Potter and made less mistakes. However the biggest improvement I made was when I went through the UCAS process and finally registered on TSR.

At the same time, I'd say that my level of Spanish after one year was the same as my English after 4 years, so you can't really conclude from the raw time period how well one can speak a language. It totally depends on how many effort you put into it.

Reply 397

Jammertal

Lol, yes. And I annoy my teachers by writing whole books for exams. :biggrin:

Oh well, in my last post it was rather the fact that I still struggle to express myself in English, although I've learned it for 9 years now.

Yeah, your English is really good! I wish I was that good at French (I've been learning for 9 years too!). Hopefully I'll be better after my year abroad.

Reply 398