language for college

musical.x

is spanish a hard language to pick up? its part of my course next year and i'm not sure if i should pick it or not. any advice would be helpful as i'm totally stumped at the moment oh and is it as hard as french?

thanks,
musical.x

beccabeccabecca

Hi there .

I'm kind of similar to you - I took up a Spanish module in 4th Year not sure whether I would like it or not, then ended up keeping it on as one of my Leaving Cert subjects alongside French. I sat the paper at higher level and got a good grade in it, so it's possible to become relatively comfortable with the language in a short space of time.

As to whether it's easier than French or not I couldn't really tell you. It all depends on whether or not you enjoy learning languages anyway. For example, if you struggled with French grammar, verbs, vocabulary, etc then chances are you will struggle with them in any other language. On the other hand, if you found them easy enough to deal with then Spanish would be easy enough to pick up as a lot of the same rules apply. Also, pronunciation-wise, Spanish is definitely the easier of the two. There are very few silent letters - if something is written down, you pronounce it.

Hope this helped a little bit.

djcervi

Personally I would agree with what Becca has said. From my own experience of studying both French and Spanish, even to this day at university level, Spanish is by far the easiest. It's easier to pronounce. Also the grammar is fairly straight forward. The only thing that could be slightly annoying are the irregular verbs. However at the ensd of the day if you like languages and are willing to work (and work;)) at them you shouldn't have a problem. Best of luck.

allandanyways

Agreeing with what everyone else has said, I would also recommend Spanish if you want to travel- having a good knowledge of Spanish basically opens up a whole other continent for you to travel. It's also quite easy to pick up Portuguese and Italian when you have an in-depth knowledge of the grammar structures and it's a nice language to speak as well.

Where are you studying it musical.x?

NedNew2

I had 5 years of school learning French and have never needed to use it and now cannot speak a coherent sentence of the language.

I spent 6 months learning German and have found it far more useful than French and easier to learn too. Also far more important for business along with being useful in central and eastern Europe.

Spanish is the best though, easy to learn and most useful, its the official language of about 22 countries in the world (more than English).

Really I think Spanish should be taught in all schools, followed by German. French has had its day since the 1970's but all those French teachers can't be thrown out in a day, it will be a slow but hopefully certain process.

Two years after I left school they replaced French entirely with an option to do Spanish or German. Sensible.

musical.x

allandanyways wrote: »

Agreeing with what everyone else has said, I would also recommend Spanish if you want to travel- having a good knowledge of Spanish basically opens up a whole other continent for you to travel. It's also quite easy to pick up Portuguese and Italian when you have an in-depth knowledge of the grammar structures and it's a nice language to speak as well.

Where are you studying it musical.x?

i plan on studying it in nuig as part of the arts course. i hated french with a passion (the teacher was not the best either :mad: ) but i'm going to work on spanish. french as a language is not helpful to me.

NedNew2 i have the same problem:D can barely speak a word of the language any more.

thanks for all the help,so far its been really helpful. i am quite positive that i am going to pick spanish.seems to have a better record then french :rolleyes:

musical.x

beccabeccabecca

I'm just finished first year intermediate Spanish at NUIG and plan to keep it on as part of my degree, and a lot of my friends took the beginners option. They said the course moves fast enough, but they all managed to pass it by keeping up with assignments etc. The staff in NUIG are lovely, very attentive and honestly care about students, and most of them have a good sense of humour and make classes fun too. They're also ready to help anyone struggling with the course and have no problem meeting with you individually during their office hours for extra help. The structure of the course last year was something like this (if I remember correctly from my friends): three grammar classes per week, two conversation classes, a general Spanish history class (taught in English and combined with the intermediate class - this is the only lecture in the Spanish module that has more than twenty students in one class) and a tutorial based on the history lecture. The history lectures are a bit of a pain, but you get credits purely for just sitting there so it's fine. Check out the Spanish society too - it's a great craic and a fantastic way to subconsciously pick up vocabulary.

Got to say, I'm a bit sad about all the hate for French. It's a cool language too! :pac:

musical.x

beccabeccabecca wrote: »

I'm just finished first year intermediate Spanish at NUIG and plan to keep it on as part of my degree, and a lot of my friends took the beginners option. They said the course moves fast enough, but they all managed to pass it by keeping up with assignments etc. The staff in NUIG are lovely, very attentive and honestly care about students, and most of them have a good sense of humour and make classes fun too. They're also ready to help anyone struggling with the course and have no problem meeting with you individually during their office hours for extra help. The structure of the course last year was something like this (if I remember correctly from my friends): three grammar classes per week, two conversation classes, a general Spanish history class (taught in English and combined with the intermediate class - this is the only lecture in the Spanish module that has more than twenty students in one class) and a tutorial based on the history lecture. The history lectures are a bit of a pain, but you get credits purely for just sitting there so it's fine. Check out the Spanish society too - it's a great craic and a fantastic way to subconsciously pick up vocabulary.

Got to say, I'm a bit sad about all the hate for French. It's a cool language too! :pac:

thats brilliant so! i'm worried about the conversation classes tbh,not my strongest point but it wont be to bad seeing as everyone else will be starting off the same could you recommend asome books to buy that will be useful for the class?

you never know i might rediscover my love for french...one day

thanks ,
musical.x

beccabeccabecca

Conversation classes are fine, and they can be a good laugh. The lecturers honestly don't mind how badly you butcer the language, they just want people to make their best effort to talk. I had Antonio and Regina for my classes, and both often incorporated simple games like twenty questions or the yes no game to encourage full class participation and to give us a break from rote learning. And as you said yourself, everyone will be in the same boat!

I think the novel (more like a short story, really) they studied last year was called Misterio en las Alpujarras, and the textbook they used was Nexos Inroduction to Spanish. I wouldn't go buying them before you start college though as they might decide to change them this year. I still use the book I got in secondary school to help me revise grammar points and that; it's red and little and quite thick, it's called something like Introduction to the Spanish language (I can't check now because I left it in Galway). If you decide you want to keep Spanish on for your degree, I would recommend getting it.

For now, if you want to just get your ear tuned into the language, I'd recommend watching some of the Disney songs that have been translated into Spanish on Youtube. I wouldn't try to learn any vocabulary before going in as there's always a danger that you'll teach yourself the wrong pronunciation of a word and that'll be the one to stick (trust me, for the life of me I still can't pronounce the word for bird ).

WesternNight

We experienced a lot of goal-post moving and changing expectations, to be honest. Overall it was enjoyable enough, but it could have been a hell of a lot better organised. The structure needs a complete overhaul, in my opinion.

I don't want to burst anyone's bubble, but I know that if it were me, I'd have appreciated being fully informed before making any decisions.