Reply to Spanish or Japanese @Blair HS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Can’t speak to Blair but I switched from my middle school language (French) when I had the option to take Japanese in high school.  Also a STEM kid.  I actually found Japanese easier — it’s a more organized language imo and people expect you to struggle.  And genuine interest in the cultural aspect of language learning does help.  Language was always my worst grade but I still survived and keep up my Japanese to this day.[/quote]

DC really loves anime and all things Japanese so is very interested in the culture. I'm a little concerned because the foreign service rates it as one of the hardest languages to learn and the sheer size of the alphabets, but if it's comparable to other honors courses in rigor that's fine.[/quote]

It probably depends on what they struggle with in Spanish.  I’m the PP who found Japanese a lot easier than French and I think it’s because French grammar never seemed to make any sense to me.  It’s just like English (which also makes no sense!) until suddenly it’s not and as soon as you think you learn a rule it turns out half the verbs you use are exceptions.  Japanese vocabulary has fewer cognates with English and the grammar is very different but once you learn a rule there are very few exceptions.  Also it lacks a lot of the temporal tenses European languages have (it has formality tenses instead) which made my life a lot less confused because I found the rules less wishy washy.  Wanting to “practice” by watching lots of anime even with subtitles on will definitely help with pronunciation and reinforcing the language.[/quote]

Thanks for the response. I wouldn't say they struggle with Spanish per see they have straight A's in all of their classes, but Spanish is their hardest class. In fact, MS magnet classes are easy by comparison. The best I can tell it's not them but this is true for every kid taking this class. I think they're mostly just more interested in Japanese than Spanish which may also help.[/quote]

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