# French in Spanish High Schools



## sienna11 (Apr 10, 2016)

How much French do Spaniards learn in high school? I'm talking about those who picked French in high school.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

My daughter picked French in Spanish high school - now, I thought that would be good as I can speak French and could help her........................accept, it was all in Spanish - well the French was French, but the questions and answers were Spanish AAAARRGGGHH!!!

Jo xxx


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Some secondary schools (in Madrid at least) have a bilingual section in French, and students taking that route receive maybe half their classes in French. After that they have the option of following a "bachibac" which is a combination of the French baccalauréat and the Spanish bachillerato. Other schools might not teach French at all.


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

... around here, secondary schools don't offer French at any level (yeah!, quite right too :behindsofa.

Instead they offer Latin and German.


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## kalohi (May 6, 2012)

My kids both took 4 years of French in high school, and then another year of it in bachillerato. As far as I know their French was taught in French, but nevertheless they progressed veeeerrrrry slowly. The verb tenses they covered, for instance, never got beyond the passé composé. They never felt like they got to the point where they could really say very much or follow a conversation.

Their teachers, BTW, were Spanish - if that matters at all.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

kalohi said:


> My kids both took 4 years of French in high school, and then another year of it in bachillerato. As far as I know their French was taught in French, but nevertheless they progressed veeeerrrrry slowly. The verb tenses they covered, for instance, never got beyond the passé composé. They never felt like they got to the point where they could really say very much or follow a conversation.
> 
> Their teachers, BTW, were Spanish - if that matters at all.


That's pretty typical of the UK as well (apart from the nationality of the teachers). I did maybe 7 years of French until I was 16, and a couple of years of German and Latin. I spent maybe a couple of hours a week on each language. Not enough to really become fluent in any of them so they seemed a bit of a waste of time. And as usual they taught the languages at the wrong age. If I had done maybe an hour a day of French all the way through primary then I might have got quite advanced at an early age. Even so, I wasn't bad at French when I was 16 because my Mum spoke it and I spent a lot of time in France. However I barely needed to speak it again afterwards, so I gradually lost it.


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## kalohi (May 6, 2012)

Chopera said:


> That's pretty typical of the UK as well (apart from the nationality of the teachers). I did maybe 7 years of French until I was 16, and a couple of years of German and Latin. I spent maybe a couple of hours a week on each language. Not enough to really become fluent in any of them so they seemed a bit of a waste of time. And as usual they taught the languages at the wrong age. If I had done maybe an hour a day of French all the way through primary then I might have got quite advanced at an early age. Even so, I wasn't bad at French when I was 16 because my Mum spoke it and I spent a lot of time in France. However I barely needed to speak it again afterwards, so I gradually lost it.


My kids had English as a foreign language all the way through primary here in Spain (although for them English wasn't a foreign language). Then French was introduced as a _second_ foreign language in high school, and it was taught as well as English. 

Personally I think the students' time would be better spent learning one foreign language and learning it well...but I guess it worked ok for my kids since English wasn't a foreign language for them. The only foreign language they got to study was French, so good thing it was offered. 

I also happen to agree that there are more useful languages to study nowadays than French (for instance, German).


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

kalohi said:


> My kids had English as a foreign language all the way through primary here in Spain (although for them English wasn't a foreign language). Then French was introduced as a _second_ foreign language in high school, and it was taught as well as English.


This was my daughter's experience in a "normal" state secondary school. She had 2 years of obligatory French, can't remember at exactly what age. She gave it up as soon as she could and even though she got sobresaliente she could barely remember the numbers so obviously the teacher just passed everyone he possibly could to save his own back


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

kalohi said:


> I also happen to agree that there are more useful languages to study nowadays than French (for instance, German).


Can't say I agree with that unless you happen to have ambitions to live, travel or do business with Germany or Austria. Outside of that there isn't much use for German.
However French is really still the second official business language of the EU behind English.
If you have no level of French then you are limiting your job opportunities in Europe as even in Spanish, German, Dutch institutions it is often a requirement to have a working business comprehension of French.

Even in Spain I have come across Spanish who can speak more French than they can English.

Plus like Spanish, French is a truly global language and even if it is not an official language plenty of countries like Morocco still use it.

You could maybe argue Chinese is a better language to study but even then I'm not so sure.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Pazcat said:


> Even in Spain I have come across Spanish who can speak more French than they can English.


That's usually because before English "took over" French was _the_ foreign language in schools.


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

kalohi said:


> ...
> 
> Personally I think the students' time would be better spent learning one foreign language and learning it well...


Yes I think this is the key. If you speak a second language very fluently then you can generally pick up a third language easily enough, should you ever need to. Trying to teach more languages at a shallower level, in the hope that one of those languages might be of particular use/interest, usually results in the child remaining monolingual.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

The state secondary school in our town offers French to the equivalent of A-level. It's not as popular as English though.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Pazcat said:


> Can't say I agree with that unless you happen to have ambitions to live, travel or do business with Germany or Austria. Outside of that there isn't much use for German.
> However French is really still the second official business language of the EU behind English.
> If you have no level of French then you are limiting your job opportunities in Europe as even in Spanish, German, Dutch institutions it is often a requirement to have a working business comprehension of French.
> 
> ...


Learning languages is about more than job opportunities though, surely? 

I was quite good at French before I learnt Spanish. Now I can't speak it any more (Spanish comes out of my mouth instead) but I still enjoy listening to it and reading it. It has to be the world's sexiest-sounding language, the songs and poetry give me goose-pimples.

The same can't be said for German or Chinese.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Alcalaina said:


> Learning languages is about more than job opportunities though, surely?
> 
> I was quite good at French before I learnt Spanish. Now I can't speak it any more (Spanish comes out of my mouth instead) but I still enjoy listening to it and reading it. It has to be the world's sexiest-sounding language, the songs and poetry give me goose-pimples.
> 
> The same can't be said for German or Chinese.


Well of course it is more than that and you can probably get more out of my post than that if read between the lines.

But realistically it is either business or travel that are the two main reasons most people would need another language and in terms of usefulness learning French would be far and away more useful than learning German whether it be in Europe or globally.

Probably the only other language to rival French would be Spanish.


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