Starting College or Going Back

[Ellen]

The two languages I'd love to learn are Arabic and Korean. I've already studied in depth (as opposed to a smattering of everything in linguistics) -- either as majors or for fun/enrichment -- are German, French, Polish, Spanish, and ASL. The first three have been useful in my work, as most of the people from the French IT companies I work with speak those languages -- usually French as a native language, but others are immigrants from Slavic countries or grew up in Alsace with German-speaking parents. Spanish is pretty much a second language here. I'd love to learn Korean because I work with Koreans/kids of Korean parents in the afternoons. And I'd love to learn Arabic because so many of the French I work with are bilingual Arabic and French.

[Google]

 

[Missyboxers]

Originally Posted by myrosiedog

Wow, Missy, that's really interesting. At least you are focusing on letters first. We are jumping around so much in German, that I have NO clue and pronounciation isn't even being worked on.

Can I ask why you chose Arabic?

You'll have to keep us updated on your work.

I'll definitely keep you all posted!

As for why I chose Arabic, I was deciding between Arabic and Mandarin, as I think both would be useful languages to know as far as the international business community is concerned. And I've been thinking about career changes, and what I would be interested in doing, and I would like to work in a job with some overseas travel involved (possibly something microfinance-related) and I figured it couldn't hurt to have some background in another language. I already speak French, and there's some overlap between the French and Arabic speaking worlds, so I went with Arabic. That aside, I really want to travel to some of the Arabic-speaking countries, and having a few words of the local language is never a bad thing.

As Murphy's Law would have it, my family is, in all likelihood, going to China in May.

[Bunny555]

Originally Posted by Ellen

The two languages I'd love to learn are Arabic and Korean.

My friend's 18 year old son is teaching himself Arabic. Granted, he got a near perfect SAT score but nonetheless, it can be done. I believe he's using Rosetta Stone.

[myrosiedog]

I got the actual grade on statistics today and I got an A+. 95%

I was thrilled.

I got a C+ on German and I"m surpised I did that well. The students are restless. There was a LOT of disgruntled students in the class and the teacher saying that we obviously are all having problems with verbs and questions (we have to read a yes or no sentence and write a question for it) and he just doesn't have time to go over it. WTH? He doesn't have time to go over stuff that everyone did badly on the test on? Doesn't that mean that we didn't understand it so it needs to have more time spent on it. OR that you didn't teach it well enough the first time? One girl actually slammed her books on the desk and got up and left after we got the test results. I made an appt. to talk to the head of the dept. I need to be prepared to go on to a 2nd semester with a much harder teacher and I'm not prepared.
The C+ doesn't bother me that badly. Yes, I'd like better grades, but I know I studied as well as I could for this test. I can't help it that I can't study what I don't understand and have repeatedly asked for help on and keep getting brushed off.

Oh well. I made an A in the class I really thought I was going to FAIL.

[Unklescott]

That's fantastic MRD!

[myrosiedog]

Thanks Unk. Love your subject line. My husband says always finish your beer first because it will be hot before you get back to the person holding it.

[Ellen]

Originally Posted by myrosiedog

. . . the teacher saying that we obviously are all having problems with verbs and questions (we have to read a yes or no sentence and write a question for it) and he just doesn't have time to go over it. WTH? He doesn't have time to go over stuff that everyone did badly on the test on? Doesn't that mean that we didn't understand it so it needs to have more time spent on it. OR that you didn't teach it well enough the first time? . . .

Your so-called "teacher" has no business being in front of a classroom. He's clearly NOT teaching; he's putting in his time and collecting a paycheck. With any luck, he's not tenured and can be gotten rid of.

[brunette trixie]

Congratulations on your A+ in Statistics, mrd! That's awesome.

I hope you're able to resolve your German class issues. Your teacher sounds like a real dumkopf. (Did you know there was a Professor Dumkopf on a British cartoon? It's amazing the stuff you can find on wikipedia)

[Lil Bit]

Congrats on your A+!!

I hope you get things worked out in German. It sounds like you have an uphill battle ahead of you considering what you've said about your teacher. I agree with Ellen. He shouldn't be teaching.

[myrosiedog]

Originally Posted by Ellen

Your so-called "teacher" has no business being in front of a classroom. He's clearly NOT teaching; he's putting in his time and collecting a paycheck. With any luck, he's not tenured and can be gotten rid of.

THis is his second semester teaching. He's an adjunct. He taught HS German for 25 or 30 years before this. He makes no secret that the school doesn't pay him a living wage so he supplements it by teaching English for an online HS and that's where he spends most of this time.

It's ridiculous and I'm NOT happy. I would love to have a high grade point average, but I knew going in that German and Statistics would be hard and I'd have a lot of studying. But it's hard to study when you don't understand how to study. I'm so sick of the little box with the verb endings in them, when he thinks if he draws us the box, we'll understand. Nope, and I'm not the only one that doesn't understand.
He spends more time on stupid crap and has us going to the board to fill in blanks in sentences. We need to be going to the board conjugating verbs.

I got the whole Subject, Verb, Time, Manner, Place sentence structure, but he failed to mention that when you make it a question, you reverse the subject verb. He cleared that up AFTER the test when EVERYONE got it wrong.

Don't even get me started on the book as it's useless except for vocabulary words. Almost all the people I've talked to in class have found websites teaching German that we're using to try to understand things that both the teacher and book don't cover.

I liken this to building a house. You need the foundation before you can put up the walls and roof. However, we skip from the foundation to the roof to the carpet to the color of paint to the type of furniture, the windows and the result is a house that won't stand up.