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Should Spanish be a required course in American schools?

Should Spanish be a required course in American schools?

  • Total voters
    134
NO NO NO NO NO D:<

Ahem. Anyway, no. Maybe it's because I've lived on the American border for so long, but no. You see, here, Spanish is everywhere.Seriously. And, you know what? English is choppy here always, making it confusing to understand someone. that obvious.ly. Is here illegally. Why? Here, to get in legally, you need to speak English passingly well. And our State Language is English, yet many places REQUIRE you to learn Spanish, when, really, everyone here is suppose to use ENGLISH. Because it's our STATE LANGUAGE. And forcibly teaching it in schools will only make it worse.

Man, I must look like a jerkass now.
 
Yes.
I don't see many people walking up to others and saying "Guten Tag!".
Spanish is probably the second most useful language in the states.
So teach it to kids in school so they can understand somebody next time you're at a restaurant and the waiter says "Como estas?"
 
I don't think it should be required in schools because it's really not needed. Unless you have family, friends or employers that speak Spanish, or plan to live in South America/Spain, it's really not necessary.
 
No. A second language should be required (preferably much earlier than it is in most US schools as high school is rather late to be starting on a second language) but Spanish in particular? Recommend it, sure, but don't force someone's second language choice to be Spanish. Yes, it's useful, but so are quite a few other languages. Pick the one you want.
 
I think a language should be required, but you shouldn't be forced to take Spanish. I'm taking Mandarin Chinese at my school.

And yes T-Man, you do sound like a jerkass right now. Because you assume anyone speaking Spanish has immigrated to the United States, when that is obviously not the case. And how could learning a language to help you communicate with a wide group of people be a bad thing? I understand that it is required to learn English to immigrate to the US, but it is not against the law to be more comfortable speaking in a different language. And it is not a law that you must speak English all the time. You sound like my uncle from Arizona when we went to an Arctic Circle in Idaho: "God, I thought we got away from this Spanish crap..."
 
What percentage of the population would have to speak Spanish as their first language to justify its becoming compulsory?
 
Well gee, only 400 million people in the world speak Spanish. It's the third most spoken language by population. Sure, I think you should probably learn it but forcing it on people is a bit rude.
 
Ruby said:
What percentage of the population would have to speak Spanish as their first language to justify its becoming compulsory?
Click to expand...

Well in Texas, New Mexico, and California, over a quarter of the population speaks Spanish. It shouldn't be required, but it should be considered learning it.

And in Puerto Rico 95% speak Spanish. So it should *probably* be required to know Spanish there. But whatever...
 
Gooberdued said:
Well in Texas, New Mexico, and California, over a quarter of the population speaks Spanish. It shouldn't be required, but it should be considered learning it.

And in Puerto Rico 95% speak Spanish. So it should *probably* be required to know Spanish there. But whatever...
Click to expand...

Less than 95% but more than 25%? That is vague. Do you have a specific percentage in mind?
 
Spanish shouldn't be a required class but it should be offered at all schools when you consider that a considerable portion of your country speaks Spanish as a first language but it shouldn't a required course.

It should be a recommended course, but perhaps not required. A language should definitely be required and uh it kind of does make sense that it's Spanish because like I said, it's kind of popular in your country.

It's like here - we're required to do Welsh, and I think that being forced to learn a language is a very good thing because it can teach you so much about your own language.

EDIT: Ruby meant "what do you think the percentage should be? less than 95% but more than 25%?" not "so the Puerto Ricans blah blah blah"
 
At my school, the French department is slowly being taken out, and replaced by more Spanish classes. Provided, there are a lot of Hispanic kids at my school, but I don't think those kids who want to learn something other than Spanish should suffer.
 
Ruby said:
I meant, what percentage of the population would have to speak Spanish before you agree that it should be compulsory?

Edit: Thanks Harlequin.
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Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding. I think it should be required when over a third of your country speaks a certain language on average, or something like that. That isn't the case in the US, but there are still a lot of people that do speak it, and that was what I was trying to say.

iirc, isn't French required in Canada? And I do think that is reasonable because of the number of people that speak it.
 
Here, I'd say a decent amount of people speak Spanish, but a large perecentage of my year are learning Spanish also. This leads into something else entirely about people taking Spanish saying that people taking French are stupid because they will never use it here, but we'll avoid that because it makes me mad.

Another language should be required, but not necessarily Spanish. I can see how being able to speak and understand Spanish would be useful and certaibly recommended for most professions, but really some schools don't offer more than French and Spanish as a foreign language course. Perhaps some schools could offer a more variety of foreign languages.

EDIT: I think French is required in Quebec and more eastern Canada because it was settled by the French. As opposed to western Canada whcih was more settled by England. I'm not sure though.
 
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I believe a foreign language or culture class should be required. Nothing extensive, at least cultural studies.

You may be like "Why does it have to be Spanish???"

But face it -- who is a school most likely to find: a Spanish teacher or Swahili teacher?
 
Gooberdued said:
iirc, isn't French required in Canada? And I do think that is reasonable because of the number of people that speak it.
Click to expand...

About 20% of Canadians speak French at home; you think French should be required.

"Well in Texas, New Mexico, and California, over a quarter of the population speaks Spanish"; you think Spanish shouldn't be required.
 
Ruby said:
About 20% of Canadians speak French at home; you think French should be required.

"Well in Texas, New Mexico, and California, over a quarter of the population speaks Spanish"; you think Spanish shouldn't be required.
Click to expand...

Shows how much I know about Canada. :P

I don't know the exact situation where it should be required. Obviously, since just about 20% of Canadians speak French at home, It shouldn't be required.
 
Well, only about 20% or so of people in Wales speak Welsh and it's compulsory. It's an entirely different thing though, I guess, since Welsh is kind of our language.
 
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