# Foreign languages taught in your country



## spakh

I wonder which languages students learn in secondery or high school as a foreign language in your country?
I can guess most of the answers. It is English. But there should be exceptions I think.
In Turkey it is English in secondary and high schools. Also in some high schools (mostly ones giving teacher training education) German and French are taught.
Is it so in country?


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## Frank06

Hi,
In *Flanders*, Belgium:
secundary schools (12-18 years): 
- French (official language in Belgium)
- English
Some classes also get German courses. Latin and Class. Greek are still taught.

High schools and universities (18 years - ...)
Depends highly upon the departments.

In *Wallonia*, Belgium (francophone), *German community* and *Brussels* (officially bilingual): no idea .

Groetjes,

Frank


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## al-sirbi

Hello !
In *Serbia*, it is *English *that holds a dominant position.
Other languages taught in state-owned schools are : *
Russian*, *German *and *French*.
I don't know exactely for private-owned schools, but it is possible that 
pupils learn there other languages like Spanish, Italian, etc.
We also have specialised Philological High School (in Belgrade), 
where Chinese and Japanese are taught.

Selamlar !!
Türkiye'nin neresindensin ?


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## Chazzwozzer

Hi Spakh,

What foreign languages do they teach in your school? I'm taught English and German as well as linguistics. I'm not going to an Anadolu Öğretmen Lisesi (teacher training education), but a Yabancı Dil Ağrılıklı Lise (aka Süper Lise)

Started from last year, all High Schol studens(15-19) must take a second foreign language(German, French, Spanish, Chinese etc.) along with English. That's probably a must for Anadolu High School students because I see my friends studying at that kind of schools take both English and German whereas those in non-speacial only take English this year. I'm always confused with our education system, though. 

By the way, can you please tell me what you refer by secondary and high schools? I can guess high school is lise, but what about the other?

Since I know they start teaching kids English at 4th class of elemantary school, I got confused with your reference to secondary school.


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## vince

French is mandatory, but despite this, it is generally taught at a very basic level unless you enroll in a "French immersion" school.

Other languages taught are Spanish and German.


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## cutu

In Israel :
English in secondery and highschool.
Arabic in highschool.

But you can also chose - French or Spanish in most highschools.


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## invictaspirit

For the UK:

French, German and Spanish, in that order, with Spanish rising dramatically in popularity, French falling modestly, and German staying stable.  A small but growing number of schools offer Russian.


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## María Archs

In my autonomus region, Valencia, it is more complicated because we have got two languages: Spanish and Valenciano.
There are schools where education is only in Valenciano then children have to study 1º Spanish and 2º English. 
If the education is in Spanish: 1º Valenciano and then English.
Among the elective subjects children can choose to learn French or German. 
But in Spanish it´s obligatory to study English before another languages.
Regards
María


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## jess oh seven

well in Scotland there isn't a huge variety... the two standard ones are French and German. when i moved up here i was in my second-to-last year of high school and wanted to continue studying Spanish, but it wasn't offered at my school so i had to travel to another school a couple of times a week to take a Spanish class. i think it's slightly more commonplace in more schools now though. i think there may be some schools that offer Italain too, and i know that many in the North, at least, offer Gaelic (Celtic language spoken in some places in Northern Scotland and the Islands).


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## spakh

Chazzwozzer said:


> Hi Spakh,
> 
> What foreign languages do they teach in your school? I'm taught English and German as well as linguistics. I'm not going to an Anadolu Öğretmen Lisesi (teacher training education), but a Yabancı Dil Ağrılıklı Lise (aka Süper Lise)
> 
> Started from last year, all High Schol studens(15-19) must take a second foreign language(German, French, Spanish, Chinese etc.) along with English. That's probably a must for Anadolu High School students because I see my friends studying at that kind of schools take both English and German whereas those in non-speacial only take English this year. I'm always confused with our education system, though.
> 
> By the way, can you please tell me what you refer by secondary and high schools? I can guess high school is lise, but what about the other?
> 
> Since I know they start teaching kids English at 4th class of elemantary school, I got confused with your reference to secondary school.


 


Hi chazzwozzer,
I mean primary and secondary schools. (secondary is between the ages of 11 and 16 or 18)
I study in an teacher training high school(in Antalya). We're taught English and German too.
BTW I've the same opinion with you about our education system.
_Bu sene mi sınava girecek misin?_


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## Riccardino

For Highschools in the US, Spanish is by far dominant, with French, German and Italian far behind. The number of schools offering Mandarin is rising.

For schools that start when children are around 9 or 10 years old, it appears to me to be evenly split among Spanish and French, correct me if I'm wrong.


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## Hakro

ShOoK said:


> As far as I know, only French and English are taught in Canada. Not exactly "foreign" as they're both official languages.


In Finland also Swedish is an official language but still it is a foreign language for most of the Finns.

Swedish used to be obligatory in Finnish schools (from a certain grade) but it's not anymore. English is by far the most popular language. French seems to have passed German (I didn't find the newest statistics). Very few learn Russian, and Spanish and Italian are extremely rare but still possible in some schools.


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## Elisheba

In French secondary schools? English, Spanish, German, less frequently Italian, Portugese, Russian. Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew and Arabic are taught in some schools, and I think students are allowed to take Flemish or modern Greek as a language option for "Baccalauréat". But more and more often, it's English and Spanish


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## lampiao

In Portugal the most common language taught at schools is english. There is an option to take 3 years of french and english all along or the other way around. I studied french for 3 years.
German is optional only in later years. Well, at least that's how it was when I still at secondary school.


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## Hutschi

In Germany, the first foreign language is English for the most. (In the GDR, it was the Russian language.)
The second very often is French, sometimes Russian, Latin, Spanish or another. In Saxxony (Sachsen), some schools (indeed very few) have Czech language, we have also a minority language "Sorbisch" (_serbšcina)_ in some regions of Saxxony.

Which language you learn, depends on the School. Every school can have an own system of languages. To study, you need two foreign languages.


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## DrWatson

Hakro said:


> In Finland also Swedish is an official language but still it is a foreign language for most of the Finns.
> 
> Swedish used to be obligatory in Finnish schools (from a certain grade) but it's not anymore. English is by far the most popular language. French seems to have passed German (I didn't find the newest statistics). Very few learn Russian, and Spanish and Italian are extremely rare but still possible in some schools.



Swedish is actually still obligatory beginning in the 7th grade of comprehensive school up to the last grade (9th grade). After that, on secondary educational level in secondary school (and probably in vocational school, too) there are some half a dozen obligatory courses on Swedish. However, it's no more an obligatory subject in the matriculation examination.

In addition to those above in the quoted portion, my school offers Latin. It's nevertheless also a rare language in Finland in general.


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## cute angel

Hello every body

Let me tell you about Algeria:

You know our mother tongue is Arabic so we start learning it right from the first year in the primary school or before in the nursery(if this is the right word of it we say LA créche I don't know in English) ,then in the fourth year in the primary we start learning French because it's our first foreign langauge and we continue learning it our whole life till the university where most studies done in French and in paralell with French we study English in the first year of the middle school till the last year in the high school.

Note: this way of learning i the period of my studies now it's changed I mean the years changed they becom learners of French from the second year of primary school.

Regards


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## Grop

Hello,

I don't know how it has changed since my childhood, but as far as I know, here in France you have to chose between English and German as a first foreign language at primary school (when kids are 8 or something).

(Maybe it depends on places, for instance I assume it may be easier to learn Spanish in Southwest France).

Then you chose a second foreign language in the middle of "collège" (when you are around 14), which is generally either English (if you started with something else, and then English is mandatory), German or Spanish. At my place one could also chose Italian, but it may be related to the fact that my place is close to Italy.

In addition, you may learn Latin at the same time (when you are 14), but is is just a bonus: then you will learn two foreign languages (including English) plus Latin.

Well, what I say is probably just the most typical, I assume at some places different choices are available. Later at high school and university, choices obviously depend on what you actually study.


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## Outsider

In Portugal, the most commonly taught foreign languges are English, French, and German.

Until the seventies more or less I think that French was still the foreign language of choice for most high school students (a tiny fraction of the population, back then). With the democratization of the country, and a greater exposure to outside cultural influences, English began to overtake it. Nowadays, English has become a mandatory subject in schools, though French and German (and, I think, now Spanish, too) can also be learned later on.

I've known people who chose to learn German, but they've always been a minority.

Latin or classical Greek are taught to students of the Humanities and to Catholic priests, but only a small percentage of the students choose those courses.


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## palomnik

Here in the States the major foreign language offered is Spanish, front and center.  This has probably been true for about sixty years, but as the number of Hispanic immigrants increases and economic ties with Latin America increase the study of Spanish has reached the point where it's hard to avoid it in school at one point or another.

Having said that, most Americans don't start studying a foreign language until they are in the ninth grade (14 years old).  There are exceptions, of course, but mostly in private schools which place an emphasis on learning foreign languages.  The level of proficiency expected is not extremely high, either; under the current regime primary emphasis is placed on reading (English) and mathematics skills and not much else, and you don't need foreign language proficiency to get into a better college.

Running second to Spanish is French, which used to be almost as common as Spanish but has declined considerably in the last 20 years.  Everything else is a distant third.  Some secondary schools will offer German or Russian, but it's not common.


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## Pedro y La Torre

In Ireland the first language we learn after English is Irish which starts at age 4/5 up to the end of schooling at 18. When you enter secondary/high school, you start learning a foreign language, which typically consists of French, German and/or Spanish.

French is the most chosen foreign language followed by German but Spanish has been catching up in recent years.


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## mgwls

In Argentina you start with English in the fourth grade (you are 9 or 10 years old at that time) and you stick with it up to the end of secondary school when you generally are between 17 and 18 years old. This is the standard for most public schools and what I had to do.

This changes in some of the most prestigious public schools where besides (or when the students already have a considerable level of English, instead of) English, French is taught as well as Latin and Classical Greek, but this is not common at all.

The most commonly taught languages after-school are in order of popularity: English, then Portuguese and French, and then a bit distant goes Italian and German.


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## Janey UK

We English are very lazy when it comes to learning foreign languages! We have the blinkered arrogance of a former colonial power, believing that everyone should know our language, and that there's no need for us to learn anyone else's! And with the cultural dominance of America, there's nothing to challenge our belief that we can take our English to most places on the planet in the likelihood that we'll usually manage to find at least one person who will be able to understand us!

Having said that, foreign languages are mandatory for all pupils, with the most widely taught language being french, with german and spanish bringing up the rear. Learning a modern foreign language is compulsory from ages 11 to 14 (pitiful!!!), but little time is devoted to it in the curriculum (only a couple of hours each week) and only the keenest students really gain any measure of proficiency in the language. When I was at school there was a tendency to rote learning, and I don't think we were taught any conversational skills. I have no idea if this has changed for today's children. There is no requirement to have a modern language qualification for university admission, and no language element is required for any university courses (except the language ones, naturally! )

From 2010 it will be compulsory to learn a modern foreign language from ages 7 - 14. Sadly, England dropped compulsory modern languages from the national curriculum for 14-16 year olds in 2002, despite protests from teachers and business leaders. 

The more academic schools also teach latin and ancient greek (I did 7 years of each, right up to University level), and also the private sector of fee-paying schools places a much greater emphasis on modern and ancient foreign languages, with pupils beginning to learn a modern foreign language from the age of 4. I think it's fair to say that most parents who are keen on their children learning foreign languages either pay to send them to the more prestigious schools, or pay for private tuition.


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## Zsanna

When I lived in Hungary (up to 1987) children started learning their first foreign language (Russian) at the age of 10 (not obligatory anymore, English has stepped in its place). 
Although it was always possible to pick up extra lessons for a second foreign language in the same school.

However, anybody who could care and afford paid a private language teacher for their children already earlier on. (My sister started English with a private teacher when she was 8.) 
Now some pay for special nursery schools where kids start to learn a foreign language (usually English) already from the age of 4.

A second foreign language (English or German usually) became obligatory from the age of 14. (I don't know whether it's the same now but it could well be.)

However, that was the time to start other extra languages, too, like Latin and/or ancient Greek (if you wanted to study medicine, pharmacology or linguistics later on) or any other (French, Italian, rarely Spanish) depending what your school could provide.

At least one foreign language (of your choice) was obligatory for at least one year at university, too. 

Language learning has become really intensive in Hungary ever since. Most university diplomas cannot be obtained without having a (national) language exam. So a lot of young people do their best to obtain that before they get to university so as to be able to concentrate really on their chosen subject. 
I'm still surprised, however, when I see that "kids" of 17 - 18 speak almost perfect English - when "in my time" you could even finish university without being able to speak half as well. (OK, you knew almost everything there was to be known _about_ the language but there wasn't enough time left for practice.)

Before the Russian occupation of the country (roughly between WWII and the changes in 1989) that brought _Russian_ as a first foreign language to be taught, _German_ was the first foreign language in the country for centuries. (Indeed in the all - what we call - Middle Europe/Mittel Europa.)


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## Mjolnir

Israel is pretty similar to Argentina:


> In Israel you start with English in the 4th grade (at the age of 9 or 10) and continue until the end of secondary school (when you're generally between 17 and 18). This is the standard for most public schools.


Some schools also offer French / Arabic / Russian / Yiddish / you name it, in addition to English, from the 8th or 9th grade. The most commonly taught are probably French and Arabic.


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## Zsanna

Mjolnir, what 8th or 9th grade mean in terms of age in your country? 

(In fact I could have put this question after any other post mentioning this term... Is it only me who is so ignorant about what different grades mean in different countries?)


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## Mjolnir

Zsanna said:


> Mjolnir, what 8th or 9th grade mean in terms of age in your country?



 Grade   Age 
12th - 17-18
11th - 16-17
10th - 15-16
9th -  14-15
8th - 13-14


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## Orreaga

It very much depends on where you live in the US, the local ethnic composition, and the size of your community. In New Mexico and Arizona, you won't find much choice in rural schools (perhaps only Spanish, if anything), but in larger urban areas and in private schools you'll have more choices. If you're on a reservation, or in a school off reservation with a large native population, you probably have some mandatory instruction in your heritage language, whether or not you could speak or understand it before going to school. All Navajo (Diné) schools are required to offer instruction in Navajo but not all have instructors competent in Navajo (there are well over 100 Navajo schools). At Zuni Pueblo schools, by contrast, instruction in most subjects is in Zuni. Other (European) languages are not offered at reservation schools to my knowledge, although there may be some exceptions. I'm speaking of course of "modern" and "native" languages, since Spanish and native languages are not "foreign languages" here. Teaching English as a foreign language to immigrant children is another very big operation throughout the US.

In my area Spanish is by far the most commonly taught language in urban schools, and is even mandatory in some schools. But unfortunately when a language is mandatory it is usually detested by students who would rather choose a different language. At least some kids I've met fall into this category.

Outside of traditional schools, when there is a large enough community to support it, cultural centers offer after-school language instruction. A friend of mine teaches Chinese to children at a local Chinese cultural center, a language only rarely offered in public schools.


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## Nanon

Grop said:


> Then you chose a second foreign language in the middle of "collège" (when you are around 14), which is generally either English (if you started with something else, and then English is mandatory), German or Spanish.


 
The choice of a first foreign language was mostly English, but good students were oriented to choose German because it was considered a more difficult language (and also the language of a successful country, I suppose). About English, I would say that generally, English is considered as close-to-compulsory (it was not when I was a child, one could select any language combination, but then, everybody did take English at some stage) therefore, some students like it, some just consider it another mandatory subject and they have no special interest in it.

I started with English like... everybody (I was not a _bad_ student, though). And I loved it.
When came the time to choose a second foreign language, my secondary offered Russian. This is where I started studying that language. We were a minority of 10-15 learners of Russian as opposed to crowded classrooms of 40 teenagers trying (or not trying) to learn some English, Spanish or Italian. German was less crowded in Southern France, near Marseille, to be precise - so no geographical proximity and little cultural links with Germany. Other possible choices included Chinese and Arabic but not in my home town. 

By that time, reasons for choosing Russian were either being of Russian ascent or belonging to a Communist family, but I had none of these two. My father chose Russian for me because... he studied German but was, ahem , not very successful with that language. But then I got deeply interested in Russian, because of the difficulty of that language, and also because teachers and students generally had a high motivation level, so we had rather good conditions for studying (despite the fact that in the "capitalist countries"  of that time, we had as little contacts with Russia as the East had with the West and everything was biased by politics).

I remember when I took the written language test for the "baccalauréat" at the end of secondary, there was one guy taking Arabic and me taking Russian and the rest of students taking English in our room... Now I am a beginner in Arabic... one never leaves school.


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## sokol

In *Austria,* you start with your first foreign language when you start school - with German D - no, honestly: for many Austrians are speakers of Austrian German dialects and therefore Standard German really is kind of foreign to them).
Well, but in earnest:
*
- English:* in *primary school* (6-10 years), but only in the form of 'integrative learing' that is, children only get 'confronted' with English from times to times, in all subjects they learn, and I think there are no grades given up to 10 years, it is more of a playful way of learning bits and pieces of the English language

*- Minority languages *(Slovenian, Croatian, Hungarian, some others) in regions where the minorities live also *primary school *(6-10 years)

*- German as a Second Language* for immigrants with other mother tongues also (if necessary) in *primary school* (6-10 years); there are quite some immigrants whose children only speak little or even no German when entering school

*- First Foreign Language* which can be chosen freely by the schools beginning with *secondary school *(10-14 years): traditionally this always was *French,* but *Italian *and *Spanish *are gaining popularity in the last decades; only very few schools choose more 'exotic' languages like *Russian *or languages of neighbouring nations* (Czech, Hungarian,* etc.) or minority languages *(Slovenian, Croatian, *etc.)
*
- Second Foreign Language* beginning with *high school* (14/15-18/19 years), and here again schools may choose; the alternatives ultimately are the same as for First Foreign Language

- same goes for *university *education, while of you've got much more choice there; but ultimately, *English *and *Romance languages *are most popular there by far, followed (after a huge gap) by *Slavic languages* and, after another great gap, all the rest of them (Nordic languages, Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, and the more exotic ones)

*- Classical Education (Latin, later Greek) *once was considered prestiguous, nowadays few schools retain classical education; it begins with Latin at around about 13 years, Greek nowadays only ever is taught at university, I think


Overall, I'd say that apart from English nowadays French, Italian and Spanish are almost equally important in Austria - with French loosing popularity and Italian plus Spanish gaining.

Slavic languages aren't too popular even though there was kind of a boom for learning them after the fall of the Iron Curtain: two reasons, first their complex morphology and the aspect system is very difficult to learn, and second most natives of Slavic languages know English or German (and better than you yourself ever manage to learn a Slavic language).


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## federicoft

Foreign languages are not taught intesively in Italy.

You start learning English, which is the only obligatory foreign language, at the age of 6, but it is taught in a very relaxed way compared to other subjects.

Then beginning from the age of 12 you can choose a second foreign language, usually French.

Beginning from the age of 15, in _liceo classico _and _liceo scientifico _(the strictest and most prestigious secondary school types) Latin is taught as compulsory subject.
In _liceo classico_ you have Classical Greek too.

They are taught in a totally different (and a bit old fashioned) way though, much stricter and with very much emphasis on literature.
Students are required to translate pieces of poetry or chronicles of classical authors such as Xenophon, Catullus, Julius Caesar etc., respecting the rules of prosody, declaiming the etymology of each term, grammatical exceptions and such.

Finally, there is a type of secondary school with emphasis on foreign languages, _liceo linguistico_, where German and Spanish are taught too.


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## Janey UK

Sokol, are you saying that English remains mandatory after Primary school, and that in secondary school students must choose a second foreign language in addition to English? Or can children stop learning English at the age of 10 and choose another (French, Italian or Spanish etc) instead?


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## Mate

*Moderator note*: 

This thread is now the result of merging two similar threads.


Best regards,

Mateamargo
CD moderator


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## iskndarbey

In my experience in the United States, virtually every reasonably sized high school offers Spanish, French and German, and quite a few have other languages as well even if they are only available via videoconferencing and attract just a few students. In my public high school in a town of 50,000 that was known more for its outrageous number of bars than anything else, in a midwestern state nobody would ever accuse of being intellectual, we could choose between Spanish, French, German -- 6 different levels of each of these -- as well as two years of Japanese and Russian, and a one semester class in Hmong. They would also pay for us to take language courses at the local university, which offered Chinese, Portuguese, Italian and Arabic. Sadly, the total number of people taking advantage of anything other than elementary Spanish, French, or German was below 100. The United States has excellent infrastructure for foreign language instruction in secondary schools, but it mostly goes to waste because virtually nobody takes foreign languages in primary schools, and students subsequently just don't develop an interest.


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## sokol

Janey UK said:


> Sokol, are you saying that English remains mandatory after Primary school, and that in secondary school students must choose a second foreign language in addition to English? Or can children stop learning English at the age of 10 and choose another (French, Italian or Spanish etc) instead?



Yes, English is mandatory (since some years) from primary school onwards - in the form of, as I wrote above, of playful confrontation with English from 6-10 years; only from secondary school onwards (10+ years) you have to study English in earnest - and it remains obligatory till the end of your school years. You'll always continue with the first foreign language you've learnt in primary school at secondary school - which is only logical (well, children _could _change schools, but then these children's classmates would be more advanced in the first foreign language, so this is not too likely).
(In my time English was only taught beginning with secondary school. But that was some time ago. ;-)

And apart from that you'll *have to choose a second foreign language* in addition to English at 14 or 15 years (depending on the kind of school you're going to, in some gymnasiums already at 13 years, and probably even earlier in some schools which focus on languages); you cannot drop English.
Or *if *children go to a school which chooses not English, but *another *language as first foreign language (there are very few: the Lycée in Vienna which has French as _teaching language _and German as first foreign language, and Italian in very few schools in Tyrol, I was told) then still the children will have to choose a second foreign language at 14/15 years.

This needn't be English necessarily, but I guess there aren't any schools in Austria which don't have English - not even as second foreign language.
(As for the situation in minority language regions I am not very well informed; might be possible that the Slovene minority in Carinthia and the Croatian & Hungarian minority in Burgenland learn their minority language from primary school onwards and then learn English as 'first foreign language' in secondary school even though, technically speaking, it's already the third language they learn, besides German and their minority language.)

The subjects themselves, *First Foreign Language* (mostly English, in some cases others) and *Second Foreign Language* (French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, or English or others) aren't strictly defined by language. But technically speaking this two subjects are defined as living foreign languages (so Latin wouldn't count here).

Therefore, a *Third Foreign Language* is possible in some schools, especially in gymnasiums = secondary schools with classical education which typically would have English from 10 years on, then I think from 13 years on Latin and/or French/Spanish/Italian.

But don't be *too *impressed, fluency most children only acquire in their first foreign language.


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## dudasd

al-sarbi said:


> Hello !
> In *Serbia*, it is *English *that holds a dominant position.
> Other languages taught in state-owned schools are :
> *Russian*, *German *and *French*.
> I don't know exactely for private-owned schools, but it is possible that
> pupils learn there other languages like Spanish, Italian, etc.
> We also have specialised Philological High School (in Belgrade),
> where Chinese and Japanese are taught.


 
A small addition: in classical grammar schools (which exist in almost all the towns) children can also choose to learn Latin (and even ancient Greek, though in few towns only). According to the new program, children start with English from the first grade (age of 6-7 years) and with the second foreign language from the fifth grade (age of 10-11). In multinational areas, children have courses of their mother tongue together with Serbian (which is the official language). Spanish has been concerned for years already, so we can hope to have it in our schools soon.


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## pizzakid

In my country, most schools teach English. In the 'international' school I went to that taught in English, there was a mandatory Persian class, plus a choice between French or German. We had two Persian classes every day, and the rule was that this class was only mandatory if you were of fully Persian descent. I fail to understand this logic..And for the older generation, the foreign languages taught were usually English or French, and for religious purposes, Arabic.

The really fancy private schools in the US almost always offer French, Spanish, Greek, Latin, and Chinese. A few I saw have Japanese, German and Italian, and more recently Arabic.


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## VivaReggaeton88

In New York, public high schools give you a choice of English (as a second language), Spanish, Italian or French. Private schools have German and Latin as well; however if you live in NYC for long enough, you could pretty much speak any language in the world  I love my city.


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## lizzeymac

In my experience, virtually every New York City public high school (students aged 14/15-18) offers at least Spanish and French, many schools also offer at least one additional language: German,  Chinese, Japanese, or Italian; a few schools also offer Arabic or Russian.  
We also have specialized public high schools that offer concentrated coursework in math and sciences, they usually offer Latin and German in addition to Spanish and French. The specialized Arts and Music public high schools usually offer German and Italian in addition to Spanish and French.
Many, if not most, New York City public middle schools/junior high schools (students aged  12/13 to 14) offer Spanish and French.  Some elementary schools (students aged 5/6 to 12) use non-traditional methods like sing-alongs or story-telling hour to introduce foreign languages into the curriculum, using songs or children's books from many different countries.


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## Ptahlibah

Well, well, well. This is my first post, so here it goes. 
Being that Puerto Rico has been a Commonwealth of the United States for well over 100 years (since 1898), the truth is that many Puerto Ricans still treat English as a foreign language; Spanish reigns supreme as the Mother tongue. Yet, all schools, public & private, are required to teach BOTH English & Spanish from Kindergarten until grade 12. In some private schools and in very few, select public ones, one may find foreign language offerings, mostly French. Now, if one decides to pursue a Bachelor's degree in Modern Languages or Hispanic Studies (Spanish), one will need to learn, at least, 3 foreign languages for the former degree and Latin for the latter. And, if one aspires to get a Masters in humanities or philosophy, some universities require all graduate students in those majors to have a working knowledge of a third language of their own choosing. As far as I remember, amongst the choices offered at the University of Puerto Rico are: Italian, Portuguese, French, Latin, Japanese, Russian, and German. I took Italian (and fell in love with it!) when I was pursuing my double Masters, but I must honestly admit that my first choice was German. I still hope to get a working knowledge of German, one of these days.


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## David

Many US schools have "bilingual education," most often in SPanish, intended to help immigrants in the transition to English and to preserve their individual cultures. My experience with Spanish bilingual education, however, is that the Spanish is generally very limited...in theory teachers are available to teach history, geography, literature, etc., in Spanish, but generally the lack the skills, so the Spanish taught is basically immigrant-oriented basic stuff, not the "language arts" that form the basis of general education.


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## cj_sandiego

In the Philippines, the secondary language taught in school is English... It is taught in school as early as Pre-school but then teachers are not that strick.. 

But then there are a lot of Filipino who can't speak the language well... Maybe because it is ok if you can or cannot speak in English (in school)... Private school have a strick policy on this but for public school here in our country, it is not necessary...

In college, we do have foreign language... It depends on what school you enrolled and the course you are taking... Like for me, I took up Commerce and my foreign language in college in Mandarin because they said it is widely use in the business here in our country... I took this for a year and it's not enough.. They just taught us the very basic and teachers are not even stick... It's easy to pass (that's for me)...


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## Hoshina Sora

In Canada, French is taught as second or first language in primary and secondary schools. In secondary schools, you also can take Spanish, German and Japanese as your second language.


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## yoyo53

In Australia and specifically in my state - Victoria, The most common languages taught at high school are : Chinese, Japanese, French, Indonesian and German
Many primary schools also teach foreign languages.
The decision as to which language is taught, is decided at each school by the parents and school council.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Since our answers are now repeating information provided earlier, it seems that this thread has run its course.

Thanks to all for their contributions.


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