question about taking french- NRR

If you've already taken Latin, French shouldn't be difficult for you at all. The 'romance languages' (French, Spanish and Italian) are all based on primarily the same Latin roots, with a few minor variations.

I had 5 years of French between high school and college and remember quite a bit of it, although that was 20 years ago. I'd say to go ahead and try it, I had a lot of fun with it.

Au revoir !

If you've already taken Latin, French shouldn't be difficult for you at all. The 'romance languages' (French, Spanish and Italian) are all based on primarily the same Latin roots, with a few minor variations.

I had 5 years of French between high school and college and remember quite a bit of it, although that was 20 years ago. I'd say to go ahead and try it, I had a lot of fun with it.

Au revoir !

What will you do for work after college? Sit in a box and speak latin?

This is a serious question:

How can you make a living with that major? What services do you provide society?

I'm not trying to sound like a jerk here, I'm genuinly curious if you can make any money from latin.

Although I have never taken Italian (or Spanish), from what I can tell it is easier to learn as a second language than French (which I speak pretty fluently through a lot of self-study and a couple months in France). I'd say the main reason is that the pronunciation and comprehension is more difficult in French. The abundance of cognates among the romance languages makes it a lot easier to learn one if you already know another, so you should definitely have a step up in French. If you're able to gain a good level of proficiency in French and Italian by the time you graduate, you could really expand your employment opportunities especially if you are interested in something like international business.

I think the main key to being successful in a foreign language is your own motivation. If you've taken an economics class, you've probably heard the concept of "diminishing returns to scale," well IMO that does not apply to foreign languages, so the more time you can devote to language study the better. Also, try to make it fun--once you've gotten to a certain point, you can start listening to and trying to understand music in the language, download movies and watch tv shows. I actually regret not learning more languages in college, I took mostly math and econ classes but I would gladly trade some of that coursework now for proficiency in a language such as Spanish or Japanese.

kartelite, i'm glad such a thorough and thoughtful response came from someone so passionate about south region xc. that is exactly the type of answer i was looking for, and given that i already do most of the things you talked about in your second paragraph, it's good to know that we are on the same page. thank you very much.

fUrCeOsNhN, i get asked that question a lot, and i've never really come up with a great answer, so don't worry i'm not horribly offended :) i suppose the obvious answer is that teaching would be a good career, and that is one that i am certainly interested in. however, like most college majors that i can think of off the top of my head, i believe the main idea is to pursue a course of study that prepares you for the so-called "real world" in a variety of ways, and shows your capacity to engage in difficult activities. obviously i am capable of learning and speaking languages well, which i understand is a valuable asset today (as kartelite pointed out). really just having a college degree is what is necessary, provided you did well; i'm sure you at most businesses you could find any number of history, english, geography, etc. majors.

just out of curiosity, what did you major in and what do you now do? i promise i'm not trying to be confrontational, i'm genuinely curious.

thanks to everyone else who contributes!

he told you french was challenging? compared to what?

can't be any harder than italian. i picked up french 5 or 6 years ago, been pretty fluent for a while now.

watching french movies and going somewhere where all they speak is french helps a trillion times more than any class... but class is great for learning the structure of the language.