Talk:Foreign language

Foreign vs dead language

Lead para oddly conflates the two concepts which should be separate. LeadSongDog (talk) 14:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Late Old Japanese is an extinct language rather than a dead language, as far as I could make out. The distinction is that it still has a living descendant. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 02:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, maybe that distinction is wrong, anyway, there are better examples on dead/extinct languages. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 02:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Ireland as an exception

• Quote from article:

By 1998 nearly all students in Europe studied at least one foreign language as part of their compulsory education, the only exception being Ireland, where primary and secondary schoolchildren learn both Irish and English, but neither is considered a foreign language (although Irish pupils do study a third European language).

• End quote.

Either this is unclearly written or it contains errors (perhaps both). I'll present a counterexample: In Norway, primary and secondary pupils are taught the both of the official languages, in addition to at least one other European language (Specifically, English is taught.).

Without deciding if the error is the claim of an exception or that it it the only one, I fail to see what the difference is between the systems. Perhaps some important detail has been left out?

Eroen (talk) 16:17, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Change the photo!

The photo in this article labeled "A German student learning French" needs to be changed drastically! It looks like the girl in the photo probably uploaded a picture of herself to show off to her friends. I would change it myself if I knew how. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.204.58.41 (talk) 13:37, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Horrible Sentence

"There are not any major differences in different definitions that different writers have provided about foreign language and second language, although not many of them differentiate these two terms." This sentence is written so horribly that I don't even want to try to contemplate its meaning. I'd appreciate for some courageous person to free us from this travesty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:7C0:409:40E4:8135:949E:BC2A:F3BA (talk) 05:58, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

This article has a fairly strong introduction to foreign language, however, more information is needed to make this article useful for readers. The headings are clear and concise, but some, like “Pronunciation”, for exam lack content beneath them. A few sentences in the article contain errors, but most are fine. Some sections have a lot of great information, however some more reliable sources are necessary in order to make this article more scholarly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Halinapoho (talk • contribs) 00:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Foreign language education is sometimes unavailable in the US

As a US citizen, I strongly suspect that many smaller public schools (grades K-12) do not offer any foreign languages, or certainly do not require it. I know this is the case in my state. There is no obvious single choice for the language to teach, students will arrive with widely variable levels of proficiency, budgets are tight, and it is considered a very low priority with respect to standardized tests and metrics of school performance. Fluoborate (talk) 07:23, 4 December 2017 (UTC)