What 2nd language did you learn in school?

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Lemoncaked_0@reddit

Spanish. Quite useless anyway. 4th language in my case, but eventually dropped Spanish and Arabic as I found them to be useless

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BigRonWood@reddit

J'aime jouer au football avec mon frère.

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I learnt French at school, passed a GCSE in it at 16, I have a smattering of Dutch and Modern Hebrew. I know quite a bit of British Sign Language. I haven’t kept up my spoken languages as I do have a significant hearing loss and even with my hearing aids sometimes struggle with English. I used a little bit of French when I visited Marseille on a cruise a few years ago but that was the only stop in France.

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stuartmlambert@reddit

My GCSE french (D) allowed me to pen this immortal ditty:

Jambon, jambon, Dans ma Maison. Je pense qué me suit un garçon. C'est la vie. C'est tres bon. Donnez moi soixante bons-bons.

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AffectionateComb6664@reddit

In our school everyone learned French in Year 7 (Age 11), and then in Year 8 (Aged 12) we also started to learn German. At the end of Year 9 (3 years of French, 2 years of German) we had to choose one of them to carry on to GCSE and drop the other.

I can still say ich wohne in einem mittlegrossen doppelhaus (I live in a mid-sized semi detatched house (I think)).

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werewolfbutch874@reddit

That’s how my school did it too. We also had to do a year of Latin in year 9, so that year half our timetable was languages lol. I then chose to do Spanish for GCSE as well as continuing with French (which I stuck with all the way through A Level). Sadly after all those years of lessons in four different languages, I’m still completely monolingual. I used to be decently conversational in French but I didn’t keep practising once I’d passed my A Levels, so I lost it.

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anniegrowegg@reddit

Flavia sedet sub abore

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Kwazy-Cupcakes@reddit

Similar to me. We did Latin, German, Spanish and French in year 7, could choose to drop Latin in year 8 but had to carry on with the others. Then you had to choose one for GCSE, so I chose Spanish.

I am definitely not conversational in Spanish 😂

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werewolfbutch874@reddit

Wow four languages at once is crazy for 11 year olds, I can’t imagine any of that stuck!

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Kwazy-Cupcakes@reddit

Canis est in hortus (the dog is in the garden) is all I remember from Latin 😂

I still remember basic phrases in French, like greetings, introductions, please, thank you, asking if someone speaks English. Enough to make an effort on holiday in France.

I remember no German apart from thank you and good morning lol

Spanish was the one that stuck the most as I did it as GCSE and weirdly my Spanish has improved as I've gotten older because I've been trying to learn Portuguese and there are a lot of similar words.

Weirdly, I pick up languages better in the country I'm visiting by speaking with people - I just don't think forced and scheduled learning of languages works well for me and my brain 😅 for example, went on holiday to Italy when I was about 11/12 and came away speaking better Italian than I did French after two weeks from knocking about with Italian kids while I was there lol.

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AffectionateComb6664@reddit

Yes I was almost at conversational German once upon a time. Solidly monolingual now though

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StubbornKindness@reddit

I've spoken to multiple people from different schools, and this is the first time someone has had the exact same experience: French in Yr 7, German in Yr 8, keep one for GCSE, and drop the other.

It's not some big deal, but I've always found to be a touch odd

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AffectionateComb6664@reddit

🫡

South coast school?

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UmaUmaNeigh@reddit

Meine leiblings Jacke ist kool.

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ladybigsuze@reddit

Ours was similar but you could choose German or Spanish in year 8.

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HauntingCoach2@reddit

Cuál es más fácil?

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cheese_bruh@reddit

Spanish… by far

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arfur_narmful@reddit

Ich gehe ins Kino!

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SnooCalculations385@reddit

Outlrs as the other way around (I was in the half of the year that started with German). I managed a few phrases on holiday in Berlin last year but didn't get to use "Du bist ein Kartoffel Kopf!" Which was a shame.

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60s_Child@reddit

A workmate who had been in the army had a number of phrases in "squaddie German" one of which was "Du bist ein ungerhier gummikopf" which he insisted means "You are a monstrous rubberhead"

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sparkypulastri@reddit

Same but for us, if you didn't pick them as GCSE subjects they were both finished at the end of Year 9 (spoiler: I picked neither).

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improbablynotyourdad@reddit

My school did something similar, except they split the yeargroup in half and had half learn French and half learn German. So you had a 50% chance of each, completely at random.

Both were compulsory in years 8 and 9, then we had to choose one for GCSE. Starting in the year below me, if you got high enough grades in French, you could choose Spanish GCSE, and I think they let you swap Year 9 French for Spanish as well. But I never had that option.

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hexaspex@reddit

Mine was the same but with option to take both at GCSE

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Duementon@reddit

spanish french and german but its very basic compared to how you learn english, almost totally useless unless you plan to keep learning after school

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ladybigsuze@reddit

¿Hay un banco por aqui?

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anniegrowegg@reddit

Donde esta la catedral?

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captain_crackerjack@reddit

¿Donde esta l’estacion de autobuses, pot favor?

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Oursenpotdemiel@reddit

Where is the youth hostel, please?

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Nikotelec@reddit

Dan's ma trousse, il y a un style

Don't see the problem?

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Any_Willingness_9085@reddit

Where is the swimming pool? 😄

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ZaphodG@reddit

It’s not a coincidence that piscine and pissoir are often confused.

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ScottOld@reddit

Love how the French call a swimming pool what kids do while in there

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fn_fucker@reddit

Kids? I still do it

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agingbiker@reddit

piscine my self laughing at that one:)#

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EveryChemistry9163@reddit

La Rochelle.

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snarkycrumpet@reddit

Tricolore

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martin8777@reddit

Where Chantal lived

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pattybutty@reddit

Down that road, over the bridge, next to the commissariat de police

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jesussays51@reddit

I like to ride my bicycle on the weekend

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PurpleMuskogee@reddit

Brian is in the kitchen.

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CommercialAd2154@reddit

Le weekend, j’aime jouer au foot avec mes amis

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SixFiveOhTwo@reddit

Hated that one.

'I'm a geek. I played video games all weekend. How do I say that in French?'

'You don't - it's not on the exam'

'Bollocks to it then. Last weekend I played football...'

(I hated french, got a 'B' at GCSE, swore I'd never learn a language because I'm crap at it, then met a Spanish girl and ended up living in the Netherlands so had to do it twice)

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BerryOk966@reddit

Le plume de ma tante est sur la table.

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OwnRhubarb3075@reddit

I just want you to know that the French equivalent of this phrase for learning English is: Brian is in the kitchen.

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BerryOk966@reddit

Are you French? I remember William in my class getting the piss taken out of him when we learned his name in French was Gillaume. Is the a normal French name that sounds really funny to French kids when translated to English?

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hairychris88@reddit

There was a Jack in my class who was actually called Jacques and had a similar experience.

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OwnRhubarb3075@reddit

Not native French, but have lived there for years! Guillaume is just a really boring normal name in France though haha.

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martin8777@reddit

Je suis le president de Burundi

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seafrontbloke@reddit

Surely the pen of my aunt is in the garden?

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No_Coyote_557@reddit

The table of my uncle...

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paolog@reddit

Mon aéroglisseur est plein d'anguilles.

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brideofgibbs@reddit

Il y a un singe dans l’arbre!

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SamVimesBootTheory@reddit

Not a lot of jungle in France

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Nothing_F4ce@reddit

You haven't been to Calais

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saltycandycat@reddit

Monkeys thin on the ground.

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SamVimesBootTheory@reddit

Thin in the air, generally pretty trim

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ab_2404@reddit

Dos carling por favor, grassy arse!

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ab_2404@reddit

Donde esta la bibliotecha

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External-Pen9079@reddit

So totally useless that I overheard one of the two French teachers in my school (who could actually speak French) joking to a colleague about how she can finally understand the other French teachers accent now that he’s spent 5yrs teaching the subject!

Also - my sister who was mad enough to go into teaching - is also now tasked with teaching french despite not having studied it since school 20+ years ago!

It makes it so difficult to learn a language and makes sense of the fact that no native French speakers can understand me even if I try and speak to them in their own language - so I largely don’t bother anymore… meh… 🤷‍♀️

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jamelfree@reddit

If you think your words are correct but they don’t understand you, my tip would be, ham up the accent. Most language learners feel silly putting on an accent but it’s vital to being understood.

I will always remember going to Paris for an A-Level Art trip, heading into McDonald’s, and my non French speaking friend using the survival phrases I’d given her in French to order (especially as half the menu uses English names), her getting a completely blank look from the server, and me repeating exactly what she’d said but using a more authentic accent, and getting served immediately.

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External-Pen9079@reddit

This is definitely the way! I had the same experience in Paris - turns out touching a can of coke and saying (in an admittedly atrocious accent) une coca sil-vous-plait was still apparently too baffling to be understood… 🤦‍♀️

In fairness I kind of just assumed Parisian’s were arseholes! And most of the French people I’ve befriended since then have agreed! 😂

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ScottOld@reddit

This always happened in schools, we had a science teacher end up teaching IT but couldn't work the printer

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paolog@reddit

It was usually the games teacher who taught geography or RE.

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Dasy2k1@reddit

Our French teacher was Parisien.... She thought it hilarious when I had spent a few weeks in Réunion over the holidays (I have family out there) and I came back with improved French but with random bits of Creole and a slight Réunion accent!

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EAGLE-EYED-GAMING@reddit

I once questioned my French teacher why aren’t we learning something useful like ‘I’m lost’ etc and she just looked at me like I had said a racial slur

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TreacleOk7265@reddit

Je ne parle pas français. Parlez-vous anglais? That should be enough 😅

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NaughtyDred@reddit

Je nay comprom pah le francay parlay vous le anglay siv oo play?

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Imtryingforheckssake@reddit

We learnt how to book hotel rooms and find the train station before we were even teenagers.

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Ratbag321@reddit

I sat next to a German on a chairlift about 30 yrs ago, and confidently said 'das Gummibaum ist in der Eingangshalle' at which point he corrected my 'der, die, das', laughed so hard he nearly fell off the chairlift and said in perfect English what a completely useless phrase we'd all been taught.

He wasn't wrong.

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snarkycrumpet@reddit

ich esse mein fruhstuck in der fruhstuck zimmer.

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OreoSpamBurger@reddit

You'll learn to talk about going windsurfing in la Rochelle, and you'll like it!

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Oursenpotdemiel@reddit

I live in England and have an older brother.

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snarkycrumpet@reddit

if was very centered around penpals and then camping avec those penpals

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FloydEGag@reddit

I don’t know how true that is, by sixth form we were really strong in French and German grammar and the French exchange students we had really weren’t great on English grammar although they had great vocab. They could only use two tenses at most

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suspicious-donut88@reddit

My kid wanted to take Spanish for A Level but the only Spanish teacher in school is only qualified to teach up to GCSE.

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macduff1947@reddit

Spanish French and German are all closely related languages many share the same words pronunced differently so start with them and also Dutch you may be suprised

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paolog@reddit

Start using pronunciation and you may be surprised how much more easily people will understand what you write.

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daddy-dj@reddit

Spanish and French, like Italian and Portuguese, are "romance" languages. However German, like English, Dutch and Danish, is "Germanic".

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Grunn84@reddit

I like how Norwegian doesnt count, they know its just a Danish dialect.

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_methuselah_@reddit

And as for Finnish 🤯

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curlyhead35@reddit

German, English and Dutch yeah since t hey're from the same language family. The other two not so much. I can kind of understand Dutch if I pay attention since I already speak the other two.

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MoreUnadventurous@reddit

Same here, if it's spoken. Dutch spelling is so confusing though I can barely make anything out if it's written down.

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18Apollo18@reddit

The problem with the UK is your focus on exams rather than results.

I know several Brits who've taken GCSE French or even A levels and can barely speak more than a few woy

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paolog@reddit

a few woy

I see what you mean.

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ScottOld@reddit

I took French, I remembered it kicking in decades ago, but in Paris recently it seems to have broken...

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Advanced-Night-9028@reddit

I like the train station,

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JohnLennonsNotDead@reddit

Speak for yourself

Dos cerveza por favor

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SamVimesBootTheory@reddit

Le singe est dans l'arbre.

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pattybutty@reddit

As well you know

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pokaprophet@reddit

Come on that’s a bit harsh. I’m 49 and I can still say “can I have a cash exchange on my credit card” and “my hair is naturally curly” in French. Nothing else, just that

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B0bbaDobba@reddit

Ja ma pel Bob !

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thekitchenislife@reddit

Ooh ay la gar Bob?

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Safe-Professional556@reddit

I didn't, got remedial English instead (I was dyslexic with various other developmental disorders - that went undiagnosed until my 30s) and while I had an adult level of reading my writing could still use work.

I picked up some Spanish as an adult and understand more than I speak. Also a little Dutch, French, German and a smattering of others.

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Ok_Heart_7193@reddit

We had the choice of either French or German, then later you could add in Latin, Italian or Norwegian (former Norse colony with lingering ties to Scandinavia).

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agingbiker@reddit

compulsory french and optional german/latin. (chose german)

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Wilberbedford@reddit

French and German for me

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Wasps_are_bastards@reddit

Started with German, then was allowed to do second language French as I did pretty well. Picked up a crash course in gcse/a level Spanish at college, then did a Latin course after uni because I was bored.

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Lost_Repeat_725@reddit

In Wales, its Welsh from the age of 4. Then I also had to study French from 11-14 but I knew people who did German or Spanish, it all depends on the school.

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crucible@reddit

I don’t remember doing much Welsh until about age 6 or 7 when I was at school, but that was before devolution in 1999…

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DangerousDisplay7664@reddit

I started school mid 80’s and we learned the Welsh words for colours, numbers, body parts etc. in nursery school, as soon as we entered the education system! Then we learned songs like Oes Gafr Eto and Sosban Fach in junior school. I grew up in South Wales if that makes any difference

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Lost_Repeat_725@reddit

I was in primary school just as devolution happened however not a single teacher spoke Welsh, they had someone come in to teach us once a week.

Infant end of the school was mostly learning colours and counting to 10 in Welsh, along with having to answer the register and ask to go to the toilet in Welsh. It eventually expanded to common instructions being given in Welsh instead of English, and morning prayers were also done in Welsh by time I left.

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9ofdiamonds@reddit

The way it usually worked in Scotland was Catholic schools learned Spanish and the normal schools tried to learn French.

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SnooCalculations385@reddit

That's really interesting. My son did Spanish in England but mainly because he likes the idea of travelling in South America.

I love that the two categories of school are "Catholic" and "Normal" 🤣

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9ofdiamonds@reddit

That's really interesting. My son did Spanish in England but mainly because he likes the idea of travelling in South America.

Your son had the choice of what language he learned before he choice of his sabbatical year to find himself.

Are your diamond shoes to tight?

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SnooCalculations385@reddit

Before my son was born my parents travelled through Mexico, Equador, Peru and Chile, sailed to Antarctica and then back up through Argentina and Brazil, so maybe hearing of their travels is where he got the romantic notion of travelling to exotic locations some of which the local population speak Spanish.

Despite your assumptions, unfortunately we don't have boomer money or anything like it, so our own family holidays we haven't managed to venture further than a week at a 3 star resort in Bulgaria and a week in Berlin so far. So no diamond shoes here (sound painful to walk in), but a boy is allowed to sit in his state comprehensive Spanish lessons and dream.

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SnooCalculations385@reddit

Haha he didn't choose it he was just in the Spanish half of the year. And the idea of travelling is not the same as having the money to actually do it. It's a dream not a reality.

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onionsofwar@reddit

In our school it depended on your stream or whatever it was called. Some of us got French, others German.

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adorabelledeerheart@reddit

Same, one half of the year did French, my half did German. I always wished we did Spanish instead though.

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onionsofwar@reddit

A qué si?

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KarlMcr@reddit

Ireland is similar.

Irish is compulsory from 4.

For me, German and French 11-14, then had to drop one, so adios French and kept German until 17

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Dic_Penderyn@reddit

This is the AskUK sub. Irish is not compulsory in Northern Ireland.

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KarlMcr@reddit

My reply was in comparison to the Welsh experience, I didn't reply directly to the OP

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Icy_Place_5785@reddit

“Adios French”

No wonder you dropped it haha ;)

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KarlMcr@reddit

You get jokes 👏

Oddly, my French results were better than German, but I preferred German as a language.

This logic didn't sit well with my educators.

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SnooCalculations385@reddit

I enjoyed the German at school more than the french because so many English words have German roots that it was interesting to see "oh that's why we call it X, y or z. Obviously we have a lot of french words in English to, but the German stuff felt foundational.

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Dic_Penderyn@reddit

For me, the second Language I learnt in school was English, my first language being Welsh.

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EmmaInFrance@reddit

I'm GenX and I grew up near Bridgend.

My English medium primary school was pretty small and it was a CinW school.

We had 6 teachers plus the head, I think. And, from what I remember, 2 or 3 of them spoke Welsh.

Back then, I think that the requirement for the teachers to be practicing Christians probably helped boost the Welsh speaker ratio.

We learnt Welsh songs and hymns from reception onwards and how to say 'Bore da' or 'Prynhawn da' and probably a few simple words. It was only in the last two years there though that I remember having actual Welsh lessons, probably once or twice a week.

And in both primary and secondary, Welsh speaking teachers would use Welsh to talk to each other in front of pupils, in security, knowing that we couldn't understand them.

At least, that worked until I was in my A Level Welsh classes and was able to eavesdrop fairly well!

We took French for the first 3 years in secondary and I took it for both O and A level.

My second comp, where I went from the 3rd year onwards, offered Latin as an option in the second and third years, and as an O level but that wasn't popular at all.

I arrived too late to take it pre O level, but I did take it as an extra, with just me and the teacher, for O level.

I also took Italian O level, which we started in the 4th year and went from zero to the O level exams in two years.

I was in the last year of O Levels, one year later, with GCSEs and the National Curriculum, I would never have been able to take 3 modern languages, plus Latin as an extra!

I went in to get A Levels in all three modern languages and I started a degree in Welsh and French at Bangor in North Wales.

I now live in France, for the last 20 years, and my French is excellent.

My kids are bilingual and they all took/are taking German as their second language in collège and lycée.

In collège where we live in rural Brittany, the other choice was Spanish plus kids could take Latin or Gallo (Brittany's other, less well known regional language) as an optional extra - or they could take Kayaking instead, as my middle kid did!

Once you get to lycée, the range of languages widens, depending on where you go and lycées in large towns and cities will offer Chinese or Japanese, for example, as well as other European languages.

My youngest kid's lycée also has a 'Section Européenne' where kids specialise in English and study a few subjects in English, not French.

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DoKtor2quid@reddit

Depending where you are in Wales, you already speak Welsh.. and English is your second language. We had Welsh and English as our primary taught languages at school (I'm from Gwynedd, so a Welsh speaking stronghold) and learned French at school from age 11. German from age 13 as an option.

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DangerousDisplay7664@reddit

We all had to do Welsh as a second language at school then could choose between Spanish and French - I chose Español!

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East-Ad5173@reddit

Ireland…..learned Irish from beginning to end of school and still can’t speak it. learned German in secondary school. use it every day

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beehiveigloo76@reddit

We learnt French and German at my school but now my old school teaches French and Spanish instead. There's a school near me now that teaches mandarin Chinese.

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Novel-Case6821@reddit

I learned French and German from first year until fourth year and then continued French until sixth year (I wanted to continue German also but it clashed with another subject that I wanted to study, I recently started learning German again in my own time). I dont think Spanish was offered at my school then - everyone did both languages for two years and then you had to pick one at least to study up to fourth year. I'm in Scotland.

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nineteenthly@reddit

French.

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IndependenceLife2709@reddit

Latin

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JavaRuby2000@reddit

In my school it depended on which ability group you were in the top set did French, set 2 did Spanish and the bottom set did German. In year 10 and 11 you had to pick a second foreign language so if you were doing French you could also start Spanish or German or also Urdu, Arabic, Gujerati or Russian.

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mylittlemy@reddit

French for 10+ years then I moved to Germany!

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TwoTenNine@reddit

In Wales that are taught in English, English, Welsh and French are all mandatory with other languages like Spanish and German opening up in 6th form.

I don't know about the Welsh schools that teach in Welsh (as in Geography is taught in Welsh for example) but I imagine it's the same.

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C0nnectionTerminat3d@reddit

If you live in Wales, scotland or Ireland the second language will be Welsh, Scottish or Irish respectively. In these countries you also tend to learn a third language; for me (wales) it was a choice between french or german.

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sgwennog@reddit

Welsh is the first language in many schools (all bar 2 in Gwynedd, for example) English is a compulsory 2nd language in these schools.

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C0nnectionTerminat3d@reddit

In my county all except one primary school and one secondary school had english as the first language, though i grew up in north west wales so that’s probably why.

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sgwennog@reddit

People in Anglesey and Gwynedd don't consider Conwy to be "north west" ;-)

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C0nnectionTerminat3d@reddit

good thing i’m not talking about Conwy then haha

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sgwennog@reddit

please show your data - I don't believe you.

Here is a map https://observablehq.com/@joewdavies/welsh-schools

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C0nnectionTerminat3d@reddit

???? we’re not having a debate here lol, i was assuming based on what i know about my area. Get a hobby, Have a good day.

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sgwennog@reddit

you know very little, obviously

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C0nnectionTerminat3d@reddit

God forbid a grown adult doesn’t know the current rates of schools in their area. I wasn’t wrong either, there’s only 1 welsh speaking high school in my county - You do the research. We’re on reddit not a TED talk auditorium.

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sgwennog@reddit

Which county then? They are the only three in North West and Anglesey have 4 Welsh language secondary and a ton of primary?

https://observablehq.com/@joewdavies/welsh-schools

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Weak_Importance9651@reddit

I too learned Welsh and it was tested as '2nd language' as we'd learned it since primary school, rather than a 'foreign language'.

We were given the option of French or Italian and a few of us who did well at languages had the option to take the opposite language we chose in 7 in year 9 for a year.

The 'top' class also got to learn Latin in year & 9, being able to study it after school.

Some people I know took all 4 at GCSE!

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InnisNeal@reddit

not true for scotland at least in my experience, never once got the chance to learn scots/gaelic formally

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dratsaab@reddit

Depends on your school and if it has a Gaelic teacher. Our local secondary doesn't but the next one along does, meaning you can learn Gaelic as a beginner, leading up to exams, or attend a full immersion class in Primary or Secondary if you were brought up speaking it.

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C0nnectionTerminat3d@reddit

That sucks :/ i had a friend who lived in scotland and he had the choice to learn gaelic or a different language but it wasn’t at gcse level or anything that could get you a qualification.

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InnisNeal@reddit

yeah its a shame, i do think wales and ROI are better for it in my experience. not sure about NI

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Sir_Madfly@reddit

Ireland isn’t part of the UK. If you’re talking about Northern Ireland then it will depend entirely on whether you go to a state or Catholic school.

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SnowflakeBaube22@reddit

I wish we had learnt Gaelic at school. But unless you go to a Gaelic speaking school, that doesn’t happen. We had French. And of course the annual Robert Burns lessons in January where they make you speak Scots then spend the rest of the year trying to beat it out of you because it’s not “proper English”.

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Dependent_Formal2525@reddit

If it's any consolation, the friends of mine who did Welsh at school have no Welsh language skills now. This was because they didn't keep practising what they had learnt.

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Conveth@reddit

You don't get taught Scottish in Scotland. Nor do you normally get taught Scots - except for a module as part of culture in English literature classes.

There are very few mainland schools teaching Gaelic, you'll usually find those on the islands (inner and outer Hebrides, rather than the Northern Isles).

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catsaregreat78@reddit

There are also Gaelic medium primary schools on the west coast and islands and also in the bigger cities I think.

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Adorable_Pressure958@reddit

German and Spanish for me.

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jamelfree@reddit

At my school it was French from the start of secondary school (when you’re 11), but we had to decide before we came to the school wether we were going to learn German or Spanish as a third language, as that determined what class they were going to put you in. You did both up to the third year, and then had to choose at least one to do for GCSE which would span the next two years.

I was really lucky to have native speakers for teachers, and it made such a difference in accent, and learning idiomatic expressions.

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molgab@reddit

French or German. I picked German and got really poor grades. My grandma is German and I would go to her a lot and she’d be like no we don’t say things like this so I’d do it her way and school and my teacher would say it’s wrong. Stuck with grandmas wording for things because I don’t know when I’ll have to ever explain how “I took the train to the town hall and walked around, I joked with my friends and went to get pizza, we watched a film and then went to the park to enjoy the amusements”

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No_Alps_1363@reddit

Typical languages are: Spanish and French. German rarely, but still a thing.

We learn standard "school class" stuff, i think it's p similar to in France. I think people are overestimating how much school teaches you, when a lot of people are just exposed to English a lot through music, TV, films, politics etc

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St3lla_0nR3dd1t@reddit

Most kids seem not to even do one these days.

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Indigo-Waterfall@reddit

French and Spanish.

Other people learnt Latin, German and one of the Chinese languages (I can’t remember if it was Cantonese or Manderin)

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Nicky2512@reddit

We learnt French from first year and had an option for German 2 years later but that was in the 70’s

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Albert_Herring@reddit

I'm old. Had French for a year or two at primary school. Secondary school did French and German until the fourth year when you had to choose at least one of them, optionally both or one plus Latin for O level (I did both FR and DE). No compulsory languages after 16 (I eventually did a French A level at evening classes, because I had a long, messy, nonstandard education because they hadn't invented ADHD yet).

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Grendahl2018@reddit

1960s - French and Latin. Did reasonably well in Latin, not so much French as the teaching emphasis was on ‘the rules’ rather than actually speaking the language. Took me years as a child to understand that French people did not actually think in English but spoke French just to be a pain in our arses…

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Imtryingforheckssake@reddit

I learnt French, my younger sister learned German. We didn't have any choice/ other options. I also know some people (not in my school) learned Spanish.

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Staterae@reddit

Latin and French from year 7 to A-level, took on Spanish from year 9 to GCSE

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snarkycrumpet@reddit

choice of Francis, Deutsch or Espanol.

I won't say I learned French as that's an exaggeration. but I certainly let some words rest in my head for a few years.

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TomL79@reddit

When I was at school, we learnt one other language - but three languages were thought at my school - French, Spanish and German. I learnt Spanish.

The way that it worked was that half of the kids in my year, like me were taught Spanish. The other half of the kids in my year learnt French. No one in my year learnt German.

When my brother started secondary school 2 years after me. He and half the kids in his year also learnt Spanish, but the other half learnt German. No one in his year learnt French.

The year group between myself and my brother - Half the kids learnt French, the other half learnt German and no one learnt Spanish.

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Puzzleheaded-Sky-146@reddit

French was the basic option unless you were brainy you could do german in 2nd year .most of us weren't interested I learned enough to be able to just about understand Tilly the puppet on Tots TV

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JamesTheGiantB1tch@reddit

My school had either French or German in year 7 (age 11). You didn't get to choose which- one year would be taught French for 5 years, the next German for 5 years. A year later at the start of year 8 (age 12), you would take 4 extra subjects including a language. Your options were French or German (whichever one you hadn't been made to take) or Latin. 2 years later you could drop one language. A year after that you could drop the other if you wanted to.

I think I had a single Spanish lesson at like 8 years old when there was a cover teacher. It's not really taught in most schools before secondary school (ages 11-16). Schools that teach languages before this are Very Basic- count to 10, hello and goodbye, a few nursery songs etc.

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MilitantSheep@reddit

I had no formal second language education until secondary school, where everyone did French and either Spanish or German (arbitrarily decided by which form you were in and nothing else) in year 7 and year 8. Then in year 9 we had the option to continue with two languages or just keep French, and for GCSE you did French if you'd already dropped Spanish/German or got to choose if you hadn't already. I thought my school complicated it far too much, I dropped Spanish because I was getting too confused but looking back I should have stuck it out. I got an OK GCSE French grade and tbh I regret not carrying it on to A Level because I did really enjoy it. We also did Latin for a couple of years which i enjoyed but I wasn't very good at it so I dropped that too.

In primary school, one of my teachers took matters into her own hands and started an after school French club because she thought we should be learning languages a lot sooner. She used to slip French vocabulary into random lessons and teach us times tables in French, for example, to really embed it. Other countries are streets ahead of us in languages and it's embarrassing really.

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CharmingSwing1366@reddit

usually spanish french or german, but usually to a pretty low level esp compared to other countries

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sshipway@reddit

The problem for English-speaking countries is, what to pick for a second language? Also, you'll get very little exposure to it (compared to how much English is heard overseas) and on the rare occasion you meet someone who does speak it, they will have better English anyway.
Other countries always pick English, and start from kindergarten. UK doesnt really start until age 11, and then you get a mix of French, Spanish, and German; if you visit those countries, you'll almost never use it, because they speak English far better than you speak their language (though some will appreciate you made the effort).
I ended up knowing a bit of Spanish and German, getting by in French, and a bit of BSL. Plus random words in about 6 other languages.

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Over-Pie-7916@reddit

In turkey we learn german after English (Some schools also offer French or spanish but it is %95 German)

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TurbulentWeb1941@reddit

Hinglish 😁

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ceehred@reddit

I'm old, but French was the primary one here in the UK, from about age 12. The more gifted language pupils got offered German on top of that, a little later (14?). We all also had a few classes in Latin, and had a history teacher that tried to get people interested in Russian (hmm, suspect :-)).

I dropped all foreign languages to go full-on STEM, partly because even my English pronunciation skills were already on the borders of being intelligible :-D

Promised myself I'd go learn Spanish out-of-school, but it never happened.

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jelly10001@reddit

So this isn't common here, but French lessons were a compulsory part of my mornings at nursery. Unfortunately 2/3 year old me was terrible to the point I couldn't pronounce the French teachers name (she was French) and renamed her Nellie after Nellie the Elephant. Plus I also only learnt how to count to three after watching repeated episodes of Tots TV, not from being taught in class.

After that I didn't have any more language lessons until the last three years of primary school (age 8-11) when I finally learnt how to count to ten in French.

Then at my secondary school we all had to take French, plus one of German or Spanish, at least until we were 14. At this point I chose German for several reasons, one being I was scared of the upside down exclamation marks in Spanish. At 14 we were allowed to stop learning one of the languages, but we had to keep studying one until 16, so I chose to keep studying German.

We also learnt Latin for part of the first year of secondary school (age 11-12) and all of the next two years (ages 12-14), I still remember phrases like Cawe Canem (beware of the dog) and Matella in Horto Est (Matella is in the garden).

Otherwise though I struggled with language learning, partly because we were introduced to new vocabulary each week, which meant we hardly ever repeated the same phrases twice, and partly because I found it impossible to remember what gender everything was.

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bcscroller@reddit

French and German. I was also able to do Russian for a year at age 16-17

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jtuk180@reddit

Spanish for 5 years. German for 3. Did better in the former, remember more of the latter because life choices made me need to actually use it. That said, if I rolled bad when going into high school it would have been France from the start

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stringbody@reddit

At the age of 11 in 1979 I had to learn French with our resident French teacher Monsieur Duclos. He terrified me.for 12 months. Then I went to another class where I was flumoxed by a young enthusiastic teacher called Mrs Locke. My end of year exams at aged 13 gave me great score and no confidence. So I packed it in and did woodwork instead. No male female nouns there, just hit it with a hammer! If I wanted to be terrified by another foreign oor British psychopath I could have chosen German or Spanish. These would have been useful due to the amount of time I've spent in these countries, including France and know very little of the language. My friend who was a bit more clever than me did Latin and Greek at age 13 plus German. He's bearly left the country since.

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Ligeiapoe@reddit

French was the only option from 11 onwards for me. At 14 I had the option to do Spanish as well, German had just been taken off the curriculum at my school.

When I moved schools at 16 all were back on the table, but you needed a GCSE in whichever to take the A levels. Foreign Languages weren’t compulsory after 14 at the first school, so I was one of very few who kept it up and went on to do a language at uni.

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pip_goes_pop@reddit

This question was asked yesterday:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/1ta76d2/what_is_the_required_secondary_language_if_any/

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sangokuhomer@reddit (OP)

Didn't even saw it sorry.

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combustioncactus@reddit

Didn’t see it, sorry. Is the correct English

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Ligeiapoe@reddit

And another little correction: thank you, not thanks you. Classic mistakes, but I still wish our country could boast such a great standard of foreign language ability nationwide!

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pip_goes_pop@reddit

Sorry wasn't meant to be a criticism, there's just lot more answers there you might want to read.

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sangokuhomer@reddit (OP)

Oh I see thanks you!

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horn_and_skull@reddit

Would you like a small correction on your English? Or should I leave it because we understand you very clearly.

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combustioncactus@reddit

Did it! Gona get downvoted thou!

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sangokuhomer@reddit (OP)

Yeah for sure. Here in France 99% of the population learn it as a first language from 1first year of primary school (6 years old) to end of high school (18 years) so we basically have a high level at English.

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MarchSapphire@reddit

I learnt French and German.
In my school everyone learnt French from ages 11-16. But from Year 8 (age 12-13) we had the choice between studying Spanish or German as well.

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Cautious-Diver-9613@reddit

French.

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Delicious_Link6703@reddit

French (standard curriculum) from the age of 11-12. Russian (optional) from 14-16 and took the national exam of the time - “O Level”.

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YorkshireMary@reddit

French, but not good enough to converse.

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ApprehensiveYam9631@reddit

We did French in 1st and 2nd year of high school and German in 2nd year. (1982/3-83/4).

Now, all these years later I wish we’d learned Polish and Arabic or Urdu. I work as a nurse and they’d have been most useful to “now me”

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Mammoth-Turnip-3058@reddit

We did french initially, then got to chose German, Spanish or Latin(!?) as a second in year 10.

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Purple-Mixture-951@reddit

In my secondary school everyone had to do French but only people who were in set 1 could choose spanish as a third language

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craftcrazyzebra@reddit

I learnt French and then German. But at my children’s high school, their years were split in half. One half learnt French and the other Spanish. They later had a choice to learn a further lesson.

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Due-Parsley953@reddit

Russian. The school I went to was one of very few across the UK that taught it.

I can still understand Cyrillic today, but my knowledge of the actual language has gone.

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CharmingDig909@reddit

We learnt French as it was decided by which primary school you attended. We could then opt to take Italian, Spanish or German as an extra class once we got to high school.

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BigSkyFace@reddit

My main language class was French, but I got given the choice between German and Spanish alongside it a little later on. I chose Spanish out of the two but didn't really like doing it because at the time it felt too similar to French. Doing such similar languages felt both confusing and frustrating because it was almost like retreading things I'd already learned.

I don't remember much of it now, but back then I was pretty decent at French, so I felt sad that I stopped doing it when I was 14. At this point in school we chose our optional subjects and the French slot in the timetable clashed with another subject I wanted to do.

Funnily enough. Despite not liking Spanish as a kid, I started learning it as an adult and really enjoyed it. I only stopped because I moved to the Netherlands, at which point it made obvious sense to put the effort into learning Dutch instead.

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JunzyB316@reddit

I did french till year 9 and I dont remember a word of it

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taintedbow@reddit

French and Spanish

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kowalski655@reddit

Joining my school, you were randomly assigned French or German. I got German. After two years you got to pick a second language, which was obviously German or French, plus Spanish or Latin. I chose Spanish but hated it so dropped it as soon as possible.

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IronSkywalker@reddit

French, Spanish, and Latin. Latin was great for Spanish, but French made me want to kill myself

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WesternEmpire2510@reddit

I had Spanish in year 7, then the school introduced German when I was in year 8 so I had Spanish and German in year 8 & 9. The school also did French but I refused to learn that so I was put into Spanish

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Eastern_Arm1476@reddit

French. I'm terrible at it but I speak 3 other languages fluently.

French is, in my view a toilet language.

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plasticface2@reddit

French. But learning is a bit of a stretch.

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cariadbach64@reddit

Welsh, French and German. I still remember a fair amount of Welsh and French but not German

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Llamallamapig@reddit

French from age 9, Spanish from age 12. We had the option of French or German in the first year of high school (age 11) and then we could add a further language at age 12 - French, German, Spanish, Italian or Chinese Mandarin.

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Neddykins82@reddit

We all learned French as a standard. I did German privately as we had recently moved back to England from Germany, and took optional Spanish because I was in the top sets.

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Spottyjamie@reddit

German

The best i could do after 3 years of it was order two hamburgers and two beers from a 24yr old waiter in an alpine tourist town who probably knew perfect english

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dazed1984@reddit

French 1st, then a year later it was German & Latin, GCSE Spanish was an option.

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bladefiddler@reddit

When I was at school we started with a little French from around age 10. From 14ish (year 10) we had the options of French, Spanish or German for gcse (14-16).

There was a rumour Spanish was easier so lots of the 'less academic' kids chose that. I think German was reserved for the clever kids. I stuck with French as we had already learned some so I guessed that would be easiest.

As another commenter said, unless you continue or spend time in French speaking countries to learn its pretty much useless. I can recall only a few words beyond hello/goodbye/please/thank you and numbers 1-10!

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treesofthemind@reddit

Basically nothing. We were SUPPOSED to learn French in secondary but no one actually did. The goal was to pass a GCSE exam only

Every single language teacher I’ve had in a UK state school sucked bar one. Which is why I’m going to classes as an adult

Unless you’re fortunate to be bilingual, you’re not going to learn jack about languages in any ordinary UK school.

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harrietmjones@reddit

I went to a language school in England, so I don’t think my experience is the norm.

In general, we learn French in school, and usually German too but not always and also Spanish sometimes too.

In my school, we learnt:

• French

• German

• Spanish

• Arabic

• Latin

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bassy_bass@reddit

I had the option to study Latin in year 7 (which I didn’t take) as well as Spanish, which I did take. I then moved schools and studied French and Spanish for 2 years before dropping French and doing Spanish at GCSE.

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anavgredditnerd@reddit

japanese, latin, greek

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xXSpookyBlookyxX@reddit

I learned French in high school and Welsh in both primary and high school. Though I hated my French teacher, she kicked me out of the classroom for sneezing 🤷‍♀️

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Dalhoos@reddit

I’m fae Glasgow, so English

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Funny_Tank8531@reddit

Did French last year of primary and first two years of secondary and German 4 years of Secondary.

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ArsePucker@reddit

French. Which was odd because I grew up in Wales, but they never taught us Welsh.

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ptr120@reddit

When I went to school it was compulsory to learn a foreign language for the first 3 years of secondary school. My school offered french or German but I didn't get to choose for reasons I don't remember (my uncle had already brought me a french dictionary!). I kept my German up until GCSE level and now live in Germany (my 3rd stint here) - I have no plan to go back to the UK as I'm now married with a kid and a house. Thanks Mrs Cashley and Mr Littlehales.

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ofcoursebutmaybeeeee@reddit

French - Non, je n'aime pas fait de l'équitation

And if you were in set 1 or 2, German for two years too - Ja ich habe eine wurstbuder (yes, I have a sausage stall)

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medievalskye@reddit

I was taught French from year 3 until year 10. I remember nothing

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Consistent-Show1732@reddit

I learnt French and German. Some schools do Spanish.

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Asleep-Hat-8615@reddit

oh, ues , i forgot Latin nils desperadum.

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Kizzy_Catwoman@reddit

I did French, then Latin and finally German. I found German the easiest, although I got A grades (the highest in 1990) in my GCSEs in all 3 or 4 if you include English language. I did German up to university level

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Asleep-Hat-8615@reddit

je ne parle la francais , ich bin a Berliner , or rather just a Brit. ok old sport ?

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JonathnJms2829@reddit

Welsh and French.

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Anxious_Baker_92@reddit

German. In my school everyone was allocated to either French or German, no choice. You didn’t have to continue to GCSE, but I did.

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Sonarthebat@reddit

German, French and Spanish.

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CongealedBeanKingdom@reddit

I did French for 5 year and German for 2. Ended up quite good at French, got an A. Sadly, ive not been able to use it. Id love to learn it again. Tried on Duo Lingo but it wasnt for me.

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CommercialAd2154@reddit

My school did Spanish and French (I took both to GCSE and carried on with Spanish, which was more useful to me personally as I went on holiday there regularly, and I always found it the easier of the two). Mandarin is offered in some schools, as are common immigrant languages (I was applying for a teaching job once and came across a school in North London teaching Turkish), though since more people speak Spanish or French (German is dying a death in schools), those are the ones that are offered.

As an aside, I once did an exchange program with a school in the Alsace where the kids spoke perfect English and German (a lot of them spoke the local Alsatian dialect), unlike a lot of my peers I actually tried to speak some French lol, but the day we went to their school, they had an English lesson and a German lesson in which I was completely lost 😆

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mcwibs@reddit

I learnt French at school from age 8, then at secondary school the top class for French also got German lessons too. I'm not sure what the kids in lower classes studied instead of German, but it wasn't another language.

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ShihtzuMum39@reddit

I learnt French and German. You could choose between German and Japanese as the third language.

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Familiar-Echo7@reddit

we did German and french in my high school, just french in primary school

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Crazy_Breakfast_6327@reddit

French mostly but 2 years of Latin as well.

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zaynmalikistheloml@reddit

in my school we did french in y7 (age 11-12) and then in y8(12-13) we were split into groups based on our french ability, group 1 did both french and german, group 2 (which i did) did french and spanish and groups 3&4 only did french. By y9 (13-14) we had chose our options (which extra subjects besides core one like maths english science etc) we wanted to do and we had to pick a language which we did up until our final year (15-16) . I picked spanish :)

However it is practicaly useless for us to learn languages. We are taught how to pass the final exam not how to speak.

I could tell you what’s in my pencil case & that i like to play football because it’s fun and that’s about it, that’s all we were taught 😅 I go on holiday to spain regularly (typical brit lol) and school taught me nothing useful for that. I only know the very basics (hi, how are you, numbers, thanks, please, how to order a few drinks i have memorised) times

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SaraReadsMuchly@reddit

Welsh

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Fuzzy-Sugar-2005@reddit

I learnt a bit of French in school. I was not very good, not very motivated. There some bits still there in my memory banks, but all fragmented.

In adulthood I've made stabs at German and Italian but it would appear I don't have much aptitude for learning languages

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Putrid-Extreme7366@reddit

English

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sjplep@reddit

It varies by school and to an extent by age (Spanish has become much much more popular in recent years). When I was at school in the late 80s, it was French first then German. But things have changed - Spanish has replaced German at the same school basically.

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Fishfood-7@reddit

My school (1990s) had French as a compulsory modern language from year 7 (11-12 year olds) to year 9 (13-14 year olds) and German from year 8 to year 9. After that we had to choose one or we could opt to do both for our GCSEs. Most kids picked French because we'd done it longer.

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Ferrovia_99@reddit

French. And I regret doing so badly at it and not taking it seriously. More than anything, that's the subject I wish I'd done well at. It's such a fantastic thing to be able to speak another language.

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getoutmywayatonce@reddit

In most of our defences, it just wasn’t taught very well in school. I also had extra classes after school and was still shite. It was so heavily focused on grammar rules with minimal real world conversation skills. We’d spend half a year on all the verb endings, but it didn’t seem to bother the teachers that most people couldn’t even follow a simple question and answer to save our lives. I still maintain it’s a better base for learning to at least have some confidence in speaking and understanding at a very basic level, most people who speak a global language understand even very broken versions of it after all. Then anyone who cares to improve can dig deeper into the grammar to increase proficiency.

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Colleen987@reddit

French Spainish and German.

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bebi4@reddit

I did Spanish from about age 8, which I think is rare for primary school. My secondary school was quite large, so they split us in half. I did German & the other half did French. They then offered us a choice French/German or Spanish around age 14. So by the time we did exams most of us were doing 2 languages aside from English. I had German & Spanish

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Wensley1963@reddit

Spanish, French, but most useful was Latin

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PartTimeLegend@reddit

Learn? None. Was taught? French and German.

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Limit_Ok@reddit

In my school the dumber kids did French, the smarter kids did Spanish. Thats just how it worked depending what set you were in.

I did French.

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Common-Spend5000@reddit

Traditionally French and German were the most taught - and to anyone over 40 by far they are two most likely they did. Russian from the end of WWII to the early 90's would have been the 3rd most taught, and so some people here 50+ would have done that too, but went into decline thereafter gradually and by the 10's was almost non-existent bar the odd school that specialises in languages.

Millenials and Gen Z - especially the latter group - are far more like to learned Spanish, especially at more standard state schools.

Currently in your more one of wealthier / private / grammar / academically prestigious schools the order is French, and then Spanish and German around the same popularity behind that.

In more standard schools though Spanish is now the No1 taught language by some distance, with French and especially German having fallen a good bit behind.

Growing but way behind that would be Mandarin, and a lot of Catholic secondary schools also teach Italian (for obvious reasons their school trips are more likely to Italy over other schools too), but rare for a non-catholic school to offer it as a modern language.

I taught languages for a few years in UK schools in the early to mid 10s - Spanish and German - but it was quite soul sucking as relatively few students were bothered or inspired to learn much.

Final point - It's very common for schools to make students who speak some degree of a 'heritage language' due to their ethnic background, to take a GCSE qualification in it. Which whilst I don't think is a bad thing as it formalises a qualification for them, instead of being an extra they often use this to increase the chance that a student gets at least five passes, even though for those students it's a guarantee, and schools with many such students do it for the wrong reasons of manipulating their results table vs the reality of how good their actual teaching is.

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noodlezs76@reddit

French, German, Russian were all electives for the last 2 years of my high school, I did leave in 1992 though

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PhatNick@reddit

French and Russian

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Dimac99@reddit

My primary school in Scotland was part of a pilot program 'round about 1990 where we had teachers from our linked high school come for a few hours a week to start us on French in Primary 6 and 7 (ages 10 and 11). A nice idea, I'm sure, but we recognise now that's a bit late. Until then, language learning began aged 12 in 1st year of high school.

It's very different nowadays in Scotland, we have a "1+2 languages policy" so children should be learning a second language from starting school in Primary 1 (aged 5) and beginning a third language around Primary 5 (aged 10). French is still by far the most commonly taught modern language followed by Spanish. I think German is taught more in England than here but it does make the list, along with Italian and more recently, Mandarin.

I'm unclear on where Gaelic falls as we also have some Gaelic-medium schools which tend to be heavily oversubscribed outside of Gaelic speaking areas in the Western Isles and far north and we definitely have a shortage of Gaelic teachers. Gaelic was never the language of lowland Scotland so most of us will never have heard it anywhere in real life.

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Skoodledoo@reddit

German. I absolutely loved it. I got an A* GCSE in it, but immediately after school it's all but gone, which I regret. Although I can remember a few phrases from school, namely "Ich habe einen Hund, er heisst Lumpi"

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skunkyskunked@reddit

That’s very useful , unless you change the poor dog’s name

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bubblechog@reddit

Welsh and German

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60s_Child@reddit

I remember french lessons in primary school, and in secondary school everyone did French to "O" level (this was the 70s). The only other language on offer at my (grammar) school, which I was forced to take also to "O" level, was Latin.

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skunkyskunked@reddit

English, German and French . 1st Language is Dutch

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Zee21_x@reddit

I'm UK, native English speaker. 1st school I went to was French and German. second school was Spanish and Latin.

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entersandmum143@reddit

Spanish, German, French.

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Adventurous_Deal2788@reddit

French. We had to do it up until year 11

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Single-Aardvark9330@reddit

French to start with, then at a certain point you could chose to also do Spanish or German

But then when it came time for exams you could drop any or all of them

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BlessingsOfLiberty25@reddit

Caecilius est in horto 👍

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HauntingCoach2@reddit

"Tu vales bene est ego valeo"

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Decent_Confidence_36@reddit

Roadman

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Racing_Fox@reddit

French in primary school then German and Italian in secondary school

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TrackTeddy@reddit

Welsh (as I was in Wales and it was compulsory), and a choice of German or French. You had to do both then pick one to take forward to examination.

My kids do Spanish or German.

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JourneyThiefer@reddit

Didn’t know it was compulsory in wales

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TrackTeddy@reddit

It was at my age but they have changed the rules quite a few times over the years so it might not be now.

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JourneyThiefer@reddit

We learn Irish here in Northern Ireland for like a few years (up to a level if you want) but only the Catholic schools do it obviously lol

[-]

adymann@reddit

Dans la poo bell.

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Ambitious-Bat237@reddit

When I was at school in the 90s, we did French, and if you were in the top set for French, we also got to do German for a year. No languages were compulsory after 14 though.

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Elysiumthistime@reddit

French but we did Irish too so technically French was my third.

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JourneyThiefer@reddit

I did Irish to GCSE but French just to 3rd year

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woooooooood9@reddit

Truancy

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arc_trooper_5555@reddit

French and Spanish. even though German was the one i actually wanted to do

[-]

LaughingGravy1001@reddit

French, I actually got an A level in it. Can’t speak it these days though, I can just remember odd words and phrases

[-]

EveryChemistry9163@reddit

You say that, but I got talking to a French-speaking dad in the playground and my GCSE French starting unlocking. I reckon if you went on a French exchange or something, you’d find it’s all in there somewhere.

[-]

Starlight-Kitty@reddit

El gate bebe agua.

You had the choice of French, German or Spanish at my school but as others have said it was very basic and a bit like Duolingo in terms of teaching you weird sentences.

[-]

glasgowgeg@reddit

We had the option of German or French, I took German.

I would've preferred Spanish, it would've been more useful.

[-]

polaris183@reddit

Currently doing A-level French. I'm the only one in my class though!

[-]

Jaybee021967@reddit

My grandmother has been run over by a steamroller

[-]

SilentCatPaws@reddit

High school for me was 1995-2000. We learned French and if you were good enough at French you was allowed to switch to German if you wanted. There weren't many people switching!

[-]

temujin1976@reddit

French. Also, Latin.

[-]

hallerz87@reddit

French is the main language to learn. Once you go to secondary school, you can typically choose between French, German and Spanish.

[-]

Stucumber@reddit

They tried to teach us French, but my class was a zoo! Some of the other pupils sensed fear in our teacher and she rapidly lost control. It didn't help when she said "Why can't you be more like Stucumber?" (P.s. I regret my user name to this day)

[-]

Living-Pin-4538@reddit

French from age 9 to 16 and 1 year of German.

[-]

lockinber@reddit

French is the normal 2nd language taught in schools.

[-]

ohokthankstho@reddit

Spanish French and German

[-]

Shoreditchstrangular@reddit

French and subsequently added German.

[-]

alex21dragons@reddit

It's normally French that kids learn compulsorily. If you go to a fancy school you may be forced to learn Latin which is handy if you meet any ancient Romans out and about.

[-]

Complex-Winter8687@reddit

My boy does BSL (British Sign Language), he's in primary school

I did Spanish and french in secondary school

[-]

tiptoe_only@reddit

We had to learn French and then after a year we got to pick another language from Spanish, Latin or German.

After another two years we could drop one of the languages as long as we continued with at least one modern language (i.e. if you took Latin, you had to keep the French).

[-]

PinkxxAcid@reddit

In year 7 we learned German then on year 9 you picked between french or Spanish and people who had high grades could pick mandarin

[-]

Plus-Mulberry6761@reddit

French. Not a lot of people took it seriously at the time, kind of a ‘joke’ lesson. I loved it. I love French cinema , and sometimes I think about that class and how our teacher is.. a lot of kids were nothing less than horrible to her at times. She quit before we finished high school. Kids are awful

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OneCrispyCritter95@reddit

I did French, Irish and Spanish.

[-]

Faction213@reddit

Zero. Though we did have French amd Spanish lessions but they never sunk in for me and I honestly had little interest.

I can barely remember anything beyond hello/goodbye and thank you in French and can maybe count to five in both.

Perhaps a bit more lf I dig deep but it has been 26 years.

[-]

wernddupress@reddit

In U.K. Usually French from primary school and then a choice of Spanish or German at secondary school

[-]

redspike77@reddit

French (no choice) but when it came time to choose between German and Latin, I chose Latin.

[-]

Sir_Madfly@reddit

To be cynical, most people don’t ’learn’ a second language at school, you are instead taught how to pass exams. A lot of people I know studied a language for five years (first year of high school to GCSE) and they still couldn’t speak a word of it in real contexts even though they got good grades.

[-]

Shnicketyshnick@reddit

Ou est la bibliotheque?

[-]

ThrowawaySunnyLane@reddit

German for one year in Year 6

French in first secondary school - years 7-8.

French and Spanish in second secondary school - Year 9.

[-]

qgwheurbwb1i@reddit

In my school, we had a choice of only French or Spanish. I chose French. We learned the absolute basics, and it wasn't given the same type of "push" that subjects like maths, science, English, history, etc. were. So, I think most of us leave school being able to say a few pointless things in very formal French or Spanish! Some do choose to study it up to the age of 16, and I suspect they're better than the rest of us. I loved French at school, but when I was choosing what to study I chose the same subjects as my friends - such a stupid thing to do! I'm trying to learn it again as an adult, but it's much harder and très cher!

[-]

Ok_Ant_2715@reddit

In my school in the 70's in the UK it was either French or Spanish not sure if that's changed over the years .

[-]

SwordTaster@reddit

I started French in year 6 (age 10-11), then in year 8, when I got to high school, I was also made to do Spanish. Then, because my school was fun, if you were in classes 1-5 (out of 8) in English, one of the smarter kids as it were, you were required to choose either French or Spanish for GCSEs when you were in year 10 (age 14-15). A lot of kids picked Spanish because it was easier. I picked French because I'm shit at Spanish.

[-]

DoctorOctagonapus@reddit

My school only offered French because they didn't have a German teacher when I started. I've forgotten most of it now though German would have been really useful for me to learn.

[-]

PigHillJimster@reddit

In our Secondary School in the 1980s, the first year everyone started French and continued it for the next year. Our books were called Tricolore and were based in La Rochelle.

In the second year we started Latin in our Classics class.

At the end of the second year we had an option to continue French, change over to German, do French and German, or change over to Latin, or drop all languages altogether and carry on with Classics without Latin.

I dropped everything to continue with Classics without Latin because I was not very good at any of them.

I did do Spanish in a wednesday afternoon in the first year at University and found that easier.

My wife is French, and our daughter bilingual English/French.

Our daughter is in Year 5 at Primary School and they have been learning French in Year 4 and Year 5. She says the teacher isn't very good though and makes mistakes. I ask if she puts her hand up to tell the teacher the correct way and she says 'no'. I am thinking her poor teacher is probably looking at her, seeing her just sitting there being silent and thinking to herself 'I must be saying it correctly if she's not correcting me!'.

The secondary schools we have looked so far at teach French or Spanish; or French or German for the first couple of years.

I have argued that our daughter should learn something different because she could probably walk straight into a French exam and do well enough with the bare minimum of preparation. My wife isn't quite so sure but some of the teachers seem to agree with my reasoning.

My wife berates me for my continued lack of progress at learning French properly. I did try evening classes but can't get my head around the verbs.

I can memorise items okay and ask for them.

[-]

ReactionCreepy428@reddit

Did French and Latin, but only carried on with Latin to avoid French speaking exams lol

[-]

LliprynLlwyd@reddit

English 😅 I'm Welsh first language gauge, and grew up very rural, so English was taught in primary school. When I went to secondary dary, we did French from yr.7-9, and then I did Spanish for GCSE (from the beginning as it was a new subject in our school)

[-]

NobleKorhedron@reddit

I did two in school. One to Junior Certificate level only, one to Leaving Certificate.

If I'd known about my history teacher and had more guts/gumption, I would've bailed and stuck with French...

[-]

zeocrash@reddit

Everyone at my school had to learn French as a second language. We also had to choose between German or Spanish as a third language. You only had to take one foreign language at GCSE, so you could drop one of them. I stuck with french because I was better at it.

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MaidaValeAndThat@reddit

Depends on the school. My private primary school did French and my state secondary school did German. After Year 8, German was optional. There were no further options for languages in my secondary school, it was German or nothing.

I know a lot of people who didn’t do a language in their state primary schools at all aside from maybe a few days per year as like a languages day.

(I left school in 2020 for reference).

[-]

OkWear6294@reddit

English (I’m from Russia)

[-]

Minib0nez71@reddit

I studied French and German in the 80s.

[-]

chuckiestealady@reddit

Two school years of Spanish. Then one year of both French and Spanish on separate lessons so we could choose our GCSE subject. I enjoyed French but was already besotted with Spanish.

[-]

Clean_Impression_327@reddit

Welsh, French & German.
French & German were enough to get around on holiday, but Welsh was barely enough to be useful I. Any practical sense as it was the same basics repeated year on year through both primary + secondary schools.

[-]

QuirkyWolfie@reddit

They taught us french fairly early in primary school junior school. Mostly basics, days of the week, count to 10 and basic friendly phrases.

On high school french was continued as a mandatory class for the first few years and then when we get to choose a language to study for GCSE the options became french, Spanish or German.

You didn't have to take a language class for the final years if you didn't want to. Personally I didn't continue it

[-]

TheDarkestStjarna@reddit

French (for 7 years) German (for 6 years) Spanish (for 1 year)

[-]

Chamerlee@reddit

German or French.

Unless you were Asian then you had to do Urdu.

[-]

FlakyAssociation4986@reddit

Irish but in terms of a foreign language french

[-]

KybeRio@reddit

French, Spanish and German are the standard options offered, usually in that order of priority. Some public schools will offer additional options, like Russian, Chinese, Japanese (because they have more funding).

[-]

Financial_Breath5433@reddit

French

[-]

EccentricRosie@reddit

In primary school, I did French.

When starting secondary school, I did both French and Spanish (they were the only two MFL options at my school). In year 8, we then had to pick one of the two to stick with until finishing our GCSEs. I picked Spanish, because I found it easier to learn than French.

[-]

standupstrawberry@reddit

We didn't do any languages until secondary. Everyone did german in year 7 (6eme), in year 8 (5eme) the top set did French and German and the bottom set got switched to Spanish (why?).

It was all more or less useless, no-one left with a useful level in any language.

[-]

chiefgareth@reddit

German. I was not good at it.

[-]

Acrylic_Starshine@reddit

I was at secondary 2001-2005 and did french.

It rotated between french and Spanish every year but the years in front did German as well.

My son is in Y6 at primary school and has been doing basic french.. never remember doing languages so early.

[-]

CatsChat@reddit

My kid’s secondary alternates French and Spanish. So this year’s Year 7 learn French. Next year’s Year 7 learn Spanish. They have the option to add another language in a couple of years time for GCSE exams.

[-]

BeanOnAJourney@reddit

Years 7-9: Spanish; year 10 onwards: Spanish and French.

[-]

ImpossibleGlove7@reddit

Learn, or was taught? We had to do a language as an O Level (I'm that old), so I chose French, then another for two years, for which I chose German. Was hopeless at both, gave up French during the French oral, when the teacher said "there's not much point in carrying on with this is there?". My brother got a U in French, so it's genetic.

So I didn't learn any language in school.

[-]

MyDogisDaft@reddit

Oh est la patisserie?

[-]

Shot-Disk5958@reddit

Mostly French in my school, with Spanish and German as options later on. I remember learning loads of random phrases but barely being able to hold an actual conversation by the end of it lol

[-]

Helena_Handcart1@reddit

Deffo French for my 2nd language. I loved it because it was simply something I could put to use straight away (when going to France, of course) not just some vague subject which might be useful in a job, one day.

[-]

InternationalCap6019@reddit

I started with French and then we could chose Spanish or German. I chose German because I thought it would be easier. 🤣

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Actual-Sky-4272@reddit

It’s been traditionally French, and maybe German, though I wonder if Spanish has overtaken that. Many schools struggle to find foreign language teachers and fewer and fewer pupils continue with a language past 14 and certainly 16.

[-]

Current_Mongoose_844@reddit

J'ai prendu les francais a l'ecole

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ME-McG-Scot@reddit

German or French. I picked German as it seemed easier to get by in. At the time i had no interest in either, wish Id taken French and taken it seriously.

[-]

TujiTV@reddit

French was my mandatory second language, then I had a choice to pick between Spanish, German, and Japanese (for some reason).

[-]

Pineneedle_coughdrop@reddit

French and German.

[-]

Inside_Performance32@reddit

Chav

[-]

JamOverCream@reddit

Le francais et l’allemand etaient obligatoires.

Nous avons egalement appris in peu d’espagnol.

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loveswimmingpools@reddit

French was the second language. We learnt that from aged 8 or so. Then Spanish and German when I was 13.

[-]

Firthy2002@reddit

At high school in the 90s we learnt French and Spanish for the first 3 years and then continued with one of them for GCSE. We could indirectly choose which one we wanted to continue but it wasn't a guarantee.

Despite choosing Spanish and doing slightly better at it I ended up in French. Managed to bag a C grade somehow.

[-]

Ill-Opportunity8918@reddit

Everyone learnt french for three years. Then you could drop it or carry on for another two years with the option to start learning German too. I think only those that showed good progress in French were allowed to take on German classes. Might be wrong there.

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MrsKToBe@reddit

I did French and Latin to GCSE, and German to GCSE and A-level. I was surprised how much I’ve actually used my German though- I used to work on a hospital ward where we had two German speaking patients. One spoke no English and the other spoke excellent English but as her dementia progressed she lost more and more of her English. There was only me and a housekeeper whose husband had served in Germany so she spoke a little German, who could communicate with these patients. Tbh I never expected to have to use it in those circumstances

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FairBlueberry9319@reddit

I learned French. People with the highest grades in those lessons also had the chance to take Spanish aswell.

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idekkanymoree_@reddit

In primary we did a fortnight of very basic Spanish so greetings and how to say specific foods. In secondary we were forced to learn French from year 7 to year 9 then yr10 and 11 I picked it as one of my options. I was fast at learning it so it was beyond basics and I used to be able to read full stories in french and have a 5 minute convo.

Ironically now im on a gap year before uni I’ve gone back to learning french and Spanish through duolingo and soon Anki!

[-]

BlackStarDream@reddit

French was compulsory in primary and secondary school. But Spanish or German was an additional language you were able to take on top of French in secondary school.

Most kids just stuck with the French and I ended up getting a GCSE 6 equivalent in it.

[-]

PaulaDeen21@reddit

French, German and for some reason, Latin.

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aka_Foamy@reddit

I'm convinced Latin is just an elitist educational secret handshake. We did it in my expensive private primary school, we did it in my expensive private secondary school, all the kids who did it at A-level were the ones going to Oxford and Cambridge.

[-]

subbiedavie@reddit

I think it’s useful for studying Law

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MrsKToBe@reddit

Medicine also uses a lot of Latin. I went to a state school and I learned it until GCSE, but I wish I had kept it on as I studied Law at A-level but I’m now studying nursing and there’s a lot of Latin abbreviations.

There were only five who took it to GCSE in my school- one is now a dentist, one a doctor, one a vet and there’s I think two lawyers as well.

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aka_Foamy@reddit

Feels like that only proves my point sadly.

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Fit-Host-6145@reddit

It’s pretty much the same trio (French, Spanish, German), but since English comes naturally the standard is way lower so most people leave school barely able to order a coffee.

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beeurd@reddit

I was at school in the 90s, so I'm sure it's changed since then. My schools taught French from year 6, but at high school in year 9 there was the option to start German too... but for some reason this was only available if you were good at French. 🤷‍♂️

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Mog_X34@reddit

A long time back (late 70s, early 80s). French from age 11, although I think we had some rudimentary teaching in primary school.

When you got to pick your O level stream at 14/15 French and German were compulsory if you took the language stream, but as I went down the science route they were optional.

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clipperzw@reddit

When I was at my comprehensive school many decades ago, there was a huge option of French, German, Italian, Latin and I think Russian. For most, it was French with options of German and Spanish. Now Spanish is overtaking or has overtaken French as the default second language.

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Wild_Region_7853@reddit

I did Spanish as a second language but my school also had options of French and Italian. Then a few of us who did well in that were put forward for either Latin or German as a third language

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drivelhead@reddit

Ich habe Deutsch gelernt, aber das ist 30 Jahre her und ich habe alles vergessen.

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SnooCalculations385@reddit

We learnt German in the first high school year, then did German and French for 2 years and then had to choose one of them to study for final exams. My son is that age now and his school do Spanish mostly (with French as an option).

The trouble I feel for people in the UK (hardly) learning a foreign language is that there doesn't feel an "obvious" one. We were all told that German was a good business language, but honestly it's not really is it, compared to English. English is so universal that when two people from non English counties meet they often use English as a common language because it must be the most common second language. It's the obvious choice for anyone outside of the English speaking world to learn as it opens up so much media and culture especially in the west.
But for those of us that speak it natively there isn't always a very obvious second choice. Spanish let's you talk to a lot of countries in South America, mandarin lets you talk to a lot of people, but there isn't an obvious need.

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Kermit_Wazowski@reddit

I chose french because there werent enough people in my school to run the German course. Says everything. Language learning in English speaking countries is always crap if there's not a second language in the country like in Wales, being the lingua franca has it's disadvantages in that language teaching is an awful mishmash

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coinsntings@reddit

We did french and Latin until yr9 then got to choose between french, Latin, German and Spanish for GCSE, I regret my choice of German (I remember approximately f all) and wish I'd chosen Latin tbh.

[-]

Baphomethea@reddit

Russian and English

[-]

Plane_Ask_6123@reddit

When I was at school it was French or German but my sons school only does Spanish as far as im aware

[-]

Dic_Penderyn@reddit

The second language I learn in school (I did not speak it before going) was English. My first language is Welsh.

[-]

Doctordelayus@reddit

Mainly French classes, though there was one time where I had an Italian class, but it just happened the once and never again which was pretty damn weird

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pilipala23@reddit

I went to school in England in the 1990s. I learnt French as a second language. We had a choice between German and Latin for a third language. (Yes, state school).

My children go to school in Wales. They are in English medium education and learn Welsh, and French. My youngest also did Spanish.

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Glum-Counter6635@reddit

Mid to late 90s. French for all then choice of Spanish/German/Italian for a year towards the end.

'Learn' may be stretching it though. We had some French exchange students come to our French lesson. Teacher had to speak to them in English as they didn't understand her French.

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kladoink@reddit

I learned French, loved it and am still learning it now, 30+ years on, alongside Portuguese. I work in a school and they can learn Spanish, German, or Mandarin. French is an option but not a standard one. My son has chosen to study 5 languages at GCSE and my other one is studying 2 at A level.

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mrthreebears@reddit

English, actually.

[-]

sangokuhomer@reddit (OP)

How ?

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mrthreebears@reddit

Because I'm Welsh.

I had to learn French as 3rd language funnily enough, it was actually fairly fun as there's a fair bit of overlap in Welsh/French. Even now I can still keep up with, and hold my own in a spoken conversation as long as it's not overly complicate. I don't so well with the written French anymore, I can struggle though basics but that's it, but it's been nearly 30 years since I was at school!

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wintermag@reddit

In our area we had French in middle school (age 9-13) then the first year of upper school (13-16) we had French and German. Then the last two years we chose to keep either French or German.

My son’s school teaches Spanish, but other schools round here teach both Spanish and French.

It’s nowhere near the level/depth of other countries though.

[-]

vicarofsorrows@reddit

French. The linguistically competent were later allowed to do Spanish.

Those who couldn’t cope with French had to drop it, and take Economics (!) instead….

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WhoYaTalkinTo@reddit

Spanish German and French here in the UK (but at such a basic level it's functionally useless unless you choose it as an option at GCSE level and beyond)

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WelshBen@reddit

French, Latin and Russian. I don't remember a single word of the Latin somehow. Not one word.

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marcustankus@reddit

Compulsory Welsh, then french and Latin from choice...

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Lyrakish@reddit

French, German, and Spanish was offered. I chose French as I'd already done some of it earlier in school as a passing skill.

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CarpetGripperRod@reddit

Latin, then some Greek. I wouldn't say I learnt either one, though; just enough to allow a certain linguistic flexibility in the Romance languages.

Irish was my mother's first language. I'm fucking pissed off at her for not bringing me to that. But she came to England and wanted to do English things, so I can sort of forgive her.

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tradandtea123@reddit

I'm 47 and I did French for 2 years aged 9-11 just because we had a teacher at middle school who spoke french. I then did German at secondary school for 3 years. I only ever did 2 hours a week and hardly learnt anything useful of either, mostly just how tell people how many siblings and pets I had and then complex verb endings even though I hardly had any vocabulary.

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HappySmileMillion@reddit

Fench, German and Latin

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Holiday-Baseball-346@reddit

I grew up during the Cold War, the wall was still up, Doomsday Clock was ticking, so I always wondered why we didn't learn Russian in school- at 12 I thought it might be useful. As it was, French was compulsory. Those who had an aptitude for French could also do German, but you couldn't just do German without the French. Spanish wasn't an option back then.

Oh, and Latin. We did that too (because although my school was a comp, it HAD been a Grammar School, so still had some of those lessons).

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buy_me_a_pint@reddit

The secondary school I went to , in year 7 to year 9 we had to do both German and French, and could drop one at GCSE

Someone got away without having to do either, but were made to do study in the library instead

German has come in useful for countries which speak German. I could have done with learning Spanish and a bit of Italian

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BG3restart@reddit

I learned French and German back in the day. I think French and Spanish is more common now.

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Emilyeagleowl@reddit

We didn’t even have to pick a language for GCSE but I did French

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Scrombolo@reddit

We did German at school. Although the only thing I can remember is 'kartoffelsalat'.

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shortymcsteve@reddit

In Scotland it seems to depends on the type of school. Not sure if the whole country is like this, but where I live in the central belt, we have catholic and protestant public schools. Although the protestant school are considered “non denominational” these days.

Anyway, in the catholic schools they learn Spanish and in the protestant/non denominational schools they learn French. When you enter the final years of high school you can pick to study German, and one friend told me he studied Latin.

I will say, I bet most people who learned French probably forgot it by now unless they spent a significant time in a French speaking country.

I visited Belgium in my 20’s and absolutely crumbled when I got into an argument with someone because they skipped the queue at the supermarket. Unfortunately I wasn’t taught any combative language in French class.

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PingouinFluffy@reddit

I did my qualifications a very long time ago but did French and German.

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DustTechnical4561@reddit

French, from age 11 until I left school (and then went on to study it at University, along with Spanish). German, from about 13, but never really followed it up. Did Portuguese as an optional subject (and then forgot it until many years later when I finally booked a trip to Portugal!).

[-]

andy0506@reddit

Bonjour

[-]

sangokuhomer@reddit (OP)

Bonjour comment tu vas mon ami?

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Flimflamsam@reddit

NW England during the 90s.

French was our second language, mandatory through all 5 years of highschool.

I also chose to take German when we had “options” to choose some classes for GCSEs (final highschool exams). That was just for the last 2 years of highschool.

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ClassroomDowntown664@reddit

in my secondary school we had to choose between french or Spanish. I choose Spanish as my grandparents live in Spain .then in year 10 we did a residential to mucia for a week to learn more about culture and to practice speaking Spanish.

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Bad_Combination@reddit

I started learning French in primary school then added Spanish at senior school.

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TheViscountRang@reddit

I learned how to sing a song about going to the swimming pool in French, I therefore consider myself effectively fluent in the language

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sangokuhomer@reddit (OP)

Yes you are. Je suis fier de toi cher inconnu!

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Soggy_Detective_4737@reddit

My first taste of MFL was French in secondary school, which was compulsory for years 1 and 2. If we were proficient enough in that, we were allowed to learn German as well from year 3.

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N7_Hellblazer@reddit

I learnt German in secondary school. In primary I did Arabic and in year six French. I did spend primary school in Saudi Arabia in a British School.

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VioletFireCat@reddit

We did a little bit of French in primary school. When I started secondary we did both French and German at first, but then the German teacher left and I guess the school couldn't find another so for the rest of my time there we only had French classes. Though whether they were compulsory GCSEs varied a lot when I was in school. My year had to take language classes through to year 11, but the year below me could stop them in year 9, and then I think the year below them it became compulsory again. Weird. (And annoying)

Regardless, I learned basically nothing in those lessons (not through lack of trying, I just wasn't very good at it) and after five years of compulsory French classes I spoke the same amount of French (very, very little, bare basics at most, if that) as I did when I started.

[-]

JordanofNortholt@reddit

Here in England, we can pick between French, German or Italian. But they offer it from age 11 - 14 with the option to drop it and focus on your other studies or continue a more advanced route on your selected language.*

This is not the best option because young children are far better sponges when it comes to soaking up a second language. By 11, one finds it difficult to study a language on top of the roughly 10 other subjects. There are students who do just fine, but most abandon it then forget 95% of what they learned as time passes.

*process may differ slightly now as I finished high school last decade.

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NLFG@reddit

my school split the year half French, half German.

Luckily, I was in the German half.

Then did French for GCSE anyway.

[-]

DollySheep32@reddit

French, Spanish and German are the main three but my school also offered Mandarin. I did French (fluent babey) and Mandarin (somehow my German is still better considering I have an A2 in Mandarin).

[-]

SamVimesBootTheory@reddit

French

Although it never really stuck for me beyond I can remember some random words and I remember throughout school going through several different methods of teaching French which I think didn't really help

As I had the like fairly typical school way of doing so, then someone who was a native speaker so they had a different way of teaching and then someone who was like fluent but had another way of teaching

[-]

benDB9@reddit

French and German.

[-]

Sil_Lavellan@reddit

French for me, but I started in an English speaking school in France.

We were 'made' to do a foreign language at English secondary school, which was default French. At one point the school offered German GCSE, but the German teacher left in my second year, and got replaced by a French & Russian teacher, but too late for me to pick Russian, so it was French or French. Thanks to my head start in France, I did pretty well.

[-]

welshlondoner@reddit

I learned Welsh in primary school. In secondary I took French German and Welsh. I dropped French after 1 year. I could have chosen to drop all languages after 3 years of secondary school but instead continued with Welsh and German and did GCSE aged 16 in both. I then continued German and did A level when I was 18.

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kirstinet@reddit

French and Spanish.. then, because I was a swotty swot swot, I was offered a space in an after school/lunchtime extra class in Latin.. (this was in a bog standard comprehensive school.. not a posh nob school mind you! It just happened that our head of year was a Classics scholar and let her favourites join her for Latin..)

She was the reason I love Greek and Roman history now too.. she managed to slot in a Classics lesson once a week for all of our year but that only lasted for our first year, which was a shame.

RIP Mrs Behenna.

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Realistic-Muffin-165@reddit

We had the choice of German or French. There were a few folk who I think did latin.

A few miles away in a different region you could do Gaelic.

I chose german

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DancingWilliams@reddit

German, and how to use middle class English on the phone. Ya, stimmt.

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KrayzeKeef@reddit

English and Scouse

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Busy-Doughnut6180@reddit

French started in year 7 and ended in year 9 when we were picking our GCSEs. It wasn't compulsory to keep it at my school and I was actively encouraged to drop it in favour of other more "respected" subjects. Slightly bitter about this now because I wasn't allowed to pick it back up at A Level when I realised I liked languages.

Second language education for English speakers is piss poor in England.

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snavej1@reddit

French, German, Welsh. However, nowhere near fluent in any of them. Hardly anyone willing to help with conversation practice.

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tk1178@reddit

The Academy I went to in Scotland had 4 "Tutor" groups, or home groups per year, further split into two sub groups. Anyway, two of the main groups got French in the first two years and the other groups got German. By the third and fourth GCSE years you could either choose to take the other language or choose to follow the one you started with. I had German for the four years

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Consistent_Ad3181@reddit

Unless you go to a decent school, languages are taught very badly, it's not useful.

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fluentindothraki@reddit

I grew up in Austria, we started English and Latin at 10, French (or Russian, that was the other choice in my school) at 14

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newtonbase@reddit

French was 2nd. For a 3rd it alternated school years so I got German which I hated, the years ahead and behind us got Spanish. As a 53 year old I'm learning Spanish now which I love.

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JennyW93@reddit

We did Welsh, French, and German

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Made_Up_Name_1@reddit

French, German and Latin.

The UK and Ireland are the only two countries in Europe not to require school pupils learn a foreign language. However in Ireland and in Wales you do still learn a second language in addition to English, it's just it's a native language (Gaelic in Ireland and Welsh in Wales).

So I think it's correct to say that England and Scotland are the only two countries in Europe where there is no requirement to learn a second language in school.

Ridiculous much.

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spinningdice@reddit

I did French in Middle school because that was the only option - I was shit at it, so switched German for High School / GCSE, but I was shit at that too.

Apart from somehow retaining the lyrics of Allouette, I remember very little of either (I did try to resuscitate my German with Duolingo, but gave up when that app was subjected to increased enshittification.

Apparently they're introducing the option to take British Sign Language (BSL) as your language option. Also bizarrely my eldest was allowed to take coding as a language option (and IIRC their other options were French or Spanish).

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LAcasper@reddit

Jai perdu Mon Frere.

I don't have a brother but that's all I remember.

I wish more emphasis was put on learning languages in British schools.

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owzleee@reddit

I did french and German at school. I’m now learning Spanish as I live in South America. I don’t think I’ve ever had to use french or German. I wish I’d learnt Spanish instead. It’s much harder learning a new language in your 50s.

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kelliphant@reddit

German (up to A-Level), Latin (up to GCSE) and French (up to year 9). I went to Berlin in December and tried my hardest to unlock my knowledge from 15 years ago, with moderate success!

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No_Doubt_About_That@reddit

French and German, opted to do German at GCSE.

Although did about a month of Duolingo as part of preparing for a trip to Italy and probably knew as much Italian than I did German in that timeframe.

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itsableeder@reddit

I learned French and German. Because I was good at French I got put in the top set, did my French GCSE in year 10, and then did German GCSE in year 11.

The result was that I forgot all of my French because I stopped using it, and then forgot all of my German after my exams because a year of intensive study is enough to get through a GCSE but not enough to actually learn the language.

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fififolle79@reddit

French and German at secondary school in Scotland in the 90s, French in 1st year, German added 2nd year. I continued to university and now live in Luxembourg.

Here my kids learned Luxembourgish age 4-6, then German, then French. At my daughter’s lycée they add in English/Latin in the second year. My son’s at a European school so he has language 1 English, L2 German, L3 French.

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Xenozip3371Alpha@reddit

Well after 3 years of Spanish classes in high school, I have the ability to say "my name is" in spanish... yeah I'm bad with languages.

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GreyScot88@reddit

I learnt French, some schools in my secondary learnt German. You could choose between French, German, and Spanish later on

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cowbutt6@reddit

French was the default for at my secondary school (ages 11-16 inclusive). I didn't have to study it past age 14 (I think that it's now mandatory to study a second modern language until 16).

Italian was also an option instead, but only for my peers with Italian parents.

I studied a little German at sixth form, as a "liberal studies" option, which was informal and not examined.

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Britkraut@reddit

French, but I've probably learned more leaning into your meme culture online than anything in the classroom

Also it really helps just how many words and expressions we share, and I'm a sucker for etymology

Mais ma Francais est tres merde

("Bonjour! Desole, ma Francais est mal, je suis stupide anglais... Ou est les toillets, ah bien, merci beaucoup) < Tends to work abroad

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elhazelenby@reddit

In primary school (mainstream school) I learned french.

In secondary school I learned no second languages as I was in the special needs unit and we had no languages available. The year below us did study Spanish, though.

Even though I moved secondary schools when I was 15-16 I moved to a special school and no languages were available except for very basic French which I would have already learned at primary and I didn't have time for it as I had less than a year to study for mainly Maths & English GCSEs (plus Science & Art) in the mainstream school next door which were connected.

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Golden-Event-Horizon@reddit

Welsh & French

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Defiant-Tackle-0728@reddit

I think my high school must have been a rarity, especially for a working class area.

The school taught French, German, Spanish, Russian/Ukrainian, Italian, Polish and Dutch.

There was also lunchtime classes for other languages - we had teachers who studied 'classics' so could speak Latin, Greek, Hebrew, bit other teachers also had knowledge of Hindi, Urdu, Afrikaans, Sesotho, and Mandarin.

By the time I left at 16 I had 'decent' GCSEs in French, Spanish, Russian and Polish

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Anubis1958@reddit

Fortran.

Much more useful than French or Latin!

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Haxuppdee-85@reddit

I think part of the reason that the UK is so bad at teaching language is because there isn’t an obvious second language to teach - at various points throughout school, I learnt German, French and Spanish, so I couldn’t progress properly in any of them

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ter9@reddit

J'ai appris le français et l'allemand à l'école il y a 25 ans, mais une deuxième langue étrangère Aujourd'hui est rare, même les meilleurs écoles ont jeté les langues supplémentaires. C'est triste

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AlternativePrior9559@reddit

French for me. But now I live in a French speaking country and actually speak the language, I realise how utterly useless a lot of academic language learning can be. It doesn’t encourage reflexive speaking skills. It’s fine knowing how to conjugate verbs but quite another thing to use them in a real conversation.

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Howley22@reddit

Just French, remember that old Tricolore text book.

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Macrihanishautomatic@reddit

German. I don’t think learning German in school is as common as it used to be.

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jolittletime@reddit

French and german were the only ones offered at my school. French compulsory from 11, german an option from 12. (you could do spanish from 16 but that was because there was only 1 teacher so they couldnt have a lot of students doing it). I am old though. My daughter did some French at primary, and at secondary rotated between French, German and Spanish. Choosing 1 to carry on was optional from 14.

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Proper_North_5382@reddit

I've grown up in Germany so had a similar experience to you with languages. English all the way as a second language and then either french or Spanish, it depends regionally as well with borders (Polish, Czech, Danish, Dutch).

I'm working in a school in the UK now and I would say from my experience, learning a language here is very basic, it was mostly how I learned Spanish in school back in Germany, vocabulary and very basic sentences. Definitely not towards fluency like English for us.

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tobotic@reddit

In my generation (born in 1980), French and German were the two main foreign languages taught at schools, with French being the more popular of the two.

Today, Spanish is the most popular, but French and German are still commonly taught.

I personally did mostly German and Latin, some French, and a tiny bit of Greek and Japanese. This is partly due to having moved around a bit and gone to multiple schools.

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LoudCar7846@reddit

In secondary school, it was compulsory for us to learn French for 5 years and take a GCSE, we also studied Latin for 2 years with an option to continue another 3 years to GCSE and it was optional to study German for 3 years to GCSE. *GCSE (General Certificate of School Education) was the exam taken at the time around age 15/16.

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Danglyweed@reddit

We did french, German, latin. My kids school is french and spanish.

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hoganpaul@reddit

It depends on the schools teachers. If no-one there can teach, say, German, then German isn't an option.

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Do_You_Like_Owls@reddit

Spanish & German. Spanish was my first and main which I did for 3 years.

You 'had' to choose at least 1 language to do at GCSE but they said they won't enforce it, so I dropped them all. I wish I hadn't.

Never done French and I was quite anti-French in school.

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Old_Introduction_395@reddit

I started French at 9. Then I started French again at 11. At 12 was offered Spanish, German or Russian. I took German. I also did Latin for a year.

I moved to Portugal, and discovered some French from 30 years before.

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RamblingManUK@reddit

I supposedly learned French, I now can't remember a word of it because I've had almost no chance to use it since and wasn't taught very well in the first place. This seems to be very common.

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horn_and_skull@reddit

You did ask but in my Australia school we had to do one European language and one Asian language. Our options were French or German and then only Japanese for the Asian language. But I believe they now offer Chinese, which makes political/cultural sense.

Indonesian was also very popular in schools (makes sense because look at maps).

Here in the UK my son’s school does Spanish. Which makes sense as we are in an area of London where there are a lot of Spanish speakers.

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Educational-Angle717@reddit

German and French - couldnt get a handle on French at all though so dropped to just German. Can still count the numbers but have forgotten the rest sadly.

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AlucardVTep3s@reddit

In Wales we’re taught Welsh in primary and high school. When you get to high school, some were given Spanish, some French and I believe a few had both.

With the option to progress all 3 after GCSE.

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bopeepsheep@reddit

French at my school, with German added the following year as an option - we had a large RAF cohort, many of whom already spoke some German, and our main German teacher was Bavarian (unlike the French teachers who had regional UK accents) so this was a pretty popular option. My mum spoke both at a professional level so I did both, but I moved schools to one that made me choose, and I'm sorry, I chose German (mostly because my choice was German & Art or French & Geography or Woodwork).

My daughter's school split the year group: Spanish or German. We asked for German. She was allocated to Spanish. She gave up and taught herself Japanese instead.

The punchline: I've spent way more time speaking French, as an adult spending lots of time in France and Belgium, and my daughter's partner is French. Sigh.

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sneltonexp@reddit

French was mandatory in secondary school from yr7-11 (split into 3 sets: top, middle, bottom). Then the year group was split into either German or Spanish, again mandatory, from yr8-9, with the option to carry on to GCSE/A-Level. I was never confident at speaking French, but could understand the general gist of what's going on. I was definitely better at German and carried it on through my GCSEs.

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cari-strat@reddit

French and Russian. Would have also done German but they said there were only a handful of us capable of three foreign languages so they couldn't justify running it.

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Intrepid_Bearz@reddit

Started off in England

Age 5 -10 - French 6-10 - Latin

Moved to Indonesia

Age 10 - 16 - Indonesian

Moved back to England

Age 16-21 - Spanish

Age 19-21 - Italian

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iolaus79@reddit

I don't remember any in primary school

Did Welsh and French year 7, those two and German in year 8 and 9, then french and German until GCSE then just German at A level

My kids went to Welsh medium primary so didn't have English lessons till they were 7, from year 7(so age 11) they did french none took it past year 9 - but did do Welsh language and literature at GCSE alongside English

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Foxtrot7888@reddit

I did French and German. Spanish wasn’t offered at my school then (in the 90s) but has now become the most popular language at GCSE (the exams you take when you’re 16).

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Vetni@reddit

French from age 9 to 16, with one year of German age 13-14.

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Hairy_Ad5141@reddit

Posh school, so we had French & Latin - compulsory up to O Level (GCSE equivalent) and O Level options.

Also a choice of German or Greek, but not both, for O Level.

In 6th Form we had a voluntary option to do an additional language - Spanish or Russian. I chose Russian!

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Vena_Mala@reddit

At my schools we did French in year 5 (age 10), Spanish in year 6 (age 11), then at secondary school everyone did French and half the year did Spanish and half did German. From age 15 onwards you can choose to carry on one of those languages, or sometimes another option like Latin or Mandarin, or none.

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Fluffy_Ad2274@reddit

French from 8, German from 13: in those days, you had to have at least one foreign language at GCSE (a C, from memory) to go to university, even if you weren't doing anything connected with languages, so my school hedged their bets and made you do Spanish or German as well as French. My parents made me do German, on the grounds it would be harder to pick up on my own later. There was definitely logic in there- somewhere!

All these years later, I've been to Spain once, but go to Germany for work every other year or so. As all I can remember is how to order food without onions - that no longer is necessary, given that I now eat onions - it hasn't been much lasting help more long term.

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reditcyclist@reddit

French und German

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flags_fiend@reddit

Quite a while ago, but I learnt German from age 11 and French from age 12. At 14 we could choose and I chose to continue French until age 16. It feels like Spanish and French are more commonly offered in schools than German these days.

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Kinbear@reddit

When I was at school it was french for a year (our nearest neighbour), then german for a year (for a bit of a change, and maybe more business related), and nowadays it's more likely to be spanish as that, I'm guessing would be more likely where brits would be going on holiday (and actually have a use for a language. (whether they do use it or not is their problem)).

Funny annecdote time - A freind of mine was a stand in teacher, and a pupil once said to her "Why do I have to learn French Miss, I live in f******g wigan.
Out of the mouths of babes eh. 😉

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keithmk@reddit

French

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BastardsCryinInnit@reddit

My school offered Spanish or French, but it was unusual in that - every other one in the area offered French or German.

We got to choose, and I chose Spanish, and I would say I am B1, but on a good day where I have been in Spain for a few days and had a few coffees, I can be B2.

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unbelievablydull82@reddit

German, by teacher with a very heavy west African accent. I was terrible in school anyway, but still managed to get a D in GCSE with only doing a paragraph in the written exam and an awful oral exam

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SnowflakeBaube22@reddit

French from Primary 6. We got like 4 months of German in 2nd year and then we could choose between French or German for Standard Grades. I chose French. I got an A. I still couldn’t hold a conversation with a French speaker if I tried.

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Ok-Application-8045@reddit

German, then French, then later Spanish.

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Particular_Pickle465@reddit

I learned French for 7 years and Welsh for 5 years. There was the option of German or Spanish but I picked French.

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Snaggl3t00t4@reddit

German amd French.

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Organic-Violinist223@reddit

I feel so sorry for my high school French teacher, who braved a high school in Salford with a bar madame Turkeltob! We were horrible to her for no apparent reason! I remember her shouting at us, telling us we might one day visit France and learning French would help us! We laughed and laughed! Anyway, I did end up living in France for 5 years, and I wish to this day, I just listened and learnt French! Je suis tres desole, Madame Turkeltob! Si tu es ici, j’adore la France et la langue!

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awesome2701@reddit

I studied french for 4 years, dropped it as it was a terrible approach. Whej I was at school it was only German or French.

Now they do include Spanish at most Scottish schools too, and also a lot offer gaelic.

It's not a good way to learn. I think I have more success with Duolingo (and that is saying something!)

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Late-Champion8678@reddit

French and German

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affogatohoe@reddit

I went to school in Walws, we all had to do Welsh and were assigned French or German for tour third language. Some students cpuld also pick Latin for GCSE and then in sixth form we had to do a small Mandarin course for some reason

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ProfessorVirtual5855@reddit

French.

Oui bonjour je mapele. That all i remember

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AnnieByniaeth@reddit

French, then German.

I had an inspiring French teacher, and honestly by the age of 18 I was fluent in French. A lot of people here will say it's a waste of time, but it opened up a new world for me. My German, not so much. But inspired by what French gave me I carried on pursuing German, and I'm now fluent in that too.

It's all down to the teaching I think.

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ohsaycanyourock@reddit

At my school we all did French plus either Spanish or German until year 9. I actually went on to do my degree in French and German, but most kids dropped all the languages after year 9. I have a big Welsh family and they all had to learn Welsh to a certain point too.

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Limp_Introduction_22@reddit

Oou ey lar bibliotech?

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Magnus_40@reddit

French and Latin

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Jimbobthon@reddit

French and Welsh. Didn't do well in French, did ok in Welsh.

Wanted to do German instead of French, but wasn't allowed to. I mean, living there for 5 years wasn't enough to be allowed to learn and I spoke more German (at the time) than 1/2 of those learning it.

Can't speak much, if any German now nor can i speak any French. Welsh, i can understand the basics and can speak a few sentences

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whitebelt_ric@reddit

We did French from yr7-yr9, and could then continue with it for GCSEs (1 language was mandatory), swap it for German for GCSE or do both. I did both. This was back in the 90s.

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AnyOlUsername@reddit

Spoke English at home, Welsh in school, did French as a 3rd.

My children will be learning Spanish as a 3rd probably.

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9ofdiamonds@reddit

Bof

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sbaldrick33@reddit

None, to any degree that was satisfactory, but in theory we were supposed to learn French and Spanish.

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RaggamuffinTW8@reddit

German.

Panjabi was offered and I tried to do that but I was good that it was intended for people who spoke it at a bit home as a way to help them become fluent so I couldn't take it.

The following year they revised the Panjabi syllabus to make it the same as other modern foreign languages rather than a supplemental thing. My little brother got to learn it. Bastard.

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Electronic-Stay-2369@reddit

I was at school in the 1970s/early 80s; we started French at the end of Primary school (age 11), then did French and German for 1st 2 years of secondary. We had to choose 1 language to take to O-level (national exams taken at age 16) so it was French for me but I chose this over German as the teacher was a fit young female!!. (Latin was available too but only about 5 people took that)

I know little about languages in schools these days, but I think Spanish and Mandarin are available too now.

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redrighthand_@reddit

A little bit of French and German from age 10 and then it was compulsory for 3 years in senior school (11+). At age 14, you had to do a ‘core language’ (French, German or Spanish) but Russian was also an option which I did alongside French. Everyone had to do some sort of language at GCSE.

At A-level I considered carrying on with Russian but I understand Italian, Japanese and mandarin were options at that point.

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IansGotNothingLeft@reddit

For me it was French or German, for my daughter it's French or Spanish.

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QueefInMyKisser@reddit

Moi j’ai appris le français et l’allemand à l’école

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Substantial_Self_939@reddit

Moi aussi ! J'ai aimé les deux mais preferé apprendre le français.

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nunatakj120@reddit

When i was at school in the 90s it was french to start with (but thats at about age 11 so already too late really) then you could choose to swap to spanish or german. The reality was that apart from a handful of folk who were really into it, almost everybody learned the square root of fuck all, much to my regret, myself included.

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Moron-with-a-drill@reddit

English

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JaredH20@reddit

Started off with French and then in Year 8 if we were particularly good at French we had the option to take Spanish too. Dropped French in Year 9 but continued with Spanish through to GCSE

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ramapyjamadingdong@reddit

I learned French from 3-18. Initially it was naming foods, colours and numbers. At 11, we could talk about daily routines and holidays. By 18, I was writing 200 word analyses of newspaper articles and read Les Mains Salles and watched Jean de Floret. Nowadays I could manage shopping/describing a holiday.

I learned Latin 12-16. We translated passages from the Aneid. It was passive and I've forgotten most of it. Caecilius est in horto.

I did German 13-24 and lived there, at one point I was fluent/C2 level and dreamed in German.

Spanish I studied age 16-18. I could do numbers, French & Latin words with Spanish verb endings and very little else.

I took Russian for a year at 18 but the teaching was very poor and I know what I've learned from friends rather in the classroom.

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Actual-Morning110@reddit

sarcasm

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PaleozoicQueen@reddit

In Wales it is mandatory we take Welsh until year 9.

My high school only offered French and Spanish.

My third language is German, had to teach myself.

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Final_Flounder9849@reddit

We were taught French, German and Latin.

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Jimbob136925@reddit

French seems to be the more common second language here. some schools offer German or Spanish as options. I have even heard on rare occasions of Polish being taught.

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Another_Random_Chap@reddit

In the UK, back in the 70s, we did a compulsory 5 years of French and 2 years of German, with the option of another 2 years German if you wanted. There was also the option to study Spanish or Latin for 2 years, but very few did.

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terryjuicelawson@reddit

French, Welsh and German

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paspa1234@reddit

Spanish + Chinese

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Karla_Darktiger@reddit

Up until year 8 we all had to learn French. From year 9 we had to choose one of 4 (French, German, Spanish or Mandarin) to do as a GCSE. I chose Mandarin for some reason and learned absolutely nothing.

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ScarletScotYew@reddit

I went through Gaelic Medium Education (GME) in Scotland in 1990's. You learn all your usual subjects (maths, PE, history etc) immersively in gaelic from P1-P3. English is introduced from P4 onwards, but you learn it more as a secondary language compared to how the gaelic was taught. My kids are currently in GME and it looks to still be the same process, although my 6 year old has done 8 week blocks on French, German and Italian which wasn't something they did back in my day.

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EricGeorge02@reddit

French and German. Went on to study both at university. Used French quite a lot for work, German more socially.

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EntrepreneurFast7772@reddit

French and Spanish at my school. It was mostly situational language, with very little grammar. Basically like learning from a phrase book without knowing how the language works. The biggest problem though was the lack of pronunciation. We just said the phrases in our northern English accents. I doubt any native speaker would have been able to understand us.

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EnvironmentalCrow266@reddit

"Caecilius quoque pavonem gustat"..

Although it is a dead language and if you wish to pursue Latin further, you have to accompany it with a foreign language like French, German.

Obviously not to the level as they teach English abroad, as it's further broken down into learning about Greek mythology, Minerva, Scylla and Charybdis, so not sure how much we took away from it.

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Iammildlyoffended@reddit

I learned French from year 7 (11 years old) then in year 8 we also had to learn German we could choose to drop a language in year 9, I chose to continue with French.

I recalled a lot of French from school but as others have said it’s fairly basic no one was remotely fluent leaving school. As an adult I’ve continued trying to teach myself, I can read recipes I find online but not a newspaper. I can hold a simple conversation when in a French speaking country but not if the person deviates from what I think they might say.

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Creative-Response554@reddit

I did french, but i didn't get to choose.

I've been to Spain far more than I've been to France, so french has turned out to be useless and the most I can do is say my name, please, thank you, sorry, and "2 beers please".

That said, I can say "2 beers please" in quite a few languages, so I'm set for going on holiday to most places 😂

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sangokuhomer@reddit (OP)

😂😂😂

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shinigami_kid42@reddit

In my school we had French and Spanish. Some of the students studied French including me and some were studying Spanish.

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DavidJonnsJewellery@reddit

French. Always struggled with it though. Never understood why languages weren't taught orally rather than written. Far easier and more natural to learn it. Girlfriends father spoke perfect fluent French as he was half Belgium and spent his early years there but was illiterate in the written language

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CompetitionNo3466@reddit

I had 1-5 lessons of French in year 4 (8/9 age) Then from year 6-8 1 lesson a week (10/13) In year 9 my year group got split randomly into either French German or Spanish with only the top classes doing 2 languages (13/16)

And that was it with any foreign language teaching I got

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Artistic_Option_3822@reddit

French and Russian.

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PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit

Welsh. It is mandatory in schools in Wales until year 11. I got an A* in my Welsh GCSE. Barely used it since, and definitely getting rusty even when I head back to Gwynedd and speak it properly.

For as much as I love the Welsh language and heritage, I would've preferred a more useful language. I was never going to take two languages and Welsh was compulsory.

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Peanut0151@reddit

O level French. I did a month travelling around France with my dad in the summer after the exam and I was completely lost!

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PercentageCool5809@reddit

Everyone had to learn French from age 12, then a year later you could add in either Latin or German (or neither). Age 16-18, a small subset could also learn Russian and/or Spanish. This was a comprehensive school (non-selective state school) in Scotland in the 1970’s — so a long time ago! I still use the French and Latin (don’t speak Latin, obviously, but I often find that I am drawing on it to help me understand English word meanings).

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Head_Lie_1301@reddit

We did French and Irish up until 3rd form, then for GCSEs, we could pick one.

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Conscious_Cat_6204@reddit

Same.

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theonetruethingfish@reddit

French. At my schools there were no other choices.
Unfortunately, some idiots resented this and refused to learn anything. Myself included.

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pixpix89@reddit

Ours was split. Half of the year group did French and half did German. I was in the German side. Then those who were very good at languages also did Spanish.

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esper_wing@reddit

It was the same for us (I was in the French side), then in Year 9 you also had the option of picking up the other language as well. We could also take the Spanish GCSE as an optional 'enrichment' class in sixth form (instead of debating or sports whatever else people did).

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DeadlyTeaParty@reddit

French, but it wasn't taken seriously by the teachers. It was a stupidly shit shool, would've fallen below Ofsted's standard tbh. (1990s)

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theModge@reddit

We did French in school (I age 18 left 2002). If you were good at French you were also offered Russian, however I was not good.

I bitterly regret being led along by my peers into not taking the lesson as seriously as I should: I now work alongside a French company and a better level of French would be useful. In later life I've learnt Italian (to a bad, but just about conversational standard) for family reasons.

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foxfunk@reddit

We did French and German, and I continued to do French for GCSE and remember bugger all.

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mcshaggin@reddit

When I was in school Welsh was the main language we learned. I also learned French although not very well

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Professional-Test239@reddit

The answer will be different for Wales compared to the rest of the UK.

Welsh is compulsory for all ages as a subject. But also, all subjects are taught in both English and Welsh.

In rural areas with only one school, the school will be bilingual. In larger areas with more schools there will be a choice of exclusively English or Welsh medium schools.

I learnt French as my 3rd language but it wasn't really emphasised. It was only for 2 hours a week and it was only from the ages of 11 to 14. So I can't really speak French.

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Additional-Lion6969@reddit

They tried to teach me French from about 9 years old until I was 16, they "wasted" a year when I was 12 with German I remember more of it than the French

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Immediate-Platform59@reddit

I did Italian, I really enjoyed it. Spanish is my first language so did the GCSE for that but did not go to any classes.

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Own-Jeweler3169@reddit

They made us do Latin in Year 7, and french up until GCSEs, with a trial period of French, Spanish and German to pick your language GCSE, I picked German, should have picked Spanish lol.

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spanakopita555@reddit

In the late 90s/early 00s we all started with French at age 12 (year 7, first year of secondary). I already knew some French from a primary school extra curricular club, plus a tape my Dad used to play non-stop in our car. We also all took Latin for a year (rare in a state school).

We then had a choice of second language in Year 8, either Spanish or German. I took German.

These days it's common to start the second language in primary school, which is so much better. My small relatives are also learning French.

These days, some secondary schools have a wider range of languages available but it very much depends on teachers and budget. Private schools are much more likely to offer more 'exotic' options.

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Bipolar03@reddit

French until year 9 (13). My son is primary school (5 - 10) he is learning Spanish at his school.

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boredsittingonthebus@reddit

French, then after that we had the options of German, Spanish or Urdu. I chose German.

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QuailTechnical5143@reddit

French or German.

I have a ‘Level 12 certificate of distinction’ in German language.

So I’m one level above a monkey in practical terms.

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Effective_Crazy6307@reddit

From age 11-14, we all learnt French. Then top 2 sets learnt either German or Spanish (this rotated yearly, my year learnt German)

Then for GSCE (age 14-16), you could choose to do a language, but it was not mandatory.

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JonCee500@reddit

French

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Raven-Nightshade@reddit

I was given the choice between French Spanish or German. I chose French because I have family there so already spoke it, failed at school because I spoke a regional dialect.

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o-J-A-Y-_-J-A-Y@reddit

Afrikaans. English is my home language.

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Severe_Mastodon8072@reddit

In school? That’s really cool

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o-J-A-Y-_-J-A-Y@reddit

Apologies, I didnt notice the group I posted my reply in. To be fair I went to school in South africa

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azzthom@reddit

Here in England, we all take French for a year with the option to continue. If a third language is taken, it is usually German though other languages may be available. For example, a girl I was at school with took and passed an 'O' level in Serbo-Croatian. Guess where her family were from? Hi Sandra, if youre reading this.

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Willing-Job8685@reddit

Scotland 90’s
Primary school 4-10 yo it was French
Primary school 10-11 yo it was German
High school 11-13 yo it was German
High school 13-16 yo it was Spanish and German

I remember nothing of French or Spanish as it was not as consistent as German. German was over 4 years as 2 plus hours per week v Spanish which was only 1 hour a week.

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Fast_Assumption_118@reddit

We don't learn languages very well. They try to reach us grammar and sentence structure before we can actually speak the language. I am a long time out of school so this may have changed but I think we need to be learning to speak a language from middle school at the latest and then they can work on the other stuff

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dinkidoo7693@reddit

French and Spanish. Was much better at Spanish but too many people tried to do it for GCSE and there was only one tutor so I had to take french and apparently i was the only student who answered 100% in french speaking but most of my answers made no sense (apparently my brother is a blue cockerel and theres a rabbit in a vest) i was awful at the written side of it and got a E
I think id have done loads better in Spanish.

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youshouldbeelsweyr@reddit

My school offered French,, German and Spanish along with Latin for some reason. But you weren't allowed to take Latin unless you had an A in Higher English and another language which was annoying cause I wanted to take Latin but wasn't allowed cause I didn't take a higher in French

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Holli303@reddit

French, Spanish and German. We also did some Latin, but that was at my first school because it was posh.😂 I lived in France on and off until I was 7. My French is still terrible.

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Meat2480@reddit

French and German,

The only time German was useful was when I was in the TA .

Went in a bar and asked for 3 Bier's bitte, danke,

Everyone else was getting small glasses until they asked what I said.

Never used the french

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Miketroglycerin@reddit

French and Spanish. French started in secondary school at age 11, Spanish at 13, both could be dropped when gcse subjects were picked for the last two years. Honestly, it felt like a waste of time, we didn't have enough lessons to really pick much up. At the time i dropped them both, i barely knew more than when i started.

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rainbow84uk@reddit

In the mid 90s to early 2000s, we all did French in first year, and French and German in second and third year. After that we could choose 1-2 languages from French, German and Spanish to study to GCSE level (national exams you take at 16 years old).

I chose French and Spanish, and also added Latin as an extra subject. I got high grades in all 3, so continued with French and Spanish for my A Levels (national exams you take at 18 years old).

At the end of my final year, I was awarded the school's Modern Languages prize by default because was the only person in my entire year who studied 2 languages at A Level 😅

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JoeDaStudd@reddit

Im my mid 30s so not the youngest.

It was french starting around year 5 then a year of french and German at year 9 then the choice of either (or both) for GCSE.\ I took both at GCSE

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ExoticExchange@reddit

I did French and German from year 7 to 11 and have GCSE’s in both finished GCSEs in 2009. Spanish was also done in year 9 and was an optional GCSE for those interested. Academically weak kids only did one of French/German for GCSE and I think had extra maths/English in place of the other.

At the time I went to a secondary school that has “Language College” status so I think that meant we had to do both languages as they had funding tied to it.

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WraithCadmus@reddit

As my school was quite small we had a choice of French. When I moved that expanded to include German and Spanish, of which the former seemed the more popular, but I was already three years into French by that point.

I actually quite enjoyed language classes which put me in a very small minority, the curse of the Anglophone is I've barely used it and can't remember more than the absolute basics any more.

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doctorliaratsone@reddit

For my school it was French and German as the two compulsory languages taught from 11-14? (you did one or the other and the decision of which was purely luck) there was option from 14 to do either French, German, Chinese or Spanish

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Rowanx3@reddit

Throughout school i did spanish, italian and french. Its a bit pointless here though cause not all primary schools do different languages, in my primary school we did a new language every year which is silly. Y7 we did both Spanish and french, y8&9 we just did french then you dont have to do a language after that.

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AttentionOtherwise80@reddit

Im old, and I did French. My millennial kids did French too, though they could do Spanish or German. One has done Italian and one Japanese since school. They have been to both Italy and Japan, so useful.

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Flibertygibbert@reddit

I went to a grammar school in Wales 1969- 1976.

I learned Latin (2? years), Welsh (3 years), French (7 years, GCSE & A-level) and German (3 years for GCSE).

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EUskeptik@reddit

French was the second language.

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IainMCool@reddit

In Y7 we got separated into German or French lessons. I was put into German lessons. Our Teacher was absolutely abysmal and I learned next to nothing in 3 years. In Y9 we then had one lesson a week in the "other" language, so for me, French. Then in Y10 you had to decide whether to do French or German GCSE.

In one year of 1 lesson a week I'd learned more French than 3 years of German lessons several times a week (which wasn't saying much). I ended up not even taking the exam because I knew fuck all really.

Looking back, I'm pissed off with the school. I don't know anyone who passed their German GCSE other than Dieter, whose Mum was German. They failed probably thousands of students in their duty to educate a second language.

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elementarydrw@reddit

We were assigned either French or German, depending on which of the year 'halfs' we were assigned to. So half the year did French, the other did German.

Later, we did a year of both - so I continued German and started French too. Then, in our GCSE years, I had to choose one to do as a GSCE (I chose German as I was already ahead with that one.)

Our school had no other languages, but I know people who did Spanish, Latin, and even Japanese.

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Fudge_is_1337@reddit

My school pushed for two language GCSEs for the majority of students, with some exceptions.

I think everyone was either French+German, or Spanish+German. We did an evening class once a week to get French finished by end of year 10, freeing up timetable space for German (and other things) in year 11. Can't really remember the details of how the schedule worked

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Responsible-Post6431@reddit

At my primary school we learnt a tiny tiny bit of French but I remember my Year 5 teacher saying "I'm learning it as you guys are".

At my secondary school, for the first 6 weeks in Year 7 (aged 11), we were split into our Form Classes for Modern Foreign Langauges. For the first 2 weeks, my Form did Spanish with the only Spanish teacher, then for the next 2 weeks did French with one French teacher, then for the next 2 weeks did French with the other French teacher.

Other Forms alternated similar to us.

Then we had to pick a language, so I picked French.

I learnt it for 3 years at secondary school and I was one of the top of my class.

At GCSE we could pick our language as an option but I chose not to.

So I learnt French for 3 years at school, being near the top of my class, and I've now lived in the French-speaking region of Belgium for a year and a half and I can't speak any French. That's how useless it was at school.

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Tar-Nuine@reddit

French. Tried speaking it to a French person and now I have a mortal enemy.
Spanish. Never been to a Spanish speaking country, nor met anybody that speaks it.

Taught myself Sindarin in high school and have a large friend group who love to hear it.

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Sea-Possession-1208@reddit

French and German

Not very well

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excitedbynaps@reddit

I learnt French from age 4 until I reached senior school at 11. Half the scbool did French, the other half did German. An arbitary scheduling choice - we didnt get to choose. Then after a year, you would learn both languages (or in our case - encourage the french teacher to go on an hour long rant about the environment and forget to teach). In my case, I learnt German despite knowing some French, and by the time the next year came around, Id forgotten all my French. In regards to the German - I learnt more on duolingo as an adult.

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Holiday-Wafer708@reddit

I did French at primary school which continued at secondary school then in year 8 we could pick German or Spanish - I picked German. I also decided to do Japanese as an extra so in year 8 I was learning 3 languages. We had to do Latin in year 7 I can't remember if I also did it in year 8. I did French as an a level though

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Exact-Put-6961@reddit

Latin and French

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SpudFire@reddit

French, no option to do a different language. Started it in secondary school (year 7), then it was no longer compulsory after year 9 and was one of the subjects you could choose to take for GCSEs (Y10 and Y11). Hardly anybody in my year group chose to carry on with it, and I think those that did only really chose it because it might look better on university applications.

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ellieneagain@reddit

French was our second language in my part of Scotland. Spanish is gaining in popularity as the second language because it's a more common holiday destination.

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mcrmittens@reddit

In my school, we started French in Year 7 (when you're starting High School) for 5 years every fortnight. Then in Year 8, the top set also took German, but it meant you only did 3 hours of French and 2 hours of German every fortnight

.... and people are surprised why the British have the stereotype for just speaking English abroad!

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romeo__golf@reddit

We learnt French at school, but it was also a Jewish faith-based school and we had the option to learn Hebrew as well.

This was only offered to students who had learnt it prior to secondary age and could already read/write the alphabet. I'd been to a Church of England primary school before moving to a Jewish secondary so I couldn't read/write much at all and wasn't included in the classes, but I loved learning French and took it right through to A-level.

Advanced students were given the option to learn Latin in a lunch-time session once a week and I think there were about 15 of them in my year group.

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Physical-Bear2156@reddit

We had to do French from about 9 years old. It was compulsory until you were 15, and no other options were offered, except being able to do German, as well. I utterly hated it because I wanted to learn Spanish.

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No_Release2180@reddit

Students in secondary school are usually required to learn a modern language - most commonly French and German, or occasionally Spanish. Unless you take it further in adulthood, it will be a very cursory understanding of the language. At best you'll be able to introduce yourself, count to 10, name the colours and ask for directions to the post office.

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LittleSadRufus@reddit

We had French, German and Latin as options.

My daughter initially did French, then moved schools and now does Spanish and Mandarin.

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kingtutscoffeehut@reddit

French, Mandarin and Latin

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westy1980@reddit

Latin for some reason

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Proud_Ad_8915@reddit

French, German and Spanish.

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Easy-Plant-8783@reddit

We were given the options of French, German or Gaelic. I chose French but I just couldn't get the hang of it at all, masculine and feminine le, la, les then the counting oh my days!

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Careless_Count7224@reddit

Secondary school starts when you are 11 and the first 3 years we did German and French.

After that we can choose what subjects to do for the next 2 years (you can usually choose roughly 10 in total). I chose French as one of my language options.

After that we do 2 years of only 3-5 subjects. You can usually pick a language but I personally chose science and philosophy instead of any languages.

Since school I've actually become semi-fluent in Italian and forgotten almost all of my French, and all of my German.

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djwillis1121@reddit

French. That was the only choice at the time in our school and was compulsory for GCSE (the exams you take when you're 16 years old). A couple of years later they introduced Spanish as an option and you had to pick either that or French

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blow_on_my_trombone@reddit

At start of secondary school in year 7 it was French and German. Then in year 8 we got to pick, so I did Spanish and German. Then at GCSE I dropped the languages and did computer science instead.

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spik0rwill@reddit

I did french and german

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kipha01@reddit

French, 5 years, came away with an F in French and only knowing a few words.

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Historical_Project86@reddit

We could choose French or Latin, for the language we start learning at 11/12. These days, it's more likely to be a modern language, possibly a choice. My daughter did Spanish. Then we did German for a year or two but that started later, aged 13/14 I think. It must have just been a year since we had to choose exam subjects from 14/15, and I dropped German.

Welsh was an afterthought back then (I started secondary school in 1980), you could do an exam at 16 which was as difficult as age 11/12 French. These days kids learn Welsh all the way through school, only in Wales though obviously.

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elladeehex33@reddit

We did French and German in high school and then when we moved up to the college we had to choose just one of those to do. I think my old school now offer Spanish as well, but that wasn't a thing when I went.

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CarrotBusiness6255@reddit

We had a choice of French German Spanish in middle school

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Letter_Effective@reddit

At my school, 60% of the year was selected to learn French and the other 40% German from Years 7 to 11 (ages 11 to 16). From Year 10 onwards you can also choose to take Spanish too. I also took Latin for 5 years and Ancient Greek for 2.

Now, the knowledge of foreign languages is pretty low in the UK unless you're an immigrant or someone from an immigrant background (like me) due to English being so dominant worldwide. Which is a pity, as when I look at young continental Europeans they have the best of both worlds: they pick up English like a breeze due to films, games and music etc. and yet they have their own rich media. That does make me a tad jealous.

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cleverpops@reddit

French and Italian.

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Kholdula@reddit

My school had French, German and Spanish on offer and my kids have the same today. A higher Urdu exam used to exist (not sure if it's still on offer) so presumably there's others you can learn depending on what school you go to/what teachers that school has.

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