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How many languages can you speak (fluently)?


DarkWater

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I'm in Español 3, but I couldn't carry on a verbal conversation with someone who was a native Spanish speaker.

 

The only way I could hold a conversation in Spanish was because I worked at a restaurant for a couple years and the Mexicans there would teach me Spanish while I taught them English.  I also took about 3.5 years of Spanish in school and learned more working at a restaurant then school  :-\

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I meant exactly what I said.  Studies show that our education standards and grades are far below the rest of the world (not including like 3rd world countries, of course).

 

Well, when only 3% of our national budget goes to education, it's bound to happen.

 

EDIT: Wow...what a crappy top page post.

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Well...I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that, but percentages can be misleading.  You can make it look like countryX is doing a better job than countryY because countryX spends 10% of its budget on education, while countryY only spends 3%, by conveniently leaving out the dollar amount of the budgets.  For example, countryX could actually be spending 10% per 1 million dollars, while countryY could actually be spending 3% of 1 billion dollars.  That puts countryY significantly ahead of countryX in actual dollars spent. 

 

But tbh I don't really think it's a lack of money.  Other countries start their kids in school younger than us.  They expect more out of them.  It's a difference in morals, principles, ethics, discipline, value.  I don't think lack of money is one of the problems, so much as one of the resulting consequences.  In other words, education is not lacking because of lack of money, but rather, money is lacking because of lack of interest in education.

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Well...I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that, but percentages can be misleading.  You can make it look like countryX is doing a better job than countryY because countryX spends 10% of its budget on education, while countryY only spends 3%, by conveniently leaving out the dollar amount of the budgets.  For example, countryX could actually be spending 10% per 1 million dollars, while countryY could actually be spending 3% of 1 billion dollars.  That puts countryY significantly ahead of countryX in actual dollars spent. 

 

But tbh I don't really think it's a lack of money.  Other countries start their kids in school younger than us.  They expect more out of them.  It's a difference in morals, principles, ethics, discipline, value.  I don't think lack of money is one of the problems, so much as one of the resulting consequences.  In other words, education is not lacking because of lack of money, but rather, money is lacking because of lack of interest in education.

 

Good points, all the way around.  Living in a rural, dare I say, redneck area of the country, the lack of intellectual curiosity and general anti-intellectualism around here is palpable at times.  It's not good to be different, and not blend in with the crowd.

 

So, as a wheelchair bound, liberal atheist with a college degree and some programming skill, I don't exactly fit in, despite the fact that I've lived here my entire life.

 

It does lead to some interesting moments, but I digress.

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