Hello,

I am an upper year student looking for electives to take for my program, so ideally something I can still get a good grade in without crazy amounts of work. I am interested in learning another language other than English and French, and was wondering if anyone knew about the language courses offerred at Mac, such as the difficulty and teaching style?

I was looking at Russian, German, and Greek. I also saw Japanese, but it kind of turned me off that it was 6 credit intro course.

Can someone comment if they have taken the beginner courses to any of these?

Thanks.

Russian, German and Japanese are run by the Linguistics and Languages Dept. Greek by Classics. You won't find a better or more engaging language teacher than Dr. Nikolai Penner for German. He has started in the last year or so to use the method of TPRS, which is Total Physical Response with Storytelling. Rather than waste a lot of your personal time with learning vocabulary lists and grammar rules, time in class is used to tell and make up stories. This is actually a very productive method, justified by modern research into language acquisition, that involves students more thoroughly during class time and results in real mastery of the language. He promises very little homework. Tests are brief, often and fair. He marks generously and takes a real interest in everyone's progress. I believe the introductory course is usually in Summer evenings. The follow-up courses are in 3-unit chunks in the fall and winter semesters.

I've taken Japanese 1Z06 on my first year of university (Fall/Winter 2010-2011). It is such a great class and really fun too. Dr. Tsuneko Iwai is really nice and she really helps you do well in class. In this class, there is a mini-quiz at the start of every lecture which consist of either vocabulary or kanji. First few weeks of class however, you learn the basic writing systems: hiragana and katakana. In order to do well in this class, you have to dedicate your time studying outside of class especially with kanji and grammar. Although, I gotta say that Japanese grammar is totally different than English. You really need to dedicate your time to learn them. Class itself consist of grammar learning, some writing and reading exercises. Participation is key in this class as the prof will pick on you to read a passage or do a dialogue. Test wise, they're pretty fair and it always consists of grammar, kanji, vocabulary and some translations. The only homework you'll get in this class is workbook assignments that you hand in every two weeks. Every once in a while you do some compositions for her but she hardly does that. It may be a 6 unit course but Dr. Iwai does take her time to teach the language to her students and you do an oral presentation at the end where you write a dialogue between two people and present it. A lot of work but it was worth taking it. This course is always offered in the summer time but it's more compact than the regular Fall/Winter terms. I replied to this thread with a full review: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthrea...tr=J&t=20 238

I know you're not interested in Spanish but I've also taken Spanish 1Z06 in the summer time (Spring/Summer 2012). Dr. Geni Pontrelli is a great prof and she really helps you do well in class. She teaches the grammar well and takes her time doing so. Class consist of grammar learning and doing some exercises based on the grammar. You also do some reading and writing exercises and you are required to hand in some compositions to her to apply the grammar learned in class. She also does a dictado where she reads a passage and you have to write what she said on paper. Test is fair and it consist of vocabulary, grammar and translations and are pretty easy to do well. You do an oral presentation at the end where you present whatever you want for 5 min. Well, you have to talk about something for that long in Spanish of course. Overall great class and if you have some French knowledge, this will be a bit easier for you since grammar is similar to each other. This is not always offered in the summer time, but when it is, it's always on the evenings just like Japanese classes. Course review thread: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthrea...tr=S&t=80 601

Dont take complected things like Russian or Japanese, it will not make your life easier.

Take either Latin or Germanic family language. Like Spanish, German or French. You will find them somewhat similar to English.

Originally Posted by MrPlinkett

Dont take complected things like Russian or Japanese, it will not make your life easier.

Take either Latin or Germanic family language. Like Spanish, German or French. You will find them somewhat similar to English.

I wouldn't suggest making recommendations unless you've taken any of these courses. Even though the languages themselves may be more complicated than English, the teaching method is really what makes the course difficult or hard. French 1Z06 is actually supposed to be fairly difficult, since it's assumed everybody has some prior knowledge.

Anyway, I just took Polish 1Z03 and Russian 1Z03 this past semester. Russian 1Z03 may have been one of the easiest courses I've ever taken (pretty sure this professor is trying to get tenure). Polish was a bit harder, but also not much in terms of work. I went into both these courses with no familiarity with Slavic languages. The only thing that kind of sucks is both courses are littered with students who already speak the language fluently (especially Polish). Fortunately, they are usually overconfident, don't study and get crushed on tests, since they don't typically know spelling/grammar

Also, +1 for German with Nikolai Penner. I had him years ago and he was pretty awesome. He's very enthusiastic about what he teaches. I have him again this coming term for German 2ZZ3, and I'm looking forward to it. German 1Z06 is pretty hard to get into and fills up fast, so be aware of that.

I've also heard Chinese 1Z06 is a bird course at McMaster... that's about it though.

As far as I know, the "classical" language courses like Greek and Latin are actually quite difficult, since the focus isn't so much on learning to speak the language as it is to translate historical documents/passages. I wouldn't recommend taking those for fun, from what I've heard.

Thanks everyone!

I took Chinese 1Z06 last year and I'm taking French 1Z06 this year. I also tried getting into Japanese 1Z06 but this course gets full really quickly so unfortunately I couldn't.

Chinese is a very interesting course but I wouldn't say it's a bird course. It really requires studying from you. We had a lot of mini quizzes and tests, 2 presentations (In English but had to be about China and include some Chinese words), and final exams. We did a lot of reading and Mandarin conversations in class. As you can see it requires studying but it was a lot of fun and our teacher was really helpful and really wanted us to learn the language and do well in her class. Unfortunately a big problem happened last year in the Confucius Institute and therefore there is only Chinese 1st year language course so far, no more 2nd to 4th year courses. And I'm not sure who teaches it this year.

French is supposed to be an easy course but if you have no background in it or your previous knowledge of the language is very minimal, I think you'll struggle. We have two tests and two final exams for each semester. No presentation, no reading, no conversation. The tests and exams are copy/paste from the workbook. However they are a lot of exercises so if you think you can just memorize them without understanding, that might not work all the time. Dr. Morgan teaches the course and she's really nice but I think she just teaches the language as a subject not as a language course. So I'm not very satisfied with the pace of the course but it's a bird course if you have some background in French and if you give it very little effort I think you'll do well.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by MrPlinkett

Dont take complected things like Russian or Japanese, it will not make your life easier.

Take either Latin or Germanic family language. Like Spanish, German or French. You will find them somewhat similar to English.

Latin? Really? I've never taken it, but I've heard bad things, both from Carleton and Mac. Lots of work, expectation that you spend hours each night studying/practicing, etc. That was a few years back, but still.