Foreign Languages - GCSE
 

As there seem to be a fair few people getting their GCSE results today (congratulations everyone!), and I'm feeling inquisitive, I thought I'd do a completely non-scientific little poll:

I read a report back in June saying that the number of people sitting GCSE exams in foreign languages is at an all time low, despite increased interest in Spanish. When I sat my GCSEs back in the Dark Ages, it was compulsory to take at LEAST one foreign language. I gather that's no longer the case, and you can now drop them at the end of the 3rd year.

So, did you take a foreign language at GCSE? If so, which did you do?

welsh...which technichally isnt forign as i live here, but it is second language, and feels liek its alien cos its so hard. it is compulsary though. apart form that none cos im dyslexic and suck at languages.

It was compulsory for me to take a language at GCSE - 2 years ago - unless there was a very good reason against it.

As it happened, I took French AND German for GCSE, so, yeah.

Did spanish, and doing it for a level too

Ooooh yes I did Latin too, forgot to say

I did French, for what it's worth, primarily because I found the German language to be rather harsh and ugly. I've just realised that the French sentence in the poll is grammatically incorrect :(

French =]

Español!

i think the last one said "i odnt speak a language" so i chose that haha. I didnt take any

I dont see why the goverment are so bothered about whetehr students are taking a language anymore. I didnt wanna study one, so i didnt. People who do, have that option.

I did my GCSEs a couple of years ago and did french, spanish and russian

I did my GCSE's last year and took French and Spanish. As far as I'm aware, it's still compulsory to take at least one modern language for GCSE at my school.

I was gunna point that out but then thought that I'd got it wrong. Genius.

I also found German quite...different, though harsh is probably close to how I found it. There's something beautiful about French.

I did French and Latin.

I didnt take a language at GCSE, being forced to do one now i'm in second year of A-Levels, so decided to learn german =]

I did GCSE's this year but it is still compulsary at my school and i took french and also latin

I had a choice between french or spanish, and there was no way I was going to do spanish, so french for me =]

I had advanced English and German (my native language) for my Abitur (kind of GCSE).

I can understand that you don´t like German that much.
The grammar is sooo complicated and even me make a lot of mistakes.

I love English...the sound, the grammar, the words,....

Feel free to write me in German if you want to practise it.

I did my GCSEs last year and I took French. I love the French language, I took it to AS level but I didn't do so well so I doubt it'll be going any further! I love how it sounds though. <3

I took french for GSCE and wanted to do it for A level. I did do that even though some people suggested not to do it cus its hard blah blah. But I did it until march this year and then dropped out because it was too much and I kept failing certain tests and kept crying after my lessons.

I did Spanish. I was meant to get an A ... but ended up with a D. I really regret that. Every time I see my old Spanish teacher she keeps reminding me how I messed up. But yus. Spanish. I also did Italian GCSE.. But that wasnt in school.

no GCSE's for me yet!!!

my friend got her results back for her arabic GCSE, she got A* which is good but then again she had an advantage, arabic is her native language.

i'm gonna take french as it's my best subject, hehe,
je parle bein francaise pour ma age, ma ma anglaise c'est sloppy maintenant!!

I speak a little arabic, greek and spanish as well, and was just listening to schrei by tokio hotel (translation, some one, please)

i did german and i got a b
i rly dont know where i gt that from

I was given German in year 7.
In year 8 I chose Spanish.
I did German for GCSE & AS.
Owned.

It's strange, because I really like what little I've seen of Germany and much as I understand and can speak the language (albeit not very well), it's not something I have a great affinity with. French, on the other hand, to me sounds all lovely and romantic.

At my school, you have to do one language GCSE - depending on what side you're put in in year 7 - and then you can choose to do the other language from year 10 to 11, for a GCSE.
I was put on the left side, which meant I was doing French - which was good, as my Gran lives over there and I knew some stuff already. However, I chose to do German as a GCSE, and just having two years to cram in around 5 years worth of stuff is very tricky. Although, even if the worst comes to the worst with my results this time next year, I have got a cool German exchange partner from it, along with some German. :]
I love languages in general, but I do prefer the sound & all with French, and the German word order does put me off. x

I did GCSE French, in 1996 - compulsory then (I think). Only other option was German and I couldn't get my tongue round that in year 9 and seemed to have done ok in French previously.

I havent actually done it yet but French, double english and welsh.

It would have been, yes. It was 2004 that it was made optional, so the first people who wouldn't have to do a language would have started their GCSE courses in 2005 and be getting their results now. Going by a number of comments on this thread, it seems that quite a few schools are still making people do at least one foreign language.

I sat my GCSE's June 2003 and I had to do a foreign language which for me was French. My sister just sat her GCSE's and got her results yesterday but now a FL isn't compulsory, they've made ICT compulsory instead although she was sitting spanish but then she had issues in year 10 and ended up dropping everything but maths,english and science but there were quiet a few people who I was chatting to at the school yesterday who had sat a Modern foreign language and there scores were all like A's and A*s.

im doing spanish and latin =]

I did french and latin and learn some ancient greek but never ended up taking the exam

When I did my gcses it was compulsory to do one foreign language (which you studied from year 7) and you could pick up another one in year 9 and take that for gcse as well if you wanted. So I did Spanish as my first modern language and German as my second, and took Latin as well.

French and Welsh [not exactly foreign], I was going to do Italian, but my school got rid of it, pricks.

I did French & i'm gunna do Spanish! I love languages ^_^