What languages do you speak?

[Farseer]

Dutch is a small language, so in secondary school you get, besides Dutch, several foreign languages: English, French and German for most levels,

Is another language compulsory? When you say English, French and German does that mean you must learn all three (crikey!) or can you choose one of the three? I think I am correct in saying that, while it does differ from region-to-region and state-to-state, at least one LOTE (Languages Other Than English) is compulsory in most schools in Victoria, Western Australia, New South Wales and soon also the Australian Capital Territory, for upper primary and lower secondary students. Japanese, French and then German are, by far, the most common however many others are still offered eg Chinese, Italian, Indonesian etc.

LOTE in Years 6,7 and 8 was once also mandatory here in Queensland (my sons both learnt Japanese) but, after a review and subsequent change to an "optional" status by the Education Department only a couple of years ago, nearly one quarter of state schools decided to drop it. I was very surprised at the divisiveness it caused in all quarters of the education system, particularly as I had expected most would want to keep it, as I did!

Apparently the Qld Government is now calling for a formal review of the decision so we may yet see it reversed...

As an extra point, many Indigenous Australians have grown up learning Indigenous languages as their mother tongue and so English often then becomes their "LOTE"...on the flip-side, only a very limited number of Australian schools (that have Indigenous students in rural and remote regions) offer local Indigenous languages as their LOTE.

For myself, I think it is sad that we live in a country that teaches international languages but not the languages of our fellow countrymen...Aboriginal actor, Ernie Dingo, said it best, I think: "We all know how to say "yes" in Spanish, don't we? We all know how to say "yes" in German, don't we? We all know how to say "yes" in French, don't we? Do we know how to say "yes" in any of the 360 Aboriginal dialects in this country?

and additionally ancient Latin and ancient Greek for gymnasium students.

Obviously there is a reason for this, but I can't think what it could be?!