Foreign Languages

zacarias, ASN, RN · Jul 16, 2003

Asia,

I strongly recommend Spanish over Portuguese. You will use Spanish with countless patients (young and hold) and they will be grateful for you ability to speak with them. While some Spanish-speakers can understand some parts of Portuguese, it's not something to bet on especially if you get an old person who's confused; it will be too much for them to try to make out the Portuguese.

However, if you learn Spanish and happen to have a Portuguese-speaking patient, you will be probably be able to communicate enough to help them out.

Love-A-Nurse · Jul 17, 2003

i too would not mind a refresher class [i do have assess to a tape and book lesson] since it has been over 20 years since taking it in high school. i can read it much better than i can speak it.

ulianka · Jul 17, 2003

Hey, I live in French part of Canada and all my clinicals will be en English hospitals. Sooo.... I will be talking to patients in two languages. PLUS I am Russian, and I guess I will make some Russian patient's life easier afterwards :)

bedpan · Jul 17, 2003

All I can speak is Southernese (If I ever get voice recognition software it will take me 2 days just to logon to my computer my drawl is so thick!)

I do have a question though - Can anyone tell me more about the ASL course? It has always fascinated me and I would love to learn ASL

essarge · Jul 18, 2003

I took spanish for two reasons. Our community has many imigrants from hispanic background and I also enjoy the language. That being said, there is a move to getting ASL on college programs as a foreign language credit. I would be one of the first in line to take this if it happened as there are many hearing impaired people that use ASL in our area plus a school for the deaf close by.

EmeraldNYL, BSN, RN · Jul 18, 2003

I took five years of German, I loved it but it's been pretty useless. I would love to learn ASL and Spanish at some point-- I think it's important to be able to speak another language at least somewhat, considering the fact that in most other countries people often speak more than one language. When I went to Germany and Austria, everyone spoke English very well, and I felt like such a silly American when I couldn't speak German as well as they could speak English.

Nurse_RaRa · Jul 20, 2003

M2c - Spanish and ASL - definitely - I've been studying Spanish by tapes and book but plan to join a speak group when I move. In North America - Spanish is the 2nd language.