In Canada, immersion Schools (especially in French or English) are common, as are additional language classes in elementary and highschool, but adopting a fake name is not something done at all in Canadian schools. Is it true that American students learning Spanish and other languages use fake names in class?
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It might not apply to 100% of the programs out there but it definitely isn’t unheard of, either.
I wouldn’t say this never happens. But I didn’t have to do so in my Italian classes 30+ years ago and my kids didn’t have to in their Spanish classes. I went to school in NY, they in NJ.
It’s not only true, she let me pick “Zorro”
in my high school we didnt althrough she did call Hispanic kids the Spanish version she explained theres too many students for it to really work .
I was Diego in Spanish class, we never picked a different name in German class. Even now as an adult, when I do anything in China/Mandarin I go by 吉米 (Jimmy) just because it’s about the closest to my English name.
Yes. I was named Ramone because RAMONES were awesome.
I was Enrique because I was jealous of Enrique Iglesias dating Anna Kournikova. High school kids are idiots.
Yes. I chose Margarita because that’s the Spanish version of my mother’s name. Sometimes it flows better to choose a name in the language.
We did when I was in high school.
We just used the Spanish translation of our name
Sometimes. Depends on the teacher.
We just used our real names in Spanish class. My brother took French at a different school and they let them pick stereotypical French name.
I was Arianne in high school French and Julia in middle school Spanish
Mine did. So did my French class. I liked being Diego and Julian.
Yes, we did this in Spanish, German and French classes. We were encouraged to pick a name that was a variant of our own when possible and similar if not, which really just boils down to the teacher telling you what your name would be.
We did
We were assigned the equivalent Spanish version of our name if there was one. If not we got one that was close to our name. Mine was Amada.
Yep! They did this in French, it was fun having an alter ego lol
Yeah very true, someone in my class thought it would be funny to choose ‘Mario’ before me. So I chose ‘Paco’
It was like that for every language when I was growing up.
Use of Anglo first names like Kevin and Stephanie isn’t unheard of in Latin America.
We didn’t get new names, just a Spanish version of the ones we already have.
When I took Japanese, we didn’t take fake Japanese names, instead we simply did the standard surname naming conventions so some kid named Michael Evans would be named Evans-san
I’m german, so not your target group.
But I had language lessions in english, mandarin, japanese, spanish and french in my school time and in every one of them we either picked or were assigned a name that was common in the target language. In none of those classes I was adressed with my german first name.
It’s super common to help students to handle “everyday situations” and handle real life examples.
I took french, picked a french name. I chose Aurelie (it sounds kind of like my name said in pig latin). A friend chose Rose. A few kids had names that were on the list of french names and just got called by their own name but with an accent.
I think it’s common in a lot of foreign language classes in the US. I’m guessing that it serves a couple of different purposes. The first is that it gets people familiar with names that are common amongst native speakers of the language being learned. The second is that there are some names that don’t fit in with the language being learned and I don’t think you want people switching back to English pronunciation to say a name while they are supposed to be practicing French or Spanish or whatever.
Yes. I was Alejandro in Spanish and Xavier in French
At least in my German class in high school you got the option to pick a German name if you wanted to. Some people kept their original, some picked the direct translation or nearest translation, some picked a totally different one. I used one of my middle names that exists in both languages.
One guy that, as far as I know, is still a pretty big bastard today, tried to pick Adolph, but the teacher blocked it.
Sometimes it can be fun, and more convenient because the name from the new language will often fit better than a random one from your native language.
My high school Spanish teacher called me the Spanish version of my English name.
I am a Spanish teacher here and this year I did have kids pick Spanish names, yep! It’s my third job and I didn’t at my other schools but I’m so glad I did because it’s been so fun!! It took several weeks to get 115 kids’ names, but now that I know them it’s so much fun to say their names. 99% of the kids are excited about them too.
Yep, I was Béatrice in French class. On the first day of school, we were given a list of French names and were told to pick our top three. We were then assigned a name, which stuck with us for the rest of your time in class.
So I was stuck with Béatrice for four years. Occasionally we would accidentally call each other our French names out of French class and it was always funny. I got some side eyes when I called out to “Odette” in algebra lol
Can’t speak for everywhere, but it happened for me in the early ’90s in San Diego, CA… just a hop, skip, and a jump from the San Ysidro border crossing.
I don’t quite remember if my teacher assigned it to me, I picked it from scratch, or I picked it from a list. Either way, I ended up known as Alejandro 💁🏼♀️
Yes, and I think it gets kids really excited by learning a new language.
I had a fake Spanish name. I was Nacho, short for Ignacio.
Our teacher would use the Spanish pronunciation if there was one for people’s names. There wasn’t one for mine so I got to keep my name but I do not like that. Names are important and changing someone’s name to fit a language/culture (without their consent) didn’t sit right with me. If I have a friend who has a name that is difficult to pronounce in my language I’m sitting there practicing until I get it right. That should work in all directions.