What's the language of science teaching in your country

    • Japan:
    All subjects in pre-university education are taught in Japanese. Foreign languages may be exceptions when they are taught by a native speaker. However, this is by no means a general practise.

    Edit to add:
    There are a small number of exceptions. Schools in U.S.A. bases teach courses, of course, in English. More than 40 national schools exist for Chinese, South Korean, Taiwanese, Brazilian, German, French, Canadian, North Korean and U.S.A. students. There are international schools where the curriculums are independent of specific nationality or citizenship. Science subjects are taught either in their national/ethnic language or in Japanese. My research is by no means exhaustive but those schools using English as a second language in teaching science seem to be minority.

    Another Edit:
    University and post-graduate education, including science, are conducted basically in Japanese only. Foreign professors teaching in their native language or English may be exceptions but I am not sure whether their ratio is greater in higher education or not.
     
    In Latvia the situation is complex. During the last school year, in 727 schools the language of instruction was Latvian, in 152 schools – Russian (these are gradually phased phased out to use both Latvian and Russian); 97 schools are bilingual – Latvian and Russian; 4 schools teach in Polish; 1 school – in Ukrainian; 1 school – in Estonian; and 1 school – in Lithuanian; and in 2 schools there are optional courses in the Romani (Gypsies) language.

    University education are in Latvian, Russian or English and you can do your bachelor's or master's thesis in Latvian but really it is impossible without knowing some foreign language as most literature is not available in Latvian.
     
    In Brazil it is always Portuguese as long as I know. Maybe there are some schools to the natives in their languages but I believe it doesn't happen. Maybe some school teaches in Spanish if they are along the divisory line between Brazil and a hispanohablante country.
     
    panjabigator said:
    What language is science taught in in your country? In India, AFAIK, they use English exclusively.
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    Sinhalese and/or Tamil up to university. Some classes at university are also in Sinhalese and Tamil.
     
    panjabigator said:
    What language is science taught in in your country? In India, AFAIK, they use English exclusively.
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    I'm a math major...do you consider math a "science"? Much of the groundbreaking work in mathematics in the 17-19th century was done by Germans--Gauss, Dedekind, Riemann, Eisenstein, Goldbach, Cantor, etc.--and much of mathematical advancement is still being driven by Germans, as they produce many papers, journals, textbooks, etc. So I would think that, at the university level, mathematics in Germany is taught in German. I would think the same applies for physics and engineering because of the great German pioneers in those fields as well. I'd love to know German just to read some of those old mathematical treatises. At least I can read the ones in Latin!

    I've also read a number of math papers in Italian, so I would think that at the university level they would teach in Italian too.

    I'm strictly speaking more of the mathematical sciences--math, physics, engineering, statistics, applied math, mechanics, etc.--but if you go to a library and browse all the different journals, you'll see that the articles come in a huge variety of languages. Each language has its own terms for things, but with math it's still easy to follow. That's why math is the universal language! :)


    Brian
     
    In Sweden, science is taught in Swedish. But we do have International Schools (where I went to a long time ago :D ), where everything is in English. We have also the Royal French school in Stockholm, where I presume that they speak French during their lessons. But overall, most schools teach science in Swedish.

    :) robbie
     
    I know that it's taught in English at German universities (at least at the ones I know).

    Even English, French, and Latin are taught in German, which I find really unfortunate.
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    Depends on the school you attend.
     
    In Turkey, some universities prefer teaching science in English (in fact these are the top ones). The others prefer in Turkish. There are also other universities teaching in German and French.
     
    In France, all science subjects are taught in french. English is exclusively for english lessons lol ^^

    Later, of course, in the University, your subjects are always in the language you study, whatever it can be (don't know if i'm understandable there..)

    i.e. : if you study German, you will have all your lessons in german 'law, geography, history, grammar, linguistic, etc etc".

    As far as I know, that's the only place you will have scientific subject taught in another language than French.
     
    In Russia, all sciences are taught in Russian.:)
    Foreign languages at school may be taught either in Russian or the language in question, depending on the pupils' level and the teacher's intentions. At universities, languages are normally taught in these languages, and other sciences - in Russian.
     
    For the time being, Portuguese is used almost exclusively for science teaching in Portugal. Every now and then, some universities may offer post-graduate classes taught in English, by invited foreign professors.
    Needless to say, many of the books and some of the terminology are in English.
     
    In Bosnia language of science is Latin(in medical schools,law,natural sciencies).Entire scientific terminology derives from Latin and Ancient Greek words in all european languages.
     
    But we use BHS language in all fields of science.Although English is the first language,we learn english from 2nd grade of primary,in some schools German and Arabic.There are some collages that are 3-lingual(turkish,english,bosnian or persian,english,bosnian),some bilingual(english,bosnian) but those are rare.
     
    The comments about India and Latvia are really fascinating. It's Czech in Czechia and Hungarian in Hungary.
    Have a nice summer. 🌞
     
    robbie_SWE said:
    In Sweden, science is taught in Swedish. But we do have International Schools (where I went to a long time ago :D ), where everything is in English. We have also the Royal French school in Stockholm, where I presume that they speak French during their lessons. But overall, most schools teach science in Swedish.

    :) robbie
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    At university level I'd say much of the teaching is done in Swedish (but the study literature might often be in English), but there are also many courses where the teaching language is English.
     
    Where I am (Barcelona), classes are taught primarily in Catalan, with a lot of Spanish, too, but some hours are mandatory in English even when the teacher themselves would usually do the course in Catalan or Spanish. Quite dumb, in my humble opinion.
     
    LoQuelcomiste said:
    Where I am (Barcelona), classes are taught primarily in Catalan, with a lot of Spanish, too,
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    :confused: You won't get more than 25% of classes in Spanish (in public schools and high schools) and only where court imposed it at parents' request (and local powers didn't refuse to apply court's ruling). Otherwise, way lower. Whether one of the subjects taught in Spanish is a science one would depend on each school/high school and I don't have data about it.

    To complete the situation in Spain, in Galicia, Spanish is used for maths and, in high schools, also for physics and chemistry while Galician is used in high schools for biology and geology, in Basque speaking areas, although I don't have specific info about language used in each subject, as a general rule, excluding language subjects, Basque is used exclusevily most times, a mix of Basque and Spanish is the second most frequent option and schools using Spanish exclusevily are the less frequent option but do exist too. In the Aran Valley, some teaching is made in Aranese but I don't know it includes any scientific subject. In the Balearic islands, Catalan in used and in the Autonomous Community of Valencia I don't know what's the situation right now becuase it changed and it's said to change again in a near future but, if I'm not wrong, there were more schools making use of Valencian than making use of Spanish. In the rest of the country, Spanish is used.
     
    merquiades said:
    Could you pay to send kids to a private school in bilingual/ multilingual Spain and have instruction only in Spanish?
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    Private schools are rare in Spain. Most schools are either public or concertadas (private but paid with public funds so, in theory, free for parents). Many/most of the few private schools available are foreign (British schools, French schools...) and some of the rest are religious being local private non-religious schools really rare. And private schools are found just at some (bigger) towns. Once said that, there are public schools in the Basque country where you can get instruction in Spanish (you learn Basque just a subject). This school year there are 10 schools and 9 high schools so no need to pay for it... unless you live in Gipuzkoa province in which case a private school is your only option... or unless you leave somewhere else but don't have access to one of the public schools with teaching in Spanish because it's full and you are among the ones that didn't get admission. In Catalonia, 4 years ago, the only option were 34 private schools offering instruction in Spanish. In the Balearic islands you can get instruction in Spanish in some private schools. In public schools, it varies depending on the politics in charge but when it has been offered, demand has been low (<10%). No idea about Galicia (it's less international than Catalonia or the Balearic Islands and I don't know how many private schools there'll be there and what language(s) do they use). Public schools there are nowadays 50% in Galician, 50% in Spanish. In Navarre and the Autonomous Community of Valencia, you can get instruction in Spanish in some public schools although not in all towns and to attend a public school in a town other than yours can be difficult or even impossible. And I guess I won't be wrong if I say that there are private schools offering it too.
     
    @Circunflejo And the religious schools? In the part if the US I know of there are many Catholic schools and other types of religious schools. They often have a very good reputation of giving great instruction with skilled teachers. So even non-religious people consider sending their kids there. What is the situation in those schools in Spain?
     
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