Quote:Perhaps, but I find it hard to believe that four years of high school-level foreign language will be anything more than a passing memory ten years from now, much less be remembered well enough to provide a solid base for further foreign language development.
I must back up Occhi on this one Mith. I agree that you will most likely forget most of the vocabulary without any practice of the language, deeming it generally meaningless in a few years. But there is overwhelming evidence that children brought up in bilingual households are much more adept at picking up further languages. Granted, that is some what of a platitude, but it is an important point. The actual structure of different languages does appear, in lack of a better phrase, to 'expand your mind' like Occhi said. The earlier you are exposed to a language, the faster you pick up other languages.
In defense of languages in general, you learn a lot more about your own native language when you study a foreign one. Grammar rules and structural rules in a native language are habituated by example. A new language forces examination of grammar, which in the case of Indo-European languages, are generally the same.
Perhaps language isn't the best use of high school time. But I can say from my own personal experience it is one of the only things (along with how to be organized and take good notes) I continue to benefit from in college.