site.btaForeign Languages In Bulgarian Schools - Ministry

Foreign Languages In Bulgarian Schools - Ministry

Sofia, December 27 (BTA) - Nearly 2,000 school students in Bulgaria study Japanese and Chinese, mostly at Sofia's William Gladstone 18th Secondary School, at the Prof. Vassil Zlatarski 138th Secondary School and the Transport and Energy Vocational School. Korean has also been taught at the 18th Secondary School since the 2013/2014 school year, the Ministry of Education and Science said Tuesday.

A total of 882,188 children from the first through the 12th grade study foreign languages in school. English is the most preferred choice (604,564 students), followed by Russian and then German. Then there are the Roman languages French, Spanish and Italian. English is also preferred as first language in specialized schools (64,074 students), then German (13,283 students) and French (6,218 students).

Romanian is also taught at the specialized Romanian High School in Sofia and Portuguese is taught as a second foreign language at the Miguel Cervantes Spanish High School in Sofia. Nearly 1,000 children in Bulgaria study Hebrew and 305 study Latin.

Rarer Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Danish and Swedish) are also taught to some 200 students.

The National School for Ancient Languages and Cultures also teaches Old Bulgarian, Ancient and Modern Greek, the ministry said.