High school with linguistic specialization

[Dready]

Dear Teachers, about 3 years I graduated from a high school where I studied languages along with other general subjects. My English teacher always told us to write 'Linguistic Gymnasium' on the cover of the note-book (the place we also put school name, 1st and 2d name, etc.).
The thing is that in Russian Language the word 'Linguistic Gymnasium' sounds very much the same. You just use transliteration, if I may call it so.

So the question is if 'Linguistic Gymnasium' sounds fine to an English ear? Or there are other better variants for calling such schools I attended?

Thank you in advance.

 

[emsr2d2]

Dear Teachers, about 3 years I graduated from a high school where I studied languages along with other general subjects. My English teacher always told us to write 'Linguistic Gymnasium' on the cover of the note-book (the place we also put school name, 1st and 2d name, etc.).
The thing is that in Russian Language the word 'Linguistic Gymnasium' sounds very much the same. You just use transliteration, if I may call it so.

So the question is if 'Linguistic Gymnasium' sounds fine to an English ear? Or there are other better variants for calling such schools I attended?

Thank you in advance.

No! A gymnasium in the UK is a fitness centre - the gym! I'm aware that in both French and German, a high school is a "gymnasium", but that isn't the case in the UK. Also, high schools in the UK don't usually specialise in anything. It's the school you attend between the ages of 12 and 16 and the curriculum is set. At 14, the students elect between 9 and 12 subjects to concentrate on for the exams (GCSEs) that they take at the age of 16.

The only way that I think "Linguistic Gymnasium" could be used would be as a sort of description of a series of exercises which make the brain work (as if the brain were at the gym!), and if all those exercises were based on linguistics.

 

[billmcd]

I think your possible interpretation of Dready's teacher's creative term is correct: that the class was an "exercise" in the study of language, in Dready's case, English.

 

[~Mav~]

...a high school where I studied languages along with other general subjects. My English teacher always told us to write 'Linguistic Gymnasium' on the cover of the note-book.
[...]
Or there are other better variants for calling such schools I attended?

How about this: "Secondary School of Languages"?



*** NOT A TEACHER!!! ***

 

[Dready]

I just thought of this variants:
linguistic high school
high school with extended foreign-language curriculum
high school specializing in foreign-language studies

Which sounds nicer?

 

[emsr2d2]

I just thought of this variants:
linguistic high school (OK, but I'm not sure a school can be "linguistic")
high school with extended foreign-language curriculum (a bit wordy)
high school specializing in foreign-language studies (my preferred choice)

Which sounds nicer?

Or:

High school specialising in foreign languages

 

[Barb_D]

I think Mav's suggestion is much better than any of those.

Note that linguistics is the study of the nature of language itself, not the study of many foreign languages.

Gymnasium would not be understood in the US as a secondary school.

We do have "magnet schools," which are specialized schools, usually for either math/science or the performing arts. The closest thing I could tell you for the US would be "Languages Magnet School" or simply "School for Foreign Languages." (I still like Mav's better than these.)