Read the following short text, then select which proposition(s) is/are true:

Particularly distressing

to the Germans is the lack of interest in their language among EU

countries and other major trading partners. At a rate that Berlin

considers alarming, European high school students have been dropping

German in

favor of English, mainly because they believe English is easier to

learn. In

U.S. high schools, Spanish, French and Italian have muscled German into

fourth

place. Hartwig Kalvenkämper, professor of romance languages at the

University

of Freiburg, claims that Americans consider Spanish useful, French chic,

Italian exotic—and German simply too difficult. ‘‘For the Americans,’’

he says,

‘‘German is a kind of modern Latin.’’