Learning a second language can be a challenge.
But 15-year-old Jacqueline Kosmas, a student at a Greek Orthodox Community language school in Sydney, says it is worth it.
"I'm proud to be Greek, and I want to learn it so I could teach other people when I get older, like my children or other family members."
But a different problem with learning a language has presented itself in the school system.
Jacqueline Kosmas is concerned that, if she chooses the subject as a senior student, her ATAR, or Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, might be affected.
"It could be scaled down, and it would make my marks lower and wouldn't make me go as well as I'd expect to go."
Education analysts from the University of Sydney, Wollongong University and the University of Technology in Sydney have conducted a five-year study charting a fall in languages study.
That fall is particularly alarming in the country's most multicultural state, New South Wales.
Dr Ken Cruickshank, at the University of Sydney, blames it on the way students in community languages like Chinese, Arabic, Greek and Vietnamese are marked in their final year.
Specifically, he cites how the University Admission Centre calculates a student's ATAR.
"They thought, if they in some ways did not credit this language learning, they would help kids from monolingual backgrounds take up the language. The ironic thing about it was that, once community languages started dying out, so did the other modern languages, like French. So, by marginalising the community languages, they've actually done a lot to destroy all languages in school."
It all boils down to what is known as the scaling process.
University Admissions Centre authorities try to rank students by comparing their scores in elective subjects to their other results and to other students.
But even if a community language student has good results overall, the language mark is likely to be scaled down.
That is because students who study their family's traditional language in New South Wales tend to do well in that subject but not others.
The algorithm, therefore, assumes it must be an easy course.
In the end, that can bring down the student's overall ranking, or ATAR.
It is a highly complex system which experts believe is causing students to drop languages.
The former president of the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Board, Stepan Kerkyasharian, says students often try to pick subjects which can give them their best ATAR.
He says that can collide with any motive to broaden their knowledge overall.
"If any student chooses a language other than English, it is quite possible that their marks will be scaled down and they will not achieve the marks required for them to enter university."
Medical student Lisa Hu is one example of how it works.
Her family migrated to Australia in 1989 from the Chinese city of Suzhou, west of Shanghai.
Suzhou is also the name of the dialect the family speaks at home.
Despite that, Lisa Hu says she was grouped in a subject designed for students who already speak Mandarin, called Heritage Chinese.
"If you had an Asian, say, last name, they sort of just put you into the Heritage category. But many of us, we don't speak Mandarin continuously, even if we're from the background. If I had chosen Heritage Mandarin, that would have put a risk on my mark, and I might not have been doing medicine like I am today."
In response, the University Admissions Centre has told SBS it is not the purpose of ATAR scaling to encourage or discourage the study of any particular course.
The purpose of the ATAR scaling, it says, is to ensure there is no inherent advantage or disadvantage in any choice of course.
But the state of Victoria tells a different story.
In Victoria, 17.3 per cent of final-year students at government schools are studying a language.
Victorian School of Languages principal Frank Merlino says there is a clear reason.
He cites a move by education authorities in the state setting a goal that, by 2025, all students from primary school through Year 10 would study a second language.
"Language study is supported both by the Department of Education and, probably just as important, by school principals. It's a complex area, and so it does require a whole community effort."
It is an initiative Dr Cruickshank would like to see applied nationally to ensure Australian graduates remain competitive on a global scale.
"It's the norm in Europe for students to study two languages. In Australia, hardly anyone does. In the US and the UK, half of their students do languages for their final year of schooling. In Australia, it's now under 10 per cent."
