What are the foreign language trends among children of elites now? What are some considerations in picking a language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same PP, to clarify, oldest one has graduated college now, and middle is in college but has worked summers. It's through college jobs that they met the businesspeople who made them other job offers.

Congratulations, and you should be proud, seriously. I had a colleague who is full blooded American but has a Ph.D. in Chinese and served as an interpreter for the U.S. Army to the Chinese Army. (His job was to avoid a miscommunication that would lead to a nuclear holocaust.) He would tell me that DMV public school students in immersion programs couldn't understand "good morning" in Chinese even by the 12th grade. You should be proud, but your DC's are an outliers.

We are proud, thank you. But "outliers" means that the majority "can't understand "Good morning" in Chinese by the 12th grade", that's the only way my kids are exceptions. Yet somehow my youngest is almost out of that school, it's been a good 5 yrs since the last time I was daily at the elementary school (where I had way more contact with the Chinese teachers on a daily basis), and my DH didn't even go into that school as much as I did and neither of us ever took Chinese lessons. And yet somehow, "Good morning" is one of many phrases we STILL can say and remember to say (though I've totally forgotten how to answer), while literally all of our kids friends, even the ones who went to different middle schools and high schools, they all still have a level of conversational Chinese that means they all know and understand how to say WAY MORE than "Good morning" and they weren't all the best in the classes nor did they take Chinese language outside of regular school classes. A few did do Chinese outside of school, but I'm not including them in the ones who still to this day didn't even finish middle or high school in a dual language program but can still have whole conversations in Mandarin though their vocabulary and understanding has definitely dwindled from their 5th grade levels.

When you only hear and speak Mandarin from PK3 or PK4 through 5th grade either 100% of the school day or 50%, for those 7 or 8 years, you are not an "outlier" if you can hold whole conversations and still understand a good amount of Mandarin when you're 3 or 4 years out of those schools. And NO ONE doesn't understand "Good morning" or remember how to answer. Our kids were not outliers, most of the kids who finished 5th grade still understand and can say a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Same PP, to clarify, oldest one has graduated college now, and middle is in college but has worked summers. It's through college jobs that they met the businesspeople who made them other job offers.

Congratulations, and you should be proud, seriously. I had a colleague who is full blooded American but has a Ph.D. in Chinese and served as an interpreter for the U.S. Army to the Chinese Army. (His job was to avoid a miscommunication that would lead to a nuclear holocaust.) He would tell me that DMV public school students in immersion programs couldn't understand "good morning" in Chinese even by the 12th grade. You should be proud, but your DC's are an outliers.

Just adding: in all my comments on this, I'm talking about kids who did dual language from PK3 or PK4 through at least 5th grade. My kids' middle and high school also lets students who have zero Mandarin/French/Spanish (the 3 languages taught at the school) at grades 6 and 9, so if your friend making the DMV comment is talking about kids who started in 9th grade, maybe there's some truth to that. But even starting in 6th grade with Mandarin, only those who really struggle with the language are not going to understand Good morning or be able to have at least a basic conversation by 12th grade.

Anonymous wrote:We are proud, thank you. But "outliers" means that the majority "can't understand "Good morning" in Chinese by the 12th grade", that's the only way my kids are exceptions. Yet somehow my youngest is almost out of that school, it's been a good 5 yrs since the last time I was daily at the elementary school (where I had way more contact with the Chinese teachers on a daily basis), and my DH didn't even go into that school as much as I did and neither of us ever took Chinese lessons. And yet somehow, "Good morning" is one of many phrases we STILL can say and remember to say (though I've totally forgotten how to answer), while literally all of our kids friends, even the ones who went to different middle schools and high schools, they all still have a level of conversational Chinese that means they all know and understand how to say WAY MORE than "Good morning" and they weren't all the best in the classes nor did they take Chinese language outside of regular school classes. A few did do Chinese outside of school, but I'm not including them in the ones who still to this day didn't even finish middle or high school in a dual language program but can still have whole conversations in Mandarin though their vocabulary and understanding has definitely dwindled from their 5th grade levels.

When you only hear and speak Mandarin from PK3 or PK4 through 5th grade either 100% of the school day or 50%, for those 7 or 8 years, you are not an "outlier" if you can hold whole conversations and still understand a good amount of Mandarin when you're 3 or 4 years out of those schools. And NO ONE doesn't understand "Good morning" or remember how to answer. Our kids were not outliers, most of the kids who finished 5th grade still understand and can say a lot.

[Anonymous]

The language of love. It is considered, by many people, a foreign language. It takes daily practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Children of elites speak Russian, Hebrew, and Arabic.

Children whose families are Russian or Ukrainian or certain Eastern European countries speak Russian. Children with Israeli families speak Hebrew. Children who speak Arabic or Farsi or other Middle Eastern languages have families from there. Nothing related to elite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mandarin and French when it comes to elites.

Spanish is by far more useful of course. I speak all 3, and use Spanish a lot more in daily life by far.

What does this even mean, “elites”? Can you define the word based on how you are using it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We chose based on which program was known to have better teachers at our HS. In our case, French.

Our HS can’t find any French teachers, so kids have to take it online. Guess we’re not elite enough.

I don’t understand why people think French is elite. France is a tiny country. Belgium has some French communities, Haiti is French speaking, a lot of African countries have French as their official language. Canada where Quebec hung on to French with all their might but England still managed to take away the French language from many areas. England colonized Canada and mandated English.

Why would French be relevant enough for children to learn it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We chose based on which program was known to have better teachers at our HS. In our case, French.

Our HS can’t find any French teachers, so kids have to take it online. Guess we’re not elite enough.

I don’t understand why people think French is elite. France is a tiny country. Belgium has some French communities, Haiti is French speaking, a lot of African countries have French as their official language. Canada where Quebec hung on to French with all their might but England still managed to take away the French language from many areas. England colonized Canada and mandated English.

Why would French be relevant enough for children to learn it?

When I was in middle school I only had a choice of French or Spanish. I chose based on liking French food and the sound of the French language better, and it was literally each student's choice, I don't remember anyone saying their parents chose for them. But there was nothing elite about it, that was just the choices we had and I'd say students split fairly evenly in which language they chose. In my high school I don't remember which classes more people took, I just know the French classes were very full (but I think the Spanish ones are too). I wonder if my high school offers other languages now... I am curious, I'm going to look into that.

But no one had an attitude like "Oh, only puny little peasants take _____________ language". It was just whichever one you were interested in or whichever one had more open seats if you didn't care.

[Anonymous]

Same PP, btw I'm still so glad I learned it. I've been to 3 French-speaking countries (including France), and I still love the language and the culture.

[Anonymous]

Forget about stupid elites. Choose the language based on the people and the settings you can practice in.

Unless you have a different language background it’s likely going to be Spanish based on it being the second most spoken language in US. There are a ton of resources, TV programming, books, etc.

If you’re connected to French, Mandarin or Hindi, by all means try it, since you an interact effortlessly with native speakers.

[Anonymous]

This cracks me up.
But, as a person who might be considered globally elite, English.

[Anonymous]

I strongly suggested Latin for my kid because there’s only one teacher and she has good reviews, and it’s easier in that you don’t have to speak or listen, and he isn’t the most hardworking kid out there. He has a B even with slacking.

[Anonymous]

Latin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spanish is everywhere. Learn Spanish

- if you want to work in public service / charity.

Any CS job here in CA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Latin!

After taking Latin in high school my vocabulary in English improved tremendously. I also finally understood grammar.

I encouraged my son to take a year of Latin freshman year of college. He did and is now minoring in classics along with studying pre-med.

I made DS take Latin and he got 730 on his verbal PSAT. And yes they are using grammatical terms! Can’t believe it. The teacher is good and it’s the same one for 4 years. I hope she doesn’t quit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Latin as preparation for law or med school.

And if you don’t want to do either of those?

It’s still beneficial and helps expand vocabulary, grammar, and analytical skills for English. IMO, Latin is the most useful of all the languages

My take is that since no one is going to actually speak or read the language out of HS, might as well take Latin