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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Knowing a foreign language for any practical purpose is rapidly becoming useless.

The new Airpods come with a foreign language translation feature. It's buggy...but like all technology it will get better and within 5 years it will be really good to excellent.

I believe there are studies that learning a language is great for brain development and makes you smarter in other areas...not sure how reliable they are.

We all benefit from being native English speakers because English is the language of business internationally
(both spoken and written).

Wait I thought the translation feature on AirPods only works during FaceTime calls?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Assuming the child has no preference. Is Mandarin overtaking Spanish? Is French or German making a comeback?

Ours took ASL.

[Anonymous]

Latin. Always Latin. For SAT purposes.

[Anonymous]

An "elite" doesn’t send their DC's to Harvard or Amherst to prepare them to work in consulting 70 hours per weeky. An "elite" sends their DC's to Amherst so that they can have experiences that are not available at James Madison University.

By the same token, the elites don't have their DC's learn a foreign language so that they could become employable at MBB. (Do you really think that Donald Trump's granddaughter is learning Chinese so that she might be recruited by McKinsey?) The elites have their DC's learn a foreign language so that they can read Moliere or fall in love with a beautiful Argentine or live their best life as a 20 something expat in Africa.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An "elite" doesn’t send their DC's to Harvard or Amherst to prepare them to work in consulting 70 hours per weeky. An "elite" sends their DC's to Amherst so that they can have experiences that are not available at James Madison University.

By the same token, the elites don't have their DC's learn a foreign language so that they could become employable at MBB. (Do you really think that Donald Trump's granddaughter is learning Chinese so that she might be recruited by McKinsey?) The elites have their DC's learn a foreign language so that they can read Moliere or fall in love with a beautiful Argentine or live their best life as a 20 something expat in Africa.

this isn't right, probably less than 1% of Ivy parents are 100-millionaires, the vast, vast majority are millionaires or poorer and their children will have to work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An "elite" doesn’t send their DC's to Harvard or Amherst to prepare them to work in consulting 70 hours per weeky. An "elite" sends their DC's to Amherst so that they can have experiences that are not available at James Madison University.

What an odd comparison. BTW, in my experience the children of “elites” are generally lazy and lack common sense. The only high performers are on the spectrum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An "elite" doesn’t send their DC's to Harvard or Amherst to prepare them to work in consulting 70 hours per weeky. An "elite" sends their DC's to Amherst so that they can have experiences that are not available at James Madison University.

By the same token, the elites don't have their DC's learn a foreign language so that they could become employable at MBB. (Do you really think that Donald Trump's granddaughter is learning Chinese so that she might be recruited by McKinsey?) The elites have their DC's learn a foreign language so that they can read Moliere or fall in love with a beautiful Argentine or live their best life as a 20 something expat in Africa.

this isn't right, probably less than 1% of Ivy parents are 100-millionaires, the vast, vast majority are millionaires or poorer and their children will have to work

True. But their children are unlikely to ever work with anyone that doesn’t know English.