French or Spanish?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Because 13:03 thinks that both pets and children can be groomed....

Look, 13:03 is clearly not that bright. OP's comments are unfactual, ahistorical, and largely ignorant of geo-economic trends. I don't think OP is necessarily misguided by her class bigotry, which I, as a blue collar gal, find repugnant, but her clear gaps in her formal education and world experience. All immigrants to this country start somewhere: yesterday's carpenter is today's contractor and tomorrow's developer. While the OP is ranting about the ignorant help, many of us here were reading the newspaper and relishing Judge Sonia Sotamayor's ascent to the Supreme Court. As long as the OP is unable to understand what skills are needed to compete in a global economy increasingly dominated by transnational elites, she may very well groom her child to be the help.

I'm not the OP, I'm the one who really does not see the extraordinary value of learning Spanish or teaching my child Spanish. The irony of your diatribe is that you have resorted to insulting me as opposed to providing the factual trends yourself. The only factual trend that doesn't need support is that the Spanish speaking population has largely increased among blue collar jobs in the
U.S. Justice Sotomayor is a wonderful inspiration for many in the hispanic community, but she is not the norm; she is not even representative of a significant minority among her community. Isn't that why her ascent to the Supreme Court is noteworthy and historical? I have asked for the facts to be published here, so that we can all see how learning Spanish translates to a better job for our children or a safer new place to live. So instead of insulting me, please provide the evidence and facts. I don't mean to hijack this thread away from OP's initial question, but this subject is related to her question.

I am an Asian. My child is a first generation American but is from four different ethnic backgrounds. I have lived in another country and I am an immigrant myself. I am a product of two hard working immigrant parents who raised their three children to become a doctor, a lawyer, and an engineer. I'm happy you are proud to be a 'blue collar gal.' But I am proud of our education and jobs as well and that doesn't make me a bigot. I understand the skills necessary to compete in our global economy. But there is a difference between a commonly spoken language and a marketable language in our global economy. While one article below mentions the value of Spanish as a foreign language, the vast majority of articles mention Chinese, Arabic, French, etc..as more valuable languages to compete in our global economy.

http://french.about.com/library/weekly/aa080500h.htm
http://spanish.about.com/cs/forbeginners/a/whylearnspanish.htm
http://www.finfacts.com/Private/isl/salcomp.htm
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_to_be_4th_strongest_economy/rssarticleshow/3933376.cms
http://internationaltrade.suite101.com/article.cfm/most_inventive_countries
http://internationaltrade.suite101.com/article.cfm/most_corrupt_trade_nations
http://www.gallup.com/poll/26455/Central-Americans-Frustrated-Job-Creation-Efforts.aspx
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=7540
http://www.articleshmarticle.com/Art/85450/155/Is-It-Time-to-Learn-Spanish-Seattle-s-Changing-Job-Market.html

well, your links are a fairly random collection. I particularly liked "The French R (pronounced in the back of the throat) is much cooler than that silly rolled Spanish R"....
GDP is the best proxy for economic importance. The GDP of francophone countries is already significantly behind that of Spanish-speaking ones, a trend that is almost certain to continue. None of your Hispanophobia can change that.

[Anonymous]

Hispanophobia! I love it! Did you make that up or is that a real term people are using nowadays?

Pro-Spanish pp here. I disagree with the anti-Spanish pp on the marketability of Spanish but it really doesn't matter. She should have her kids study what she wants them to study. Trying to convince pps like me that we're wrong is just a waste of her time. It's okay, anti-Spanish pp, you don't have to justify teaching your kids another language.

[Anonymous]

I'm not trying to persuade others to my view. I'm trying to cast the legitimacy of a different perspective without it being labeled as bigoted. Shameful that it's such a hard task on DCUM.

It's interesting that we can't even get past three posts without someone throwing out insults at me. The last insult was calling me a hispanophobia. Are you proud of your insults? Where are your articles and evidence, random or not? I am still waiting for your evidence and trying to ignore the insults.

Again, there is a huge difference between a COMMONLY SPOKEN LANGUAGE AND A MARKETABLE LANGUAGE IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. And again, GDP of all Spanish speaking countries is a result of the sum of many, many countries, many of them individually not having a very strong GDP or a strong economy or a strong job market. What jobs in the US(please list them and their respective salaries) will offer one individual the ability to be liason to many of these countries? And many of these countries are not the ideal, safe place to raise a family.

Here is a list of the GDP of individual Central American countries (NOTE it is in millions of US dollars):
Rank Country 2006 GDP
millions of US dollars
— World 44,168,157
— Latin America 5,263,870
1 Brazil 1,833,601
2 Mexico 1,345,530
3 Argentina 523,169
4 Colombia 320,884
5 Venezuela 319,782
6 Chile 230,423
7 Peru 181,800
8 Dominican Republic 73,740
9 Guatemala 60,570
10 Ecuador 60,480
11 Costa Rica 48,770
12 Cuba 44,540
13 Uruguay 36,560
14 El Salvador 33,200
15 Paraguay 30,640
16 Bolivia 27,210
17 Panama 25,290
18 Honduras 22,130
19 Trinidad and Tobago 20,990
20 Nicaragua 16,830
21 Haiti 14,560
22 Jamaica 12,710
23 Bahamas 6,476
24 Barbados 5,108
25 Guyana 3,620
26 Suriname 3,098
27 Netherlands Antilles 2,800
28 Belize 2,307
29 Saint Lucia 940
30 Antigua and Barbuda 750
31 Grenada 440
32 Dominica 384
33 Saint Kitts and Nevis 339
34 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 249


Source
CIA World Factbook, CIA World Factbook, 2007. [1]


And this is the GDP of european countries (NOTE it is in BILLIONS of US dollars):

Nominal GDP list (sortable; in billions of $US) Rank Country 2007 2008 2009
— World 54,585 60,690 54,864
— Europe 22,000 18,232
— European Union 16,906 18,394 15,343
1 Germany 3,321 3,668 3,060
2 France 2,594 2,866 2,499
3 United Kingdom 2,804 2,674 2,007
4 Italy 2,105 2,314 1,988
5 Spain 1,440 1,612 1,397
6 Russia 1,290 1,676 1,164
7 Netherlands 777 869 743
8 Turkey 659 729 552
9 Sweden 455 493 452
10 Belgium 454 506 434
11 Switzerland 427 486 359
12 Poland 422 526 403
13 Norway 389 456 341
14 Austria 371 415 362
15 Greece 314 358 325
16 Denmark 312 343 290
17 Ireland 261 273 217
18 Finland 246 274 234
19 Portugal 223 244 209
20 Romania 166 200 166
21 Czech Republic 175 217 172
22 Ukraine 142 180 115
23 Hungary 138 156 126
24 Slovakia 75 95 88
25 Croatia 51 69 59
26 Luxembourg 50 55 47
27 Slovenia 46 55 49
28 Belarus 45 60 50
29 Serbia 40 50 40
30 Bulgaria 40 52 51
31 Lithuania 39 47 40
32 Azerbaijan 31 46 38
33 Latvia 27 34 27
34 Cyprus 21 25 23
35 Estonia 21 23 19
36 Iceland 20 18 12
37 Bosnia and Herzegovina 15 13 16
38 Albania 11 13 11
39 Georgia 10 13 11
40 Armenia 9 12 11
41 Macedonia 8 10 9
42 Malta 7 8 7
43 Moldova 4 6 5
44 Montenegro 3 5 4


Source
International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database, October 2008 edition

[Anonymous]

I'm impressed with the amount of work that has gone into this discussion, at least in terms of hours spent.

My question though, is why assume your kid will only ever learn one language, and that the pre-K choice is a make-or-break decision? DH and I have each studied 3-4 languages and speak about 2 of them well. Doing a language -- any language -- in elementary school certainly helped us pick up other languages in high school, college and/or for work. My kids have both already done French and Spanish. In particular, my kid in a MoCo immersion program was made to start a 2nd foreign language in middle school, because the school didn't offer an advanced class in the immersion language.

[Anonymous]

Your GDP links don;t make sense. Why wouldn't Spain be in with the Spanish speaking countries? And why did you put Spanish speaking countries against all of Europe when the discussion was Spanish vs. French? Shouldn't you have separated all the countries by language as opposed to just the Spanish speaking ones?

[Anonymous]

Once again, Hispanophobe, your mastery of googling and random cutting and pasting doesn't substitute for an argument.

[Anonymous]

15:09, I never said DC will only ever learn one language, I said that Spanish need not be one of them because I didn't see the marketability of it.

15:19, OP asked "spanish vs. french" and between these two, I simply argued that french was probably a more marketable language, at least for the kind of opportunities I was hoping would open up for DC. And I said it provided a possibility of safer places to live. One of the PP's argued that the GDP of spanish speaking countries was greater than the GDP of countries of other languages spoken. To me this argument only proves how commonly spoken spanish is - not that speaking spanish opens up lucrative job opportunities for individuals. Because the GDP of each individual country in Central America is relatively dismal compared to many European countries where other languages are spoken. One of the factors determining GDP is total net exports. Presumably, if trade is strong with a spanish speaking country then jobs in the U.S. that help continue to facilitate trade with that country would also be plentiful and lucrative. But I don't believe this is the case. The best link I can find on this http://www.wharton.universia.net/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1160&language=english&specialId=

16:55, perhaps you don't understand my argument to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:15:09, I never said DC will only ever learn one language, I said that Spanish need not be one of them because I didn't see the marketability of it.

Actually, I think we need to get the individual IMF country reports and figure out which language will be biggest in 20 years, when your DC is an adult. My vote goes to Chinese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:15:09, I never said DC will only ever learn one language, I said that Spanish need not be one of them because I didn't see the marketability of it.

15:19, OP asked "spanish vs. french" and between these two, I simply argued that french was probably a more marketable language, at least for the kind of opportunities I was hoping would open up for DC. And I said it provided a possibility of safer places to live. One of the PP's argued that the GDP of spanish speaking countries was greater than the GDP of countries of other languages spoken. To me this argument only proves how commonly spoken spanish is - not that speaking spanish opens up lucrative job opportunities for individuals. Because the GDP of each individual country in Central America is relatively dismal compared to many European countries where other languages are spoken. One of the factors determining GDP is total net exports. Presumably, if trade is strong with a spanish speaking country then jobs in the U.S. that help continue to facilitate trade with that country would also be plentiful and lucrative. But I don't believe this is the case. The best link I can find on this http://www.wharton.universia.net/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1160&language=english&specialId=

16:55, perhaps you don't understand my argument to begin with.

If the world was static, then your arguments would make sense. But the world is not. And because of that, every year, fewer and fewer children learn French while more and more children learn Spanish.

[Anonymous]

It's silly to argue based on GDP of different countries. What matters is the company your dc works for or the kind of field your dc goes into or the state of the regional and world economy at the time that dc is working in that field. I'm sure there are rich, successful people who learned to speak Spanish and use it just as I'm sure there are rich, successful people who learned to speak French and use it. I would like to be able to predict what my dc will be doing in 20 years but I know I don't have that much control over what she will choose to do. Really, this discussion is really getting kind of weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Based on your post OP, it seems you've already decided that French is more sophisticated and Spanish, well, blue collar.

I think you can stick with your decision and move now to France, Switzerland, or Belgium and know that you've done your job as a parent to ensure your child a lucrative and rewarding career.

Have you ever been to Francophone Switzerland? I have, and aside from the fact that it is a distinct linguistic minority, they're still speaking German - they're just using French words to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15:09, I never said DC will only ever learn one language, I said that Spanish need not be one of them because I didn't see the marketability of it.

Actually, I think we need to get the individual IMF country reports and figure out which language will be biggest in 20 years, when your DC is an adult. My vote goes to Chinese.

Ditto. Not to mention that for any child who learns Chinese, either French or Spanish would be an absolute cakewalk.

[Anonymous]

French and Spanish are so similar. Whichever one the child learns, it will give him/her a very good foundation for learning any of the other romantic languages if he/she chooses to later on.

I am partial to Spanish, but my daughter wanted French...so be it. Now she's switched to Spanish and is picking it up so well because of what she learned in French. There's nothing wrong with learning either language. If OP likes French, go with French. Who knows, maybe her DC will learn 3 more languages after that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Have you ever been to Francophone Switzerland? I have, and aside from the fact that it is a distinct linguistic minority, they're still speaking German - they're just using French words to do it.

I lived in Francophone Switzerland, and actually the French is sort of sing-songy, sort of like the southern accent here. Other french-speaking people make fun of them. I doubt you'd find a Swiss-accented person in the DC area who is willing to prep your DC.

Geneva has a few UN organizations, if your DC wants to work for the International Labor Organization. The UN High Commission on Refugees is also there, but it's practically impossible to get a job there.

My only serious comment -- I speak both French and Spanish. From my own experience and that of friends and relations, it's (very) marginally easier to start with French and then go to Spanish, rather than the other way around.

[Anonymous]

In Geneva, at the big banks everybody speaks English. Really, the only people in Geneva who don't speak English already are the tourists and if you're taking some (but not all of the) classes at the University of Geneva.