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

[Anonymous]

NYC private school ranking:

1) French - most prestigious
2) Spanish - easier than French for those that struggle with language
3) Mandarin or Latin

[Anonymous]

Due to work reasons, I've been at events with lots of elites, where everyone is worth at least $100mln, and these events were internationally focused so most people there were non-American, as most of my events are in Europe or Middle East.

Yes, everyone speaks English perfectly or close to it, however knowing their language definitely helps build relationships. As for using Google Translate and airpods or something.. save that for the taxi driver. There are nuances in each language which require knowledge of the language, and do make a difference. For example, in Chinese there are different words when referring to a family member, which is based on birth order (first son, second son, etc) that an auto-translator is unlikely to translate to English (it will just do "son") as it doesn't deem it relevant, but it is. Or a number of languages have a formal and informal second person ("you") like tu and vous in French. This is extremely useful when trying to work out relationships between people, and using the wrong one when addressing a person can really offend them. Google Translate won't get it right, because it's just taking the source "you" in English and doesn't know if it should change it to tu or vous in French for example.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Spanish is everywhere. Learn Spanish

Yep. Helpful for so many careers to have some basic skills, at least.

There's a weird stigma of Spanish as being the language of the poor.

Only if you're a racist jerk. The rest of us learn Spanish because 700 mn people speak it in and around the USA, and it's a far easier language than Mandarin and more useful in the USA than French.

Most of the world doesn't care about Spanish. Spanish is important here politically, but not elsewhere.
Mandarin, Russian and Arabic are the key languages the US State Department would like to cultivate.

I think enough people speak Spanish here now that not speaking it feels like a disadvantage. There was some point about 10-15 years ago where it become clear that it is impossible to find a housekeeper that speaks English.

Everyone saying what you just said about "so many people speak Spanish here that not speaking it feels like a disadvantage", none of you have obviously ever been a position to hire someone where speaking Spanish is important beyond hiring your housekeepers. For those of us in jobs where speaking Spanish is important because we serve a largely Spanish-speaking clientele or population, what you seem to not understand at all is most people hiring for jobs where Spanish is important we will choose native speakers over "Americans who learned Spanish in school" folks almost every time if the rest of the qualifications are met as well for the position. And given the GIANT # of native Spanish speakers that live in the US, including those with college and further advanced degrees or training, then finding a native speaker for almost anything is much easier than any other language in the US other than English.

Sure, being a medical professional or businessperson with a big # of Spanish-speaking customers means it is better to hire people who understand at least the basics, so that will give your kids an edge over those who don't speak it at all. But for office jobs or executive jobs or major teaching jobs, native speakers are usually preferred because they are literally fluent and also can read and write fluently and translate industry-speak into Spanish as well where necessary.

In other words... In business or lifestyle situations where speaking Spanish is really really important, the Spanish most kids learn in middle or high schools is not going to be at the level called for by the job. Those starting Spanish in PK3 and taught by native speakers, sure, that will probably be great. But

This is an interesting point I hadn't thought of.

Nope, not really true for two reasons:

1. With the exceptions of some groups like Cubans in Florida, many immigrants from Latin America do not insist their children speak Spanish so as students progress in school they gradually start losing Spanish. It is NOT common for the youngest siblings (particularly if it is a boy) of Latino immigrants to be a fluent Spanish speaker. Kids are at school all day and aftercare speaking English, they go home and speak English to their siblings, and everything they watch on TV/Youtube/ TikTok is in English. I grew up in an immigrant household. I am the only sibling who speaks Spanish fluently. I also am the only sibling who would visit my parents native country in the summers and spent a year abroad studying in Spain. One siblings can understand and speak in Spanish but has to throw in English vocabulary and the baby of the family really doesn't speak or understand Spanish.

2. When getting hired, what is more important is how well you speak English and how competent you are at your job. Then all things being equal if the position calls for being bilingual or it is a benefit to being bilingual then they chose anyone who speaks Spanish. Often people hiring have no idea how much Spanish someone really speaks. I have been amazed that people with Hispanic last names that supervisors think speak Spanish fluently do not really speak Spanish fluently.

What jobs or businesses are you talking about who don't screen actual candidates for a job to make sure they really speak Spanish? That's some beginner stuff to hire someone just based on their last name, assuming they speak Spanish.

Real businesses serious about how they spend their money and who they have out there representing their business and engaging the public know how to screen for languages. And the point here is specifically when a job calls for being bilingual. Of course in general, speaking English is going to be most important in the US for most jobs. But where speaking fluent Spanish is necessary, most employers will hire people who speak both languages fluently but are native Spanish speakers. I've no idea what businesses you know of that hire without knowing what fluent Spanish sounds like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Due to work reasons, I've been at events with lots of elites, where everyone is worth at least $100mln, and these events were internationally focused so most people there were non-American, as most of my events are in Europe or Middle East.

Yes, everyone speaks English perfectly or close to it, however knowing their language definitely helps build relationships. As for using Google Translate and airpods or something.. save that for the taxi driver. There are nuances in each language which require knowledge of the language, and do make a difference. For example, in Chinese there are different words when referring to a family member, which is based on birth order (first son, second son, etc) that an auto-translator is unlikely to translate to English (it will just do "son") as it doesn't deem it relevant, but it is. Or a number of languages have a formal and informal second person ("you") like tu and vous in French. This is extremely useful when trying to work out relationships between people, and using the wrong one when addressing a person can really offend them. Google Translate won't get it right, because it's just taking the source "you" in English and doesn't know if it should change it to tu or vous in French for example.

Just studying a language in school won’t teach you the nuance either nor even get you even semi-able to communicate.

You need full immersion with the language by living in that country for years or having a parent / nanny teaching you the language as a native speaker.

The good thing is everyone speaks English and you don’t have to know their language to close the deal.

[Anonymous]

In this area, Spanish is the hardest foreign language because so many kids are native speakers and still take the class to learn how to write/use proper grammar. My child will take French or Latin.

[Anonymous]

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

Does her family speak French? How will she practice speaking the language?

I don’t know the definition of “children of elites” so I’ll discuss children of immigrants. These children tend to pick up 2 or 3 languages quickly because of early exposure and being immersed completely in the languages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spanish is everywhere. Learn Spanish

I'm thinking Spanish must be the best option for any American, but who knows. In any event, it seems like French has really declined in popularity.

French is the official language of many western African countries. Africa has the largest population of French speakers. Thanks to France’s colonialism French is the official language of 20 African countries, almost half the continent.

Haiti if French speaking and Quebec is French and English speaking. When England colonized Canada provinces like Nova Scotia lost their French and English was required.

Spanish is the second most common language spoken in the US after English making it a good choice.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Speaking English well should be the first priority. That is the international language. And all too often, foreigners are far more articulate, expressive, and concise than Americans.

Being able to hold an intelligent conversation in English gets you far.

Second language should be Mandarin.

English is the official language of the USA.

The US does not have an official language.

You would be wrong about that.

At least English wasn’t the official language until a racist president called Trump made it official this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In this area, Spanish is the hardest foreign language because so many kids are native speakers and still take the class to learn how to write/use proper grammar. My child will take French or Latin.

Are you in Texas?

[Anonymous]

English

[Anonymous]

Any trained monkey can learn to count to 10 in a foreign language, and I don't see the benefit of being able to count to 10 anyway.

Real fluency ( the kind that can naturally maintain a conversation ) requires real commitment. Nannies in the target language from birth to age 10, full immersion school starting at age 3, yearly study abroads. I would estimate from experience that the cost to get to real fluency is at least half a million dollars.

[Anonymous]

Latin.

Modern languages aren't terribly useful unless one becomes fluent in them, which takes years and regular practice. Even one or two years' worth of Latin will be useful in improving one's knowledge of English and History.

That said, I disagree with the notion that the study of Latin is useful for law or medical school. Medicine and law use derivatives of medieval Latin, which is a corruption of the classical Latin that is taught in schools. It certainly won't hurt, but it won't help, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any trained monkey can learn to count to 10 in a foreign language, and I don't see the benefit of being able to count to 10 anyway.

Real fluency ( the kind that can naturally maintain a conversation ) requires real commitment. Nannies in the target language from birth to age 10, full immersion school starting at age 3, yearly study abroads. I would estimate from experience that the cost to get to real fluency is at least half a million dollars.

Our kids went from PK-4 through 12th grade in schools that were either full immersion (just PK-4 & K), then 50/50 English/Mandarin (1st - 5th grades), then more like only 30/70 Mandarin/English (6th - 12th grade), with a few 2 week trips to China or Taiwan thrown in which included brief homestays. We are a Black family so pretty much no one mistakes my kids for native Chinese speakers, but literally since they were about 6 or 7 yrs old, native Mandarin speakers (and plenty of majority Cantonese speakers too) are stunned and comment how well they speak Mandarin, and also when they are reading or writing how well they do both. This is 3 kiids who had different levels of ease/difficulty with learning Chinese, but they all are constantly commended on how amazingly they speak, and how nearly fluent they sounded by 11th and 12th grades.

Most here will know where they went to Pk-5 and 6-12th. It's a public school, the trips to China and Taiwan were incredibly good deals and kids who couldn't afford the trips got aid to go. They may not be fluent but the oldest 2 have gotten several offers now from companies that are either Chinese companies doing business in other countries (not just the US) or American companies doing business in China. And their level of conversant or conversational is considered more than enough to do their jobs well. Only when technology or science terms uniquely Chinese in origin come up do they really need help understanding or explaining, otherwise they do great.

This is a very long way of saying that over those 14 yrs of PreK4-12th grade, we paid at the most $30,000 for 3 kids and if we couldn't have afforded the trips, they would still have been able to go and it would have been down to paying about $5,000 through all those years.

Nothing even CLOSE to $500,000.00 and they are fairly close to fluent at this stage (and very high scoring though not fluent in reading and writing).

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.