Reply to Which foreign language(s) would you suggest that your kid learn?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I love that I know how to speak Spanish. I didn’t choose it in high school because I wanted to be different but I realized it would be useful so I took it in college. It’s not just useful (I’m a stay at home mom in nova and I use it all the time, surprisingly), but it’s also just as culturally sophisticated as French or Latin. For some reason this did not occur to me in high school.

My kids refuse to take Spanish because they had FLES in elementary and they hated it and it ruined Spanish for them. Maybe someday they will come around.

But Spanish really is the best for somebody in the United States (and who doesn’t have family connections to a different language). [/quote]

Okay but as far as job opportunities go, it depends. If you actually want to use your language, id say mandarin or Arabic, and perhaps Russian. But often Spanish and other languages can look good on a resume because every once in a while it’s just useful to know. [/quote]

That is an idiotic take. I spend a huge chunk of my professional work day speaking Spanish. My fluency in Spanish has been endlessly useful and the winning ticket in many contracts. Also, if you plan to live and work in Texas, Fl, CA, AZ, NM or a handful of other states, it is easily a part of your day-to-day. If you work in law, medicine, business, IT, telecommunications, or similar, Spanish all day[/quote]

I have no idea how what you’re saying refutes what I’m saying.

My point is that if somebody has a dream of using a foreign language in their career and they are choosing a language solely on that basis, the best bets are mandarin and Arabic. But that doesn’t mean that if you pick Spanish you won’t be able to use it in your job.  [/quote]

My point is that your premise is totally false. You don't sound like someone who has ever used a foreign language in a professional setting and seems to believe that the State Dept. is the only place to use a foreign language. For those of us that speak multiple languages, we use it pretty much everywhere. Spanish is the second most widely used language in this country - by a mile. There are endless opportunities for the use of Spanish in a professional setting here. We are an Arabic speaking household. [b]The uses for Arabic in the workplace here are incredibly limited.[/b] I don't think you understand what it means to be bilingual on the job. [/quote]

Well first, yes, the use of Arabic in the workplace is limited compared to Spanish, but the number of people speaking Arabic professionally is much smaller.  It's much harder to find a fluent Arabic speaker while Spanish fluency is common, and if you think that this is your comparative advantage, then you're really a fish in a very large pond.

We are a family of immigrants and English is a second language to both of us.  Here is my take on the language skills in the U.S.  Educated people in the US, no matter where they are from, will either speak English or be well on their way to speaking English fluently.  I mean if your target group at the workplace is blue-collar or recent immigrants, then yes, Spanish is useful.  If your professional environment is mostly white-collar, then it is of limited utility.

Where will be it useful? In workplaces explicitly focused on the world outside America's borders.  And then, your calculus is:

- Spanish=entire South and Central America
 - Arabic=the entire Middle East - Haleej, Sham, Maghrib
 - French=France and West Africa, to a limited extent, Maghrib.

Of course, there are also your usual suspects of intelligence, DOS, and various -ologists.  But that's a small group, very small.

So, I say decide which region is your professional/personal destination, and go from there. Our children are fluent in Russian and Arabic because that's where their roots are.

This is all professionally speaking.  Of course, many people learn languages because they are interested in the culture, and any new language is a gateway to a different world. [/quote]

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