Currently, Chinese and Spanish are popular. Choose the one you like or have easy access to. If your local school offers an immersion, do that language. But remember that foreign languages go in and out of favor.

When I was in college, Japanese was the language to learn. Their economy was booming and everyone was learning it. But I preferred the French and stuck with it. It opened the doors to international job market as well as art, music, and cuisine.

I've always assumed my kid would learn Spanish and we still want her to. But we recently started discussing the possibility of moving abroad in the next few years and none of the countries that are feasible for us are Spanish-speaking countries. It would be Scotland, England (slim possibility), France, or Germany (most likely). That's really changed my thinking. She's small now (preschool) and not in any language classes. We tried for Spanish immersion PK but couldn't get a spot and now I'm torn as to whether we should sign her up for Spanish classes or lean in on German.

I am unsure of what makes more sense -- doing Spanish now figuring it's very useful generally, plus assuming she will pick up German if/when we move there. Or sign her up for German to help ease the transition if/when we move. Another reason to have her take German is that my German is extremely rusty and we could kind of learn as a family to get ready for the move. We could do that with Spanish as well, of course (both DH and I are at least conversational there).

Anyone have any advice based on experiences? People always say kids learn languages faster but I took French and Spanish as a child and still really struggle with both. I'm sure it helped with language skills as an adult (I've had to learn several for work) but it's not like it was every easy -- I don't take to them easily and have to work really hard. So I'm reluctant to put her in a situation where she has to go through that with one language and then pivot and do the same with a totally distinct separate language, all before she turns 10. It just feels like a lot.

Spanish is very easy to learn but not an interesting language.

My kids are learning French and Italian. Each is planning on doing an exchange program in high school and study abroad in college.

Spanish can be easily picked up then. (Speaking from experience.)

Did someone here say 75K is lower income? Bwahahah!

Bubble.

Anonymous wrote:Chinese will never be the lingua franca anywhere, because there exist far easier languages that the vast majority of the world‘s population can adopt (like English and Spanish). These parents who insist on Mandarin immersion classes for Larla are so puzzling; do they think in any foreseeable universe their darling child will a. be working for a Chinese boss who b. doesn’t speak English?

That said, my children are learning German because it is my native language but had I my preferred choice, I would teach them French, because it is just perfection.

It’s not just about practical communication. Working with people involves bonding and cultural familiarity.

My number one preference has been Spanish for my kids. I feel strongly as I have lived overseas in a Spanish speaking country and I still struggled greatly to learn it as an adult. Plus it's such a great skill to have for many jobs currently, and I don't see that changing.

We are overseas again in another Spanish speaking country and hope both kids will learn it here. My older kids school is mainly in English but there is plenty of Spanish spoken socially amongst kids, plus an hour a day of Spanish class. They also do a once a week class of french. I wasn't thrilled with my kid having to learn 2 languages simultaneously at first but the point is just to get the ears sensitive to the sounds of that language rather than full fluency, the school claims it makes it later to pick up again later if desired.

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Anonymous wrote: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).

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.

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

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.

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. The uses for Arabic in the workplace here are incredibly limited. I don't think you understand what it means to be bilingual on the job.

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.

my kids are already bi-lingual and I will push for French. After that, Spanish.

So to learn the foreign language, do you count it is enough if a kid understand most of it and can also speak fluently? Or the kid has to know how to write and read?

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Anonymous wrote:There are two different thoughts on this. One is that people who know two languages have certain advantages in terms of brain functions. You can google/research this. There is a wide array of studies and discussions about this, including the importance of the language pairing, in terms of if they are similar, such as German-English, or dissimilar, such as Korean-English.

A second thought on being bilingual is potential job/trade advantages. But here, you have to decide whether or not you will be immersed in such a bilingual environment. There are relatively few jobs/trade in the US where true bilingual capability has an advantage. I know they are out there, but it's few and far in between. For example, immigration lawyers that serve specifically the Chinese community would benefit from also speaking Mandarin.

If you think German is similar to English, you have never studied German.

DP and fluent German speaker here. English ist a Germanic language and yes there are many similarities und connections between the two.

https://en.m.wikiversity.org/wiki/Germanic_languages

I see what you did there.

NP. The scoffing PP has obviously never looked into the origins of the English language. It’s based largely in German and French.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are two different thoughts on this. One is that people who know two languages have certain advantages in terms of brain functions. You can google/research this. There is a wide array of studies and discussions about this, including the importance of the language pairing, in terms of if they are similar, such as German-English, or dissimilar, such as Korean-English.

A second thought on being bilingual is potential job/trade advantages. But here, you have to decide whether or not you will be immersed in such a bilingual environment. There are relatively few jobs/trade in the US where true bilingual capability has an advantage. I know they are out there, but it's few and far in between. For example, immigration lawyers that serve specifically the Chinese community would benefit from also speaking Mandarin.

If you think German is similar to English, you have never studied German.

DP and fluent German speaker here. English ist a Germanic language and yes there are many similarities und connections between the two.

https://en.m.wikiversity.org/wiki/Germanic_languages

I see what you did there.

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Anonymous wrote: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).

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.

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

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.

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. The uses for Arabic in the workplace here are incredibly limited. I don't think you understand what it means to be bilingual on the job.

Gah. Yes I have used a foreign language (Spanish and Romanian) on the job and I have seen DH use his (Russian) on the job.

When you’re in ninth grade, you really have no idea whether or not whatever job you’re going to get will require a foreign language unless you’re gunning for something really specific and yeah I do think foreign service is a great bet if using a foreign language is your dream. Lots of people have jobs that don’t ever present an opportunity to use their language skills. But like I said, fluency in any language will always be a bonus because it can be very useful.

Fluency in a language is very difficult to attain and takes many many years. Most classroom learners will never get there. So probably best to choose a language based on immediate interest or how it will help with high school or college credits. I majored in languages and know a few of them, and it's been useful, but only the same way that being able to write a 5-paragraph essay is useful. That is, it helped with school and requirements for this and that, but has no practical application that actually pays a decent salary.

Exactly. The AP language courses and the College Board curriculum is such a rip-off. You have to spend some time in the culture to really learn it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who doesn't say Spanish really needs to explain why. It's by far the most common second language in the US and our neighboring countries. And it's much easier to learn than Mandarin; I know several people who majored in Mandarin and still don't speak it well enough to use in business. And I say this as someone who studied French and whose child chose Latin (despite my suggestion that Spanish would be more useful).

Too easy.

+1 All the jocks take Spanish. I didn’t want my kid sitting with idiots.