The time has come for my wildlings to begin to consider which foreign language they would like to learn. I selected German and it was mostly worthless for me though I suppose I made some interesting friends along the way (German classes were small so we got to stay together for 3 years when most of the other language classes didn’t get to experience that).

Question:
What language would you encourage your son or daughter to learn?

Why?

Choices:
Mandarin (Chinese)
Spanish
German
Latin
French
Japanese

 

Easy answer. Spanish.

Advise from a world traveler. The three languages that you should know are English, French, and Spanish. With access to these three languages you can communicate nearly anywhere.

Therefore, I voted for French. Just my 2cnts.

French. But I'm biased.

I didn't vote because there are many things to consider. Spanish is the easy answer as where I work, Spanish is the second language. If your son or daughter wants to become a doctor, scientist, or lawyer, Latin would be a great help. German and the rest are 3rd languages to learn unless you are planning to work in those countries then obviously they would be 2nd languages to learn.

Chinese for the business, trade, and job potential, but probably the most difficult. Next Spanish which is much easier.

Spanish will be the most useful if he lives in America.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sig77,

Shit. I left off Arabic. That was not intentional. It’s a language I came damn close to studying in college.


My son is leaning towards Latin and I’m not super stoked about that. I’ve been trying to get him to consider Spanish or Mandarin.

Didn't vote yet. But it depends on where anticipated vocational and/or avocational affinities will trend.

Off hand, for European, I'd say either French or Italian. I would tend to visit more places there than any other place in EU.

But overall, I would probably pick either Korean or Japanese. I think that would tend to open more interesting doors. I would also tend to think that it would be easier to learn Korean or Japanese using formal instruction and French / Italian could be picked up somewhat easily more casually by oneself.

So many possibilities and reasons, but mostly would apply if they were older and a choice in mind for career paths.

For everyday use here in the USA, I'd go with Spanish. Even for vacation travel, it would serve for most of North, Central and South America, parts of the Caribbean and of course Spain and you could probably make your way somewhat through Italy as many of the roots of words for both Spanish and Italian are Latin.

In business, depending on the specialty, Japanese, German and Chinese would probably well serve them. I would probably pass on French. I actually could converse, write on a limited basis and read French when younger, but as I used it so infrequently I have forgotten just about all of it. Here in North America, you'd use it in some parts of Eastern Canada, France and some limited use in Haiti and some African countries. Chinese is tricky as there are so many dialects, a lot of students take Mandarin as it applies to the larger "states" in China, but would not give full coverage.

I use Spanish all the time here in the states, did so a LOT at work, and in most of my travels. As mentioned, I forgot French due to no use, maybe two, three times at most at work and never in my travels. A lot of that of course has to do with my travels and career choice.

I started French in 7th grade and then through high school.
They said it was the language of the future and was a must have skill for the future.
That was about 50 years ago and I still haven't found that to be the case for anyone other than a language teacher or someone that does lots of business in France.

Spanish maybe good for work in the service industries such as food, or hotel.
For high tech jobs with international business relationships Japanese or Mandarin would be a huge plus.
I would lean toward Japanese as I have no desire to visit China, however Taiwan is good.

Those that know Spanish are so plentiful that it only gets a passing glance on a job application.
In the business world it helps to have a skill that others do not.

Living in N. America? Espanyol.....

quote:

Living in N. America? Espanyol.....

I did 3 years of Spanish. Even living out here, I've not used it once in 40 years years outside of school..... YMMV.

Depends on what career they pick. Overall, Spanish.

Russian.

I studied French and Italian. Not so useful outside of menus.

Spanish would have been much more useful day to day. I now enough menu and fighting words to get by or get myself in trouble.

Mandarin depends on future job prospects and desires.

Latin is academically useful.

Another thing to consider is the general and future applicability. I haven't studied French or Italian in decades. I was never close to fluent. Thinking that 3-4 years of high school language equals professional level fluency whereby you'll be able to conduct high level business with native speakers is probably a stretch. Supermarket, restaurant, tourist stuff is one thing. High level negotiations are something else entirely.

I found I always did better in school when I was actually interested in the subject so perhaps learning Mandarin as a future employment move instead of French for romantic reasons isn't the best idea. I knew in jr high that Spanish was more useful but I chose French because I was more interested in potentially wooing women in France than talking to the neighbors gardener.

English, Spanish, and Mandarin will cover a huge part of the world.

Most of North and South America, UK, Most professionals in EU, most professionals in India, and China. In 10 years of international business travel I have not met any Europeans that did not speak English well enough for me to understand. Japanese and Korean are only really useful in their own countries. Latin is good for understanding a bit of all of the romance languages but really not very helpful.

Latin so one can have a much better understanding of the English language.
Spanish for actual speaking purposes.

All the Chinese in business speak very good English. Spanish opens up all South America and in the business world there are lots of opportunities. We have a very provincial inaccurate view south of us because of events on our border.