Mine the only ones not learning Mandarin?

<p>Granted we live in the backwater, but my friends who DON’T all have their kids either learning Mandarin in school or being tutored in it if it isn’t offered. My kids take Spanish. Are they at a disadvantage? Everyone’s saying, “Gotta have Mandarin or Arabic!”. Reality check from CC parents, please!</p>

<p>I see nothing wrong with Spanish over Mandarin and Arabic. </p>

<p>I believe that all three languages will be widely spoken fifty years from now. :)</p>

<p>Nope. Mine decided to stick with Japanese and possibly minor in it in college. Why Mandarin? Why not Cantonese? Why Arabic and not Russian? JK!</p>

<p>oD found that good old French came in handy when she traveled abroad :)</p>

<p>the middle schoolers in my son’s charter schools start spanish and mandarin in 6th grade…perhaps those are the languages of the future?</p>

<p>The charter of our school is Spanish, so the kids have an hour of that language every day. So happens, that one of the teachers is from Taiwan and she is giving private Mandarin lessons after school. My kids do it, but they would also be doing it if it was French or Russian. The important thing is that they are learning a foreign language. If they want to switch to a different one later on, I will have no objections. It will be so much easier.
So I would not stress about the right or wrong language. Be happy that they are taking any. Most kids in US only study a foreign language for two years of HS.</p>

<p>I obviously live in more of a backwoods than you do, LOL. NOBODY here studies Mandarin! The only languages offered at our HS are French and Spanish. My kids have been in French since K through to graduation. One of mine has chosen to continue French all through college as well.</p>

<p>By the way, the one child has worked two summers in France and is fluent.</p>

<p>Thanks for the reassurance! I get a bit frazzled sometimes when these Xmas letters come in with all the FAB things that my kids aren’t doing! Come to think of it, my friends whose kids are studying MAndarin are all investment bankers so maybe they’re on a different sort of track as far as what they’re steering their kids towards.</p>

<p>I still remember al those people studying Japanese back in the 80’s. I think they wish they had just learned golf.</p>

<p>Where we are is quite different. Our kids can go to Mandarin immersion from K onward. But I’ve been told its a very difficult language to master even in that environment. </p>

<p>Its offered at my D’s school but who takes it are the kids already speaking it at home (60% of the class) and hence its very very accelerated. My D wouldn’t stand a chance. </p>

<p>I’ve come to believe that even with 5 years of Mandarin in a classroom setting wouldn’t help her much anyway. It’s a really difficult language so it would be a lot of investment for very little return. </p>

<p>She will have had 12 years of French so to me what matters is mastering another language, not taking what’s trendy.</p>

<p>

LOL!! I was working in publishing at the time, and I can’t tell you how many books I was responsible for promoting that warned of Japan taking over our economy, with covers featuring Japanese wookblocks of tidal waves.</p>

<p>In my kids’ high school, Mandarin is offered for the first time this year. But my son’s a senior and taking Latin. My daughter, however, has taken 3 semesters of Mandarin in college. Contrary to the statements here, she is now rudimentarily competent in the language, meaning she can get around Shanghai, take cabs, order food, etc. Beginning Mandarin at the college level is 5 days/week, with a lot of drill on the tones and pronounciation - the things that mostly make it so hard for Westerners.</p>

<p>She wanted to take Chinese because of my job, and she wanted to do an internship in Shanghai, which she did. I’d say take it if you like languages and are interested in working abroad. But it’s not required for survival or anything. The Chinese are trying to up their English proficiency.</p>

<p>BTW, I highly recommend a book called Rivertown, for anyone interested in the realities of life in China…</p>

<p>My daughter has studied Mandarin for her first two years of college and just got back from spending her first semester of her junior year in a total immersion program in Beijing. We took a 19 day vacation in China in December, joining our daughter when her semester ended. She is pretty fluent in Mandarin, but she has studied it intensely for the last 2 1/2 years. Studying it less intensely in elementary and high school will help students to become familiar with the culture of China and to converse at some level, but I do not think it will be enough to be very useful career-wise. All students in China study English for many years in school, but most people can converse only very little or not at all, and they were amazed at how proficient my daughter became in only 2 1/2 years. However, the Chinese people we met who had majored in English in college or studied it for several years in college spoke English very well. The difference is (both in the U.S. and in China) - as Alumother says above - studying a language in college is MUCH more intense than in high school or elementary school. </p>

<p>FWIW - I also read the book River Town, by Peter Hessler. It is an excellent book about his experiences in the mid-1990’s teaching English in a Chinese city where no Westerner had lived in over 50 years. China is changing very rapidly and at the end of the book he talks of his return visit to the city several years after his book was published and how much things have changed even in that short timespan. So, my point is … the realities of life in China are changing very rapidly and have changed even in the 10 years since the book was written.</p>

<p>EDIT: Back to the original topic of the thread - Our school district does not offer as many advanced academic courses as some more affluent, high achieving districts, and foreign languages (one of my daughter’s strong interests) is its weakest department, in my opinion. Only French and Spanish are offered (no Latin, which my daughter would have loved to take, German, Italian, Mandarin…), and the fifth year courses are nowhere near the AP level. But my daughter is fine having started Mandarin in college. So, if any of your kids have a strong interest in learning Mandarin or another language, and they have ability in this area, they will be fine starting in collge.</p>

<p>Italian is the wave of the future! </p>

<p>(My younger one had 6 weeks of intensive Arabic in Cairo this summer, and is already using it well, but she is a wiz at langauges.)</p>

<p>My kids both took/are taking Latin. Not my idea! I think learning a living language - whichever one it is - is much more useful. I learned French in high school, German in college and spent enough time in both countries to speak both languages fluently.</p>

<p>Our district offers Italian, French and Spanish in addition to Latin. They are thinking of adding Greek - not because there is any demand that I know of, but the Latin teacher would love to teach it. Her dissertation is in Greek literature.</p>

<p>Well living on the Pacific Rim, I think any of the Asian languages would be useful- if difficult for schmucks like me to learn.
My oldest took Mandarin in elementary school- mostly early elementary, spurred by parents interest and the Chongquing sister city relationship with Seattle. They even took a “field trip” to Chongquing- D didn’t , we just couldn’t see how we could come up with money for tuition * and* a trip to China.</p>

<p>I helped with an after school Mandarin singing class, and I think that was a great idea, because not only is it much more useful to be exposed early to a different language ( especially one as different from English as an Asian language) , but because it was music class, it was easier to learn & fun.</p>

<p>However- they both took Spanish in high school and I still think that is a very useful language- even if you never cross our border.</p>

<p>We live in suburban NJ between NYC and the Poconos; there are many here who commute to Manhattan for work. As far as I know --my last kid graduated 1 1/2 years ago – our school district does NOT offer Mandarin either. As a matter of fact, I believe that we offer only Spanish, French, and Latin. Italian, German, and Russian were offered in the past but were discontinued due to low student enrollment. </p>

<p>My 25 year old son is teaching English at a private school in Chongqing, China.
He is learning conversational Mandarin so that he will be able to travel around mainland China on his own: how to purchase train/bus tickets, how to order what you want in a restaurant, how to reserve a hotel room, etc. He tells us that English is required in all public schools in China starting in the early grades but most schools do not have teachers who are native English speakers; that is why many Chinese are proficient in reading and writing but not speaking. Thus there has been an explosion of private schools offering English classes taught by Westerners.</p>

<p>We were in China in November. We took a group tour and then went on our own with our son to Chengdu (towards Tibet – where there is a great Panda Research and Breeding Center) and Chongqing. Other good reads are Peter Hessler’s (author of River Town) new book, Oracle Bones, and China Road.
There are so many changes occurring in China – both physically and in terms of cultural values. They joke that the national bird is the crane (construction crane, that is). They are hoping that the Beijing Olympics highlight all these
changes to the world.</p>

<p>I hope DS learns proper King’s English while he is in India. He needs the accent(s) to be more cosmo.</p>

<p>Another reason that many Chinese are proficient at reading and writing English, but not speaking, is that, until recently, speaking proficiency was not part of the high school and college admissions test. In China, admission to high school and college is dependent on a single test, rather than grades and all of the other factors considered in the U.S, and the curriculum is pretty much geared to teach to the test. As I understand it, the English part of the test is being revised to include listening and speaking, as it is recognized that many Chinese are weak in this important skill, and there will be more emphasis on teaching speaking skills in the future.</p>

<p>Well, the business world may be big on Mandarin, and the political world on Arabic, but evidently the military experts are concerned that not enough kids are learning Russian. A young friend at one of the military academies is getting a very significant extra monthly stipend to study Russian.</p>

<p>Our schools do not offer Mandarin or Arabic, or Russian, for that matter. My son went over to the public flagship uni to study Russian while in high school. I guess those who are interested in Mandarin do the same, but I don’t personally know any of them.</p>

<p>Goodness, all we have are Spanish, French, a little Latin and an even littler Greek. My son is planning to add more in college. He maxed out in high school French and did very well in college admissions.</p>