I have a friend who will be starting high school this year and they are undecided on which language they should take. They have zero interest in French, are speculative about the practicality of German, and are turned off by the huge numbers of people studying Spanish.
Main Factors include: the difficulty of actually learning the language(which is their intention) & the usefulness it has from a career perspective(which is weightedsomewhat higher). Other factors are there but these are the main two.
What languages do you think should be considered?
Note: Spanish and German aren’t completely written off but are kind of unlikely.
I’ve studied all of these languages, and I’d rate them as about equal in difficulty for a native English speaker. If your friend doesn’t particularly care which language, then the choice should be based on the teacher who is responsible for the first year course. That lays the foundation for all of the following years. If the student struggles because of a poor classroom experience during the first year, it will be hard to catch up in the second year.
Latin, Chinese, and Japanese lol. From what I’ve heard the latter two are pretty hard and idt Latin is even spoken anymore(or at least Idk a major country that does). I’ve told them that Spanish or German would be better than those 3.
OK, personally, for someone living in the US, Spanish would be the most useful. It would also be fairly easy for an English speaker.
Japanese would have been a good language to learn if you were going to school in the 1980’s Both Japanese and Chinese will require many many years of study to get close to any kind of proficiency.
From a career perspective, English is the lingua franca of business and science among other fields. One should assume that a non-native speaker will speak English better than your friend will ever speak the foreign language. Proficiency in a foreign language will only be critical if your friend wants to join the CIA or go into International Relations. Otherwise, s/he should choose a language that interests him/her.
Actually Latin could be useful for a theology,history or med school aspirant. Mandarin is useful for IR, business, foreign service and careers like that. Arabic and Hindi speaking communities are quite huge so those are better than German or Japanese. French is considered upper class cool and Spanish speakers are taking over US so any of these would be a good option.
Spanish is the most immediately useful language in the US, plus it’s the easiest to learn. If those reasons aren’t drivers for u, then just pick the language of the countries u like to visit.
Languages u do not attain fluency in, are pretty useless for u in a business context.
French isn’t easy. Sure, it is not hard to learn to read French, but good luck trying to completely understand what people are saying. It’s also nice if you want to move to Quebec.
And even if people are studying Spanish in large numbers, it doesn’t mean they are fluent in them and most, actually, remember nothing 2 years out of high school. Language acquisition is a lot more than just going to class and doing the homework.
Great points, and I imagine they would be enough to convince him to stick with Spanish instead of doing something more questionable. All of these comments have been screenshot and sent, and I won’t have a reply until the morning, but thanks to all. This thread is pretty much done. Ty for your contributions.
Whichever language you pick, you won’t master it in high school.
Years later, you might remember how to say a few stilted dialog sentences (“The pen of my aunt is red”) or how to swear. French is easy in that last respect because you really only need to know one word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSeaDQ6sPs0
I would personally lean towards Latin for a high school language. It provides a strong foundation for any other romance language that a person might pursue in college (including the language of biology and medicine). I love that Latin strengthens verbal skills and that it exposes students to classical literature and Roman culture. When a high school student learns Latin s/he is also studying the cradle of Western Civilization.
If languages are not likely to be the student’s focus, there is some advantage to taking something like Spanish that is likely to be offered more periods and so cause fewer course conflicts with other classes only offered 1 or 2 periods. Also, having Spanish 1 out of the way in 8th grade would let the student get farther in that language faster and so have an extra slot for science or whatever senior year. But that’s all coming from our experience at a school with 6-period days and not that many sections of certain classes, so YMMV.
The “practicality” I think varies depending on what you want to do. If they want to go into anything medical-related, for example, Spanish would be extremely useful.
I took 5 years of German in school with a fantastic teacher who was a native speaker and came out of it almost fluent. It’s been extremely practical for me (as well as enjoyable). In addition to travelling and visiting family, I did a six-month co-op in Germany doing scientific research. Even though the language in the lab was English, knowing German made my experience fantastic, and I really got involved in the community. Germany is a major economic powerhouse in Europe, and German is also spoken by a number of countries (Switzerland, Austria, etc.). There are a lot of great engineering jobs in Germany too, for example, and they have free college education even for foreigners (something to keep in mind a few years from now!).
German is a harder language to learn than Spanish because it’s just more complex, but it’s very logical. Learning German also helped me really understand English grammar. Since both English and German are Germanic languages, there’s also overlap and similarity in some of the words that makes it easier to get the hang of.
Typically (ie., according to the DoD :D) Spanish = French, which are easier than German or Latin, which are easier than Chinese or Japanese.
For common daily use, especially in Florida, Arizona, CA, NM, TX, Chicago, Spanish would be obvious.
Career-wise, it’s more complicated.
For medical school, Spanish is very useful, unless you can learn another language spoken by immigrants; if you study French, find a way to establish the basics (up to AP) then switch to Creole French. Other “immigrant” languages aren’t necessarily taught in schools, such as Somali, Hmong, etc. Russian would count.
For a job in an international company, I’d think Spanish (Latin and South America) or Portuguese (Brazil) or to a smaller extent French (Canada, France) would be useful. For a job in a small shop or local branch, or not aiming for international management, Spanish, especially in areas of the country where Spanish is widely spoken.
For engineering, German is useful (especially if you plan to study abroad) and French can be, too, depending on branch (think EADS, transportation…). GTech has special campuses in both France and Germany.
For IR, French + Arabic (most countries in Africa + Middle East use one of these or English) would be a great combination; Spanish + Portuguese would be another useful combination, easier to achieve, for a focus on the Americas. Chinese or Japanese if the student has a special affinity and gift for languages since it’s very very difficult to gain any sort of usable proficiency.
For math, French and Russian but only if the student plans on grad school.
Latin helping for med school is a myth, BTW. You can learn latin roots of medical words in a couple days; if you can’t, you won’t get into med school anyway. It is however very useful for a future English major.
Overall, I agree that your friend should choose the language that has the best teacher, rather than a hypothetical career goal that’s unlikely to materialize (college change their idea on a major about 3 times on average, and that’s not counting all the changes during the 4 years in HS).
Business overall- Chinese due to burgeoning economy (regardless of stock market crash… probably temporary)
Tech business- japanese is huge in tech
Americas- spanish is number 2 to English in US and Latin America is mainly spanish (some French etc. Not major).
To be useful in business, language proficiency will have to be fluent, which few high school students will ever achieve in their later studies. Chinese is especially difficult to master, as is Japanese. Much international business is conducted in English. OP’s friend should study the language that interests him the most.
If your friend is thinking about studying engineering, German is the way to go. Many US engineering firms do a lot of work with firms in Germany. The German aptitude for engineering is so well recognized that there’s a state department sponsored program that sends engineering students to Germany for a full year on scholarship. (It;s called CBYX for young professionals)
If he/she is planning on living is the Southwest/ Florida/ anywhere with a significant Hispanic population, Spanish is the way to go. I’ve taken Spanish for 6 years and still have a long way to go to proficiency. I glided by without really trying for a long time until the grammar got really difficult. What you put into it really is what you get out of it.
Another semi minor factor is his/her heritage and where he/she wants to travel to. I really wish I had the option of taking German. Most of my family is 100% German and I really want to visit their hometowns, so my 6 years of Spanish are kinda useless now (Spain and Latin America are lot lower on my bucket list). I’m starting from scratch with German on duolingo this year instead of taking one more year of Spanish.
If he/she doesn’t care practically speaking a language abroad, Latin might be a good choice. My friend took 5 years of Latin and rocked his SAT because he recognized Latin roots in the vocab that he didn’t know. Now that he’s an English major, it’s come in handier than he ever predicted.
As for ease, I only take Spanish so I don’t really know, but all the french kids at my school say that it’s soooo easy. That might just because they have a native speaker as a teacher. I would find out which languages have native speakers as teachers. They can better explain cultural and linguistic nuances and make for some fun moments like when they forget English words
German is also considered useful for math graduate students and researchers. Math departments may emphasize reading knowledge of math papers and articles written in one of these languages, as opposed to general fluency and literacy.
Also, as noted in reply #13, consider availability. A less common language may be more prone to schedule conflicts because only one section of each level is offered, or may not be offered at as high a level as a more common language. Consider also the level of proficiency that a native English speaker can attain in each language for a given amount of instruction; typically, the same amount of instruction will lead to a higher level of proficiency in Spanish or French than in Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic, so be aware that starting one of the latter may require a greater commitment to learning the language through college to get to a useful level of proficiency.
Both Japanese and Chinese will require many many years of study to get close to any kind of proficiency.