Okay, I know there are TONS of personal issues to consider for this decision, but I'm still going to ask for thoughts. We are in the throes of course selection, and DD13's options are limited to Spanish, French and Latin. I think we've made the decision, but since we have all weekend to reconsider.....

Thoughts?

What does she want to do with the language? What are her goals? Travel? Get better SAT scores? Just meet her language requirements as painlessly as possible? Call people nasty names without their knowing what she's saying?

I took French until middle school and traveled to France, but I switched to German in high school because the German program was so much better. Then I got to travel to Germany. I was a happy camper!

I know German seems like kind of a dumb language to learn, but combined with the French, it made for some super-strong SAT scores, since I had some background in both a romance language and a Germanic one.

So what are your DD's goals?

Spanish will probably be the most useful, Latin will give her this overall well rounded appearance

My daughter, who is learning Spanish and Mandarin, says frequently that she is going to learn two more languages: French and Russian. Russian I know why - DH speaks quite well, but French is totally her idea !

Just read what Kriston wrote - investigate the teachers! This could be quite important.

Hi Dottie,

We chose based on the teacher. I never thought that would be the #1 consideration, but the French teacher at DS's high school is known as the best teacher in town in any subject. I think it's somewhat an impractical language, but DS sings French around the house, makes crepes for late-night snack, calls me "madame", etc.--very extraordinary for a kids with moderate natural language ability.

Other than that I would pick Spanish. It is clearly the most useful second language (especially in this part of the States). More than half our population speaks it, my H uses it for more than 85% of his patients, etc.

Yup. I think it all comes down to goals and teachers!

Good point on the teacher, I had just asked her to "look into that" at school today. She's our first, so we don't know high school issues too well. It is obviously a language requirement, and she's somewhat limited on "personal reasons" at the moment, so I'm really enjoying your thoughts on how to gently probe her further.

At 13 it's hard to really predict her future, but I see her in something graphic arts related. She most enjoys computer work and artistic challenges, and has a strong visual spatial bent. She's pretty good at math, but doesn't really care for it. She's also very strong in creative writing.

She doesn't want French, but is somewhat torn between Spanish and Latin. Most of the GT kids are going with Latin at the moment. I've "chosen" her honors classes for her, and really want to give her the choice on this one, kwim? But I want to also give her things to think about.

I started out with French in nursery school (remember nursery school? That dates me right there!), and continued it through college. Back in those days, the schools tended to teach French, not Spanish.

I had two years of Latin in grade school and disliked it. Too many stories about Caesar and the battlefield for my taste, and I can't say it helped me with other languages.

In high school, I started Russian and continued through college b/c (dating myself again) I wanted to learn about the culture and find out if we were hearing "propaganda" about them, as they were supposedly hearing about us. I also loved Russian literature.

Finally, my senior year of college I started Japanese, mostly b/c I wanted to learn Chinese, but it wasn't offered (dating myself again) so I chose a language with written characters.

So, those are all my reasons for studying different languages, which I mention so that I can say that despite the above, I wish I had learned Spanish. It would be more useful to me in my everyday life.

Since our daughter will also begin high school next year, we have also just completed the course selections. We decided ultimately on Spanish although dd had her heart set on French for the last couple of years.

She hopes to become a doctor, so we know that Spanish will be most beneficial for her. She did argue with us about it as we explained that many future patients would be Spanish speaking. She rebutted that she may also have French patients to which we pointed out the obvious; that they would most likely speak English also.

She finally changed her mind this past Christmas when I asked my young twenty-something cousin to speak with her about it. Since she is young, hip and in her second year of medical school, her opinion, that her fluency in Spanish gave her an edge for med school acceptance, carried some weight with dd.

delbows: you might also suggest that she can always take French later. Life is long (for most people, anyway)!

Out of subject, a little anyway - Debbie, Cym, Dottie, - we NEED a HS thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's e-mail M.Dlugosz again today. All of us. Maybe the volume of the voice will speed up some changes here. No offence to anyone, but I sometimes have to plow my way through the preschool, early childchood threads to find some info!

She has actually stuck with her story that she wants to live in Germany for a few years as an adult, so she should have plenty of opportunity to learn French if she does!

Also, ds will take a mandatory Latin class in 7th grade next year which he is really looking forward to it!

I'm all for the HS thread too! I'd love to read everything here, but don't have the time usually.

^^send a quick e-mail to M.Dluosz today. I am doing it now.

Just the way I skip over the high school stuff, LOL!

LOL ^^^ but there is way less HS stuff

You're right. I'm so stuck on now, I forget these kids grow up!!!

I used to skip over the high school stuff....now I wish I'd paid more attention, LOL! I confess to skimming over anything in the "under 6" range.

Questions, You’ll have the archival advice at your fingertips when your kids do get to high school which will be sooner than you think- and possibly even before that!

I have no idea what the Coffee Shop thread is about.

Ania, email sent.

I am obviously biased since my dd is in a Spanish immersion program, but I would have encouraged the same language choice if she were in high school and had more options. Since we live in Texas, Spanish is a handy language to know. My dd has translated for me on numerous occassions and she is only 8yo.

One thing to consider is what language your child will have an opportunity to use outside of school. For us that is obviously Spanish. We hear it spoken and see it written everywhere. If you live near Canada, there might be more opportunities for French. This was particularly important to me because I want my dd to maintain her second language even if she is not taking classes in that language.

As was mentioned earlier, once you master a couple of Latin based languages it is not hard to learn others. Now that my dd is fluent in Spanish, she wants to learn French. She was playing an instructional French computer game this week and commented on how much easier it is to learn since she knows Spanish. Between her English and Spanish she was able to identify many cognates.

Another tidbit of information is that Mandarin Chinese, English and Spanish are the three most widely spoken languages in the world.

I'll send an email to Mark now. While I have kids spanning age 6-13, I think I tend to focus on the older ones with the idea that things will fall in place for the younger ones after I've figured it out. Poor #4 seems like cake, but believe me, that's after years of advocacy!

At my dd school Spanish is the only option for the lower school. In Middle school they have the option to take Latin, French or Spanish.

Since my DD is fluent in Spanish, I would choose Latin as the third language. But I definitely think Spanish would be the most useful/practical language to learn.

I don't deny there are a whole lot of Spanish-speakers, but I'll say again that it depends on what you're going to do with the language.

I've never needed more than Sesame Street-level Spanish because I don't live in a area with many native Spanish speakers and I've only been to Mexico once, really. (Tijuana for an afternoon doesn't really count!) Since that trip was to Cancun, the tourist trap of Mexico, no Spanish was necessary even then...only dollar bills.

OTOH, I've been to France 3 times (once for a month), Quebec once, Germany twice (once for a month and once for 2 weeks), and Austria twice, so I've used my knowledge of French and German quite a bit. I also used my German a bit in Italy and Iceland when English didn't cut it for various reasons.

Spanish is certainly more commonly spoken than French or Latin (duh!), but it really comes down to what you want to do with it and where you plan to travel.

I live in California, I guess where you live also makes all the difference.

Oh, yes! If you're in CA (or FL or TX or...), I can't imagine taking anything *but* Spanish, unless you're taking more than one foreign language.

That's becoming true of more areas everyday, of course. It's just not true of my area yet.

<shrug>

A side note--just got a PM from Mark saying he's going to change the forums this weekend!

Re languages, I wanted to add that some masters programs in mathematics require a reading fluency in German or Russian.

I couldn't find a topic to make this fit, but since it involves DD's course selection, here is a good a place as any. DD13's neighborhood friend was over this afternoon. REALLY sweet girl, and we really like her. But "ND" for all practical purposes. We let her do her course selection on our computer, and she was sharing with DD her cousin's advice.

Don't take Honors classes, because they are really hard, etc.

Um....thanks! I think DD13 must know there is a difference here, although she did seem a little surprised at first when I suggested all honors. Her teachers agreed, and she is slowly accepting. I didn't say anything with friend though. They are great pals for hanging out, but night and day different academically.