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.