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Secondary education

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Language choices in year 7

26 replies

Wobblypig · 05/03/2018 23:27

DS has to select a preference for his language choices in year 7. They have to do Latin and then can chose 2 from French, Spanish, German and mandarin. He has done some French before.
DH thinks mandarin is obvious choice but they have to stick to this choice for 3 years and I think it’s a risk. It may be very hard and he may hate it. Spanish would obviously be easier with French and Latin studied before, whilst German sounds like a complete waste of time to me but DH says it’s good for business.
Anyone with experience of similar choices and specifically mandarin?

Thanks

OP posts:
MollyHuaCha · 05/03/2018 23:51

Mandarin is difficult for those whose native language is based on letters as opposed to characters. It's also tonal. Therefore, progress is likely to be slower than in European languages. But they're not reasons not to choose it!

If it were me I'd choose Spanish and Mandarin. Together with English they are the world's most spoken languages.