French, German or Spanish most useful modern foreign language?

[Naturelover5]

Out of those three which will be the most useful in the future & why?

No, they use native Russian speakers.

MFL teachers tell me that German is dying out in schools, which is a shame.

French was more useful when I was studying but German has proved more useful in adult life. And in fact I live in Germany now. Most Germans do have decent English, many even excellent English, but to live and work here you really need Deutsch, especially outside the major cities.

Spanish is one I am keen to learn but more for travel and interest. Have not really needed it much so far. I have basic Russian and that has been useful as I can read Cyrillic letters and also understand quite a lot from other Slavic languages.

French and Spanish are closely related, so learning one may mean it easier to learn the other later.

If they are strong with STEM, I’d recommend German or French. Nuclear engineering will be massive over the next 20 years & it’s mainly France leading the way.

They all can be useful but it would depend on one's field of work really.

Spanish. It’s what I studied in school and I’ve used it loads while travelling. Even in places that weren’t Spanish speaking, it could be a bridging language and helped me get by. For example, I was in Morocco once and didn’t speak Arabic, but the shopkeeper asked if I spoke Spanish and we switched to that.

Depends why you'd want to use a foreign language and where life takes you.

DD did French at school, never used it even for a holiday. She's learnt German to A level in the last year, and there are a couple of reasons why she would study or even live in Germany in the future so the way life has taken her right now makes German more useful.

If they are interested in learning Russian then German has the closest grammar structures. It is a slightly more challenging language for English speakers to learn than either french or Spanish - which can be good or bad depending on how much affinity for languages you have.

It is quite unpredictable which language the DC would find personally most useful - Spanish wins on numbers of speakers but they could just as easily find themselves posted to Sweden or having an urdu speaking mother in law. The important thing in that scenario is learning how to learn a language - so what counts the most is picking a language, any language and sticking with it, learning as much as possible so that when it comes to the wildcard language they actually need to know, they know where to start.

my Post didn’t come across well; I was being slightly tongue in cheek. But it can be useful having some understanding of a country we have hostile relations with. A student friend very randomly decided to do a postgrad study on the culture and language in Iraq sometime in the late 1980s. We thought he was nuts. Oddly enough after about 1991, he had no trouble finding a job.

I think pre invasion Russian would be extremely useful, I always wanted to visit St Petersburg with the dc in the winter, go to the ballet & soak up the culture but I can't see that happening in the near future.
Pre covid Russian businesses were really thriving in Europe, London was full of Russian business men. It would have been a very important language to have if one wanted to work in the global market.. Now I'm not so sure..

Spanish. Far more countries speak it. Its used a lot on TV programmes (or maybe just the American cop shows I watch).

I had to learn French and German, DD learnt Spanish. I frequently have to get DD to translate, she's never had to ask me.

It's really depend on where you are. For secondary children living in UK with no aim in doing something to do with certain country , all three has no difference in usefulness, in my opinion. Depend on which language the dc find it more interesting.

oh...this is from August 😯

@Naturelover5 what did dc choose in the end?

Spanish is probably more useful, but I'd recommend French.

I did French for A-level equivalent in my country. Later I worked in Spain and became pretty fluent.

I love being able to understand French and it's useful in Nth Africa and some of the Middle East. I recommend learning French first and then picking up Spanish.

But for your children - let them go for whichever language they are more interested in.

Which of the countries will be most up & coming in business, tech & science in the future?