Most beneficial language for teens to learn & why?

[Enchantmentzz]

I know it's important for them to really enjoy the language not my question is solely about what's most useful in today's global environment?
Russian used be very useful but now with Russia out of favour with the EU perhaps not anymore..
Mandarin, Italian, France, German, Spanish or x? What is most lucrative ?

What do they want to learn? Go with that

Spanish would be the most useful in terms of number of different countries it's spoken in around the world, not just Spain but South America etc. plus its similarities with other Latin-based languages (Portuguese, Italian etc) means they would have some understanding of those languages in other countries.
Mandarin would be helpful if they plan to travel/work in Asia.
Do your DC know what they want to do - career-wise?

Law, accounting or business at the moment ☺️

If you want to stick to languages that use a very similar alphabet to us and are also interesting/useful then German or Spanish.
Russian or Ukranian do use a fair few different characters and pronunciation.
If you're happy to branch out with new alphabets then Arabic, Chinese, Japanese etc might be interesting.
All of these would potentially be useful in business.

Your title and your post ask two different questions. Beneficial might not be the same as lucrative.

Russian is more important now than ever. Know your enemy and all that. In fact there is a view that because governments stopped thinking Russian was useful, expert knowledge about the region was lost, which meant govts took their eye off what was happening and so need to actively recruit more specialists in the region. (Disclaimer - I have a Russian degree although currently not working in a job that needs it). But civil / crown servants are paid less than the private sector so not necessarily lucrative (although highly rewarding).

Otherwise, I'd say mandarin (trade, tech) and arabic (security and defence). Potential to work in govt / public sector and private sector. If he / she enjoys one of the european languages, could always pick up one of these as a new language alongside eg. Spanish.

I speak and or understand German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Polish, Scottish Gaelic and a very little Korean it has never entered my head to learn a language because it is potentially "lucrative".

The vast majority of people with whom your teens will be doing business are going to be confident speakers of English, and a few years of school-level language courses — focused on passing exams rather than actually developing a real understanding of the language — won't touch the sides when it comes to speaking a foreign language fluently. Plus, Russian, Arabic, and Mandarin are ferociously hard for all but the most dedicated — the alphabets/writing systems are already a big challenge.

So on that basis I would be inclined to encourage them to learn to speak English well in a wide variety of contexts, rather than another language. I say this as someone who has learned four languages from scratch (to C2, C2, B1, and B2 proficiency) by living in the relevant countries. I left school with a good O-level grade in French and that knowledge was helpful for the first couple of months living in France, but that was about it.

An example of what I mean: When I was working in France we had a software salesman from the UK give us a presentation in English. All of us in the IT department could read and understand standard English well enough to follow this normally, although I was the only native speaker. But the guy spoke like he was talking about football at the pub. A particular highlight was that the entry-level version of the software package was consistently referred to as "Your starter for ten". After the meeting I spent quite a bit of time explaining to people what that meant, along with several other phrases which he had used.

Very sound advice from the previous poster: learn to speak English in such a way that non-natives understand. A very useful skill in today's world. Far more useful than GCSE knowledge of French.

Thanks for the replies sound advice. I do think in this global environment languages do set people apart. I'm always very impressed by multilingual folk!

While it is true that a basic level of a language will be mostly useful for holidays rather than business use, it’s also the case that you’re not going to become a proficient business user without starting somewhere. There’s no single language that will be guaranteed to make your child a bigger success in business. But being able to speak any language well will help them in some way. If nothing else it will teach them that they are capable of learning a third language that they might need in future. As brits we are quite lazy about languages in a way that other Europeans are not - ie it’s excited that while you may learn one language at school (eg English) you may need to learn another later. The best thing to encourage your children is that languages are a great skill set and for life long learning.

Definitely Spanish.

Is this difficult to learn, dc1 has expressed an interest.

It is considered one of the easiest for native English speakers to learn.

I’m not sure learning any language is necessarily lucrative, and certainly not unless you are fluent or near-fluent. However they are all hugely beneficial and will help your child understand the world and its complexity.

People talk about languages being more or less difficult but my experience has been that different people find different languages difficult. DS loves Russian but hated French, despite that being the “easier” language. So I’d just let your child pick the one that appeals most, as that gives them the best chance of doing well.

If it was me, I’d pick Russian as I’d love to be able to read Russian literature in the original language.

Unfortunately, here in Wales GCSE Welsh is now compulsory. DD is doing it. It used to be a complementary short course, but now it’s a full GCSE.
Because one of their “choices” is already taken up like this, many students aren’t taking another language that might have been more beneficial - DD would have done Spanish ideally. It’s an idiotic rule that puts Welsh youngsters at a disadvantage.

Anyway, I’d have thought French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese were all good second languages to have.

All languages are difficult to learn, but some are less difficult than others.

I assume you don't speak another language yourself?

My advice, as someone who has attempted to learn four foreign languages in my lifetime and can't speak any of them (but can read a bit in two), is to choose one that has a lot of potential to explore interests in that language, because that is the greatest motivation to continue trying to learn. For example, visiting the country frequently or being interested in the country's music/film/literature/football league etc. So French could be good if you live in southern England and can travel to France easily. Spanish opens up culture etc of Latin America in addition to holidays in Spain. Even Korean if your child is into K-pop and drama.

I speak a couple of foreign languages quite well and another couple very basically but my experience is that unless you can get more or less fluent languages will not really help your career since there will usually be someone who is and a GCSE onwards cant compete with that. Unfortunately as English speakers we are usually in competition with people from other countires who are fluent in their own language AND have been learning/using English for a very young age. Plus a French person speaking excellent English can work in France visa free for example but Brits can't anymore so who will an employer choose?
Learning a language is always a good idea though from the perspective that even a basic understanding can help broaden your horizons and there is evidence that language learning can help prevent or delay cognitive decline

It takes years and thousands of hours to get proficient in any language. I speak 3. I would say any language enriches your life as you also learn about that culture in the process. I would recommend Spanish. It's fairly easy to learn and it's the 2nd most widely spoken language in the world. Saying this, go with your child's interest. I signed my son up for Spanish. After about 4 months he asked if he could study Japanese. No idea why. That was 2.5 years ago and he is still doing 1 hour every Sunday. He is nowhere near proficient. However he could probably get by in a large city. He is learning Japanese with a native Japanese speaker via Verbling. I highly recommend that platform.

Did he stick with the Spanish top?

I’d also recommend Spanish. And as per PP it’s also worth learning a non European language. Just to widen your horizons and understand that not everyone “thinks like English people do”

No he quit Spanish

I'll look into that thanks

I think the reason because son stuck with Japanese for so long is because he really likes the teacher. You can look on teacher's profile on Verbling and find someone with shared interests. My son has been doing a weekly Japanese lesson for so long now that it became part of his weekly routine to spend 1 hour learning something new

Klingon

Spanish or French if they struggle with languages.

Russian or Arabic if they don’t - both are incredibly beneficial and applicable to rapidly growing economies (most of Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East) will either speak Russian or Arabic. And if they don’t, then the ‘easier’ sub-languages from those languages (Hungarian, Bulgarian) mean you can broadly understand what is being said in them. Just because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine it doesn’t mean Russian is no longer useful.

I speak Russian which has been very helpful when travelling to the Nordics/Baltics/Ukraine (because even if it’s not great to speak there many Ukrainians will understand) and wider Eastern Europe (Armenia/Azerbaijan). It took me 18 months to learn full time (I.e it was my job to learn it). It’s also one of the core UN languages where translation is available in most international meetings - because so many people speak it as a second language or a third language.