Battles over second foreign language

[NoNoNoToEspanol]

Sorry, just a rant. DS in Year 7 needs to pick a second foreign language to start studying next year by Friday and the war between him and DH over it is driving me up the wall. (He's already studying German and is enjoying it.)

He gets to choose from Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese or Japanese and has no preference except he's against Spanish (for reasons he can't or won't explain).

Of course, DH is dead set that he should learn Spanish, as he thinks it's the most useful option. (I'm from the states, so sometimes we visit there, and it's spoken quite a bit, though not by anyone in my family.)

I feel like it doesn't matter. DH took French in school and can't speak it anymore. I took Spanish and can't speak it anymore either, so "usefulness" seems potentially irrelevant, since none of the options are ones we know DS will actually use.

I know the advice is to choose a language you love, or at least have some interest in learning, but other than not wanting Spanish, DS has shown no preference.

I can't decide which misery I'm looking forward to less... DS moaning over the next several years if DH gets his way or DH moaning if he doesn't.

My DS loves learning languages for fun and had the option of a language module alongside his degree. He started off doing Italian but then the tutor left so he had to choose another option. He picked Russian and whilst he managed the spoken language, he said he found the written language a real challenge. Just something for your DS to think about if he's considering that choice.

"DH is dead set that he should learn Spanish, as he thinks it's the most useful option"
Useful for what? Holidays in the US? It's not really a strong enough reason, is it?

"He gets to choose from Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese or Japanese"
I would consider Russian or Chinese myself. I fancy there will be interpreter jobs for those languages for decades to come. Japanese could be interesting too.

Languages teacher here! I started French and Spanish from scratch at 11. Spanish is easy on a basic level but then gets very difficult at A-Level/university. French is hard on a basic level - the sounds themselves are hard to pronounce as we don't have a lot of the same sounds in English and the masculine/feminine doesn't have the obvious patterns that Spanish does.
Italian is somewhere in between the two.
No experience of the others but if he's doing well at German, it's perfectly possible his brain works better with Germanic languages than Latin ones.
If he's got the option to study Chinese (Mandarin, I assume?) or Russian, I'd go for one of those. They'd be far harder to pick up from scratch alone then French, Spanish or Italian would be.
In saying that, it should absolutely be your DS' choice but as you say he has no preference, I'd advise that he do a bit of reading into the cultures - whichever culture grabs him is the one he should study.

Russian is phonetic, and easy to sound it out once you’re familiar with the alphabet.

OK it wasvaeons ago, but we were offered Russian as an option in the year coming up to (then) O level, TBH I’d have thought the alphabet was the easy bit! We had one year to O level, 2 more to A level.
I’d say the same about modern Greek, some of which I’ve learnt since.

My advice would be to let your son choose the language he wants to learn. You always learn more quickly when the subject interests you. If you force him to learn Spanish, he won’t put in the effort.

As for which he should choose, it’s hard to say. In terms of speaking, Spanish is the most useful as it is spoken all over central and South America. But when it comes to intellectual pursuits (i.e reading the language), French, German and Russian are probably better. SO many great novelists and philosophers have written in those languages, from Montaigne to Nietzsche to Tolstoy. Who knows, it might spark a lifelong passion. Oh, and most people would say Dante is the second greatest writer in history, after Shakespeare, so Italian would be great too.

Let him go with his heart. It’s a funny thing, but though I love languages, I have never wanted to learn Spanish either. Ridiculous really. Spanish culture is incredibly rich, and I have liked the Spanish people I have met, but something about the sound of it puts me off.

As someone who studied French and Italian I’d say steer away from the Latin languages and go for Chinese, Russian or Japanese. Whichever he prefers. I’d get him to listen to them all and see which he finds easiest to pronounce or likes the sound of. Or which country/culture interests him.

Your dh is being absolutely ridiculous and pig-headed. The language that will be most useful is the one you choose to learn and use. The fact that a few more million people speak one language than another language is not really important when it comes to individual people's choice of language to learn.

The language your ds will do best at is likely to be the one he chooses, not one that he resents doing because your dh made him do it. If that's not obvious to your dh, it should be. For context I'm a secondary school languages teacher.

I think I read somewhere that one should choose the language you like the sound of, the same as choosing a musical instrument.

I chose the language I'm currently learning for the culture. Ridiculous simplification coming up: Russian for anyone interested in literature. Chinese for history and it's future economic importance. Italian for Opera. French for food. Spanish for the largest number of easily-accessible speakers.

And I'm another poster who thinks your son should decide for himself.

Well usefulness is Chinese!

And absolutely it should be his choice! Can you not tell DH to back off.

Why are you getting involved at all??

Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world and if your DS is at all business-minded, fairly crucial (alongside English) for business in Asia. So if it was me, that’s what I’d choose. But ultimately I agree with PPs who say it should be your DS’s choice as he’s the one who’ll be studying it.

Chinese is likely to be the most useful if he wants to do anything office based, financial, international etc moving forwards.

I know it depends on your aptitude but I find spanish incredibly easy to pick up to a usable level and anyway latin american Spanish (as presumably spoken in the US) and european Spanish are noticeably different so what he learns in school in the UK may not be as useful as expected .

Personally I would save that one for when he actually wants to learn it and let him pick whatever he wants but focus on Chinese if he has no preference!

@NoNoNoToEspanol My DD did French and Italian all the way up to degree level. She had no intention of using either for work. She enjoyed the cultural, literary and language learning opportunities, especially the year abroad at university. So he should learn what he enjoys. DD liked art and Italian food so Italian worked for her!

Spanish is more useful if he wants to be a teacher though but he might need to pair it with French. However he should choose the one that he identifies with and his dad should step back. It really won’t affect anything and it’s not him learning. Good luck!

I love learning languages! I’m autistic and when I was at secondary school, German became my special interest. I ended up doing a joint honours degree, which included German.

My general advice with language is to learn the one you are most drawn to. Are there any countries your DS is interested in? Do you have any friends or family in countries that speak tbe languages in your list?

The only way to become good at a language is to
spend time abroad living with native speakers. I used to visit my French and German pen friends regularly.

Chinese is probably most useful in the sense that very few people speak it and the UK does a lot of trade with China but it is soooo hard.

As PPs have said, Spanish is easy. To be honest, German is too once you have got part the hurdle of learning the 16 ways of saying ‘the’.

He should do what he wants, but honestly - people have been saying Chinese was going to be the most useful since I was at school (I'm in my 50s). The problem is it's really hard and the GCSE grades are skewed by tons of native speakers. Most people who do French or Spanish leave school barely at conversational level. With a language as difficult as Chinese it would be even harder to reach a good level. Don't get me wrong - I'd love to learn it, but the average student probably wouldn't get very good.

I’d stay out of it! He may choose language A or B because his mates are doing it. Or because his teacher is fun.

fwiw DS did Spanish and French for GCSE and I was keen he chose one for A level. Didn’t really mind which (although I’m fluent in French and thought I could help) but any language is a USP especially for boys. I kept out of it totally…. If I’d pushed the point he’d have gone 180 degrees in the other direction and dropped all languages. He ended up choosing French and got an A.

Trust your DS and teachers and tell DH to back off.

I speak Spanish (OK not perfectly but still) and I told DS that many people in the world speaks Spanish so it's the best language to chose. He picked Italian because he likes the sound of it. I wonder if Super Mario or maybe brainrots have something to do with it. Anyway, his life, hus choice but don't come asking me for help😅

I would encourage him to do whatever he wants (agree with you that he shouldn't worry about usefulness) but I would warn him that Chinese and Japanese will be extremely hard work. Italian or French would be a much easier ride!

Just let him decide.

@dizzydizzydizzy The uk doesn’t do much trade with China. EU - much more. It’s not always helpful to translate MFLs into jobs. Dc need to see MFLs at a high level as stepping stones.

Neither does anyone need pen pals and loads of time abroad before uni. My DD had neither. Neither did DH or me speak any MFLs so we didn’t coach her. Neither do we have relatives living abroad to host for holidays. Our dd just found she was good at MFLs and enjoyed them. Luckily had good teaching. That’s important.

@NoNoNoToEspanol Will your ds have to take a second language at gcse? The choice becomes a bit more important if so. 2 of my dc attended a school where you had to choose a second language for year 8, and then had to do two languages at GCSE. (Both mine opted to do latin as a second language at gcse (instead of the second MFL that they had to choose for year 8) as a decent chunk of it is ancient history, rather than language, and the vocab to learn is less (only 450 words), and there is only translation to English, not the other way round. And fewer exams to take - as no speaking or listening exams). And it helps with language / vocabulary in English as well.

I agree that business or other very practical reasons is not the only reason or even the best reason to learn a language but I did give other reasons, such as having an interest in a particular country.

I don’t agree with your comment about trade. Most/many non-perishable goods that are for sale on the shops are made in China. I think that alone tells you that Chinese could be useful.

As for pen friends and spending time in the country of the language you are learning, I was telling you about that from my lived experience of learning many languages. Of course children today have far more options due to the internet so could potentially be watching YouTube etc in other languages on a daily basis. You can learn a language without visiting the country but you will learn it far more quickly and easily if you spent some time surrounded by native speakers. From my lived experience, spending 2 weeks with my German penfriend and her family brought me from the bottom of the class to the top of the class at age 13. Plus it also inspired a lifelong love of Germany.

I’m sure it worked for you but most don’t d”have pen friends these days. Plus at higher levels you need literature, not just language., I do think it’s best to have an interest in a country and the MFL but this is GCSE, not degree level.

Most people think trade is what we sell, not import. The Chinese speak English to facilitate their trade to uk.