French or Spanish in year 7?

[Al1Langdownthecleghole]

Not really an AIBU - sorry, but I wanted to enable voting.

DD has to choose her language preferences for secondary. She has chosen her first language and needs to choose between French and Spanish for her second choice. For background, she doesn't yet know what she wants to do when she is older, is a bit geeky, into science and history and quite likes music.

I'm slightly leaning towards Spanish, but only marginally and would appreciate some Mumsnet wisdom. If anyone uses the languages at work - please could you explain what you do? it might be helpful.

So Spanish would be better than French - YANBU

No, French is the better choice - YABU

Thanks in advance.

God, she'll love Latin then. Classics grad here, and classics was just the perfect academic 'home' for me. It's great for someone who's a bit of an all rounder, likes aspects of language, logic, humanities etc, and if she's got the chance to take it further, then that's brilliant. And it's definitely got a bit of potential geek cachet!

Spanish is easier to learn and easier to become fluent in with just a GCSE base.

I work with both languages. There are many more Spanish speakers in the world than French speakers.

If DD has obvious linguistic talent, it might be better to learn French first and then add Spanish. Spanish spelling has been ‘simplified’ by orthographic reforms, French less so, and that can lead to confusion the other way round.

I have kids in y7 and y8. They do both in y7 then drop one for y8. Both prefer French to Spanish.