To think Spanish is now more popular than French

[Dappy777]

Would you say Spanish is now a more popular second language than French? I mean in the U.K. I went to a rubbish comprehensive in the late 1980s and French was the only option. They didn’t even teach German (that I remember). Back then, if someone could speak another language it generally seemed to be French.

Today, French seems less popular. My friend’s daughter, for example, is doing an A-level in Spanish. When I asked her why not French she said “oh Spanish is much more useful. You can travel all over central and South America with Spanish. All my friends want to study either Spanish or Italian.” My cousin’s son also dropped French to study Spanish.

i agree with you about work and French and German. I work in software and German and French are much more useful. It is much more common to have French or German speaking colleagues.

But usefulness is so subjective really isn’t it? It depends on where you work and travel. I learned Mandarin to a fairly good level. I have never needed it for work as I don’t work in a country that speaks it. It has significantly more speakers than Spanish according to Google.

Actually a language has been part of the national curriculum for KS2 since September 2014. They should 'make substantial progress in one language.' As this has never had funding ring fenced to primary schools, many schools simply cannot afford the specialist teacher or staff training needed to implement this and the teaching of languages at KS2 is very patchy. I happen to be part of a very rare group of teachers of German in a primary school. There are a lot of free resources out there now as we have had some funding to promote German but we still have plenty of primary school teachers who barely learnt a language themselves at school.

At my kids school they do French from y1-6, then start German and Spanish in years 7/8 then are encouraged to pick one for gcse.

Whoever said that has never tried learning Russian! 🤣

Yes it is. My younger two learned Spanish in school. Half the year did Spanish, half french. DS2 has an A level in Spanish and has kept up daily Duolingo so he can keep the skills going. He has just started a graduate job in the finance world so Spanish should be quite helpful.

When DD started at her Secondary, (yr10) they had only French teachers, but one could teach Spanish as a 2nd MFL at GCSE.
Then one left, and was replaced with a Spanish teacher as they couldn't recruit a French teacher. As a consequence, the Yr9 top set was switched onto Spanish (my DD).

Then the other French teacher retired. Again they couldn't recruit a French teacher...
So this Year... the Yr11s halfway through the course and being taught by a teacher from the neighbouring college (very lucky its next door). Yr10 were offered French taught online, so no in person in teacher.
KS3 have no French whatsoever now

DS1 is learning French at (state) primary school but isn't enjoying it.

He wants to learn German at secondary school which luckily is offered at my preferred secondary school for him.

He'll probably also end up taking Italian as a heritage language (no lessons, but you do the exam at school - though I'm fluent and he's not so we will need to practise/get a tutor)

We are looking at secondary schools at the moment and tbh the language provision doesn't seem great even at some well regarded schools.

I've tried a bit of Russian and Ukranian, and it made German seem a long more manageable! To be fair, English isn't particularly easy to learn either, it's just that more countries do engage with learning it at a younger age. German pronunciation rules makes more sense (most of the time).

My boys all did German GCSE at our local comprehensive. One of them chose German A level and we were really lucky that they were prepared to run an A level that only 3 kids wanted to do. The local selective 6th form didn't run it at all that year

We had to study latin at our secondary school, then you had to pick between german, french, spanish and italian for gcse.

I think more people holiday in spain than france, so for some children it may appear more useful. Where we live having a pass in a second language is compulsory to attend the UKs equivalent of sixth form/college.

English spelling is notorious but I'm not sure that it's a particularly difficult language to learn to speak for most Europeans.

No cases, no genders. English verbs split into strong/weak (like German) and the weak ones are pretty predictable.

Yes. I'm surprised but all my nieces and nephews at secondary school seem to be learning it and more importantly choosing it over computers etc for gcses. It seems vvv popular

My Dd has just done a levels in French and Spanish - large 6th form of over 250 in her year, she was the only one doing both. It’s very hard - and yes the native speakers push the grade boundaries up super high - you need over 90% for an A star (she got an A star in French and an A in Spanish, which is really good for a non native speaker)
She loves both and is doing MFL at uni now. So it’s still out there but yes the numbers are much lower than back in the 90s.

Our school offers French, Spanish and German. There are four Spanish groups, three French and one German that never fills up and a few kids end up being told they have to do German instead of their first choice language. I suspect it will be dropped in the near future.

I think it's really interesting to see how things have changed. When the world was a less connected, global place, people used to learn the language of their nearest neighbours. Now they learn the most widely spoken ones.

My kids' school (local comp) offers Spanish or German from year 7. French can only be chosen as a second modern foreign language, in year 9, so it's unsurprisingly rare.

I read recently that the language most wanted by UK employers is German though, so it can be useful. It is also a beautiful language with a wealth of free government-funded courses online. I honestly think motivated older kids could teach themselves these days.

As I said, lots of children who don't have English as a mother tongue start learning it quite early on, which is definitely party why so many people can speak it reasonably well. There's also a ridiculous amount of English content out there and the expectation, partly from English speakers, that everyone should speak or at least understand English. Learning it from scratch as an adult could be quite challenging, especially if you have a different alphabet/characters.
I didn't really do languages at school, except limited French, but have enjoyed dabbling in a variety since then. German is the language I'll always stick with though, even if it's not that straightforward or even liked by some!
To get back on topic with schools, son's school offers German, French, and now Spanish. He enjoyed German (has 2 qualifications), didn't mind Spanish (has one qualification, not introduced in time for him to take it further), and wasn't overly taken by French.

Do I count as a motivated older kid lol.....definitely left school quite a while ago but highly motivated towards learning. 🫣

My kids all did French and German at school, and I questioned it at the time. I was told that German is good for business. None of my kids have ever used either language out of school.

I think lots of subjects are potentially useful, but it will depend on career paths. So many Germans do speak amazingly good English, but if an English speaking person ends up spending a lot of time in Germany, or even living there, then some knowledge of the language will definitely help. I suppose the 'if you don't use it, then you loose it' is partly true.

Of course! I did French and Spanish at school but much prefer the German I'm learning now.

I've noticed this too. DS secondary only offers Spanish now. A few years back it was both Spanish and French.

Agree younger people are probably most likely to see it as useful because of tourism. The average British teen is, any family ties aside, more likely to engage in tourism in the Spanish speaking world than French.

People say German and French are more useful for business, which may be true. But the average person is more likely to go travelling than they are to anticipate considering jobs in an environment where German and/or French at workplace level are needed.

My youngest daughter did French at school, but after a couple of years out and taking classes/ summer schools in Italian and Spanish, she was accepted into Uni and graduated last year with an MA in both languages. Also had time abroad living in Italy and Spain. She has zero desire to teach. She works in business travel and has found both languages really useful as she books trips all over world. She even found it useful working as a server to fund her travels, as we live in a tourist city. Quite amusing when the occasional " rude" tourist assumed that Brits don't speak any languages and make remarks and she answers them politely in their own language.
She also speaks half decent French, a smattering of Polish and is trying to get to grips with Mandarin.🙄

It is well known that Spanish has overtaken French as an MFL in schools. Just look up the numbers.