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.

Spanish and French are both Romance languages so words which have a common root (which is most of them) will have the same grammatical gender.

I don't know why I love German so much - perhaps it is partly the challenges of genders and cases and so on, perhaps it's partly that it's actually quite logical in many ways, perhaps it's how beautiful it can sound, perhaps it's a combination. I'm glad I found that love though.

Oh no, they definitely don't all speak good English, you are correct there!
I hope your son was ok.

Some Germans are happy to let folk speak German too though, in my experience.

Many Germans speak English very well, but others have strong accents and make basic errors.

I know several British people who are fluent in German, though obviously I can't judge their abilities the way a native speaker could.

Lots of nationalities think their language is so uniquely difficult that nobody else could possibly master it. And then they'll often insist on speaking English, which obviously means their interlocutor has no opportunity to improve. So it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.

But I think it's more obvious in Spanish as it's o/a for both nouns and verbs. If you're an 11 year old learning your first MFL, that helps a lot.

@Dappy777
I’m curious to hear what languages your kids chose at GCSE or Sixth Form.

My son started learning German and French. He dropped French as a GCSE choice but did German to A'Level. Daughter started secondary learning Spanish and German, but dropped German and did Spanish to A'Level.

I'm trained as a French specialist primary school teacher but find I use Spanish (which I did ab initio at uni) much more. So many Spanish speaking children in South London as well as lots of primary schools choosing to teach Spanish over French.

Yes, I agree that it's easier to remember in Spanish.

Both my 90s northern comprehensive and state sixth form college offered French and Spanish only and I did them both for GCSE and A level. Started Spanish from scratch in year ten. No German was offered at any point. This was early to mid 90s.

I agree. People often say German is an ugly language (in one of Oscar Wilde’s plays a governess is trying to make her pupil concentrate and the girl says “oh, but I don’t want to study German, I always feel so ugly after my German lessons”). Personally, I think it’s beautiful. German culture is very rich as well. If you can read German, there are so many interesting poets and philosophers to study. In Patrick Fermor’s travel book A Time of Gifts he describes backpacking through Germany and studying the language. As he began to read the German poets, his prejudices disappeared.

Oddly, I have never liked the sound of Spanish. I have nothing against Spanish people or Spanish culture but the language just doesn’t appeal to me.

I didn’t say that. I said that in the 80’s and 90’s Spanish was usually only taught in Catholic Schools-often along with French. The most common second language in non-Catholic schools was German. I assume it’s because Spain was traditionally a Catholic country.

I don’t find it easier. The subjunctive mood is more complex than in French and you have the preterite/ imperfect to master as well as ser and estar. Also, the speaking speed is faster.

Yes, I agree with you 100%. We really do need more linguists and language professionals. It frustrates me so much that languages are just presented as a way of learning that specific language and then using it to work for a business that needs speakers of that particular language and/or live in a country where that language is spoken. What we actually need is people with linguistic expertise to work with language, including working on/with AI, to avoid the sort of disastrous use of it you describe. But people don't realise this.

Not necessarily
Many verbs end in o in the I form in Spanish. Children sometimes confuse this with the o for the masculine nouns.
I teach both of these languages and while I agree that Spanish pronunciation is easier (and indeed easier than English in many cases) , once you get past the basics the level of difficulty is about the same

I went to primary school in the 90s, and didn't encounter a second language until secondary school. When I started, the school alternated each year between German and French. I ended up with French, my older sister did German. In about Year 9 they dropped German entirely and everyone did French.

I'm a primary school supply teacher now, and every school I've worked in has taught a second language (fairly badly in almost all cases, because none of these teachers are language specialists). When I first qualified as a teacher in 2008, most schools were doing French. Now almost all are doing Spanish. A few are doing French, and even fewer (but a growing number) are doing Latin!

I don't enjoy the sound of French at all, also nothing against French people, but it's probably why I wasn't really interested in it at school.

I actually feel really frustrated about how languages are taught and presented in the UK. (I'm not blaming teachers for a second!) There are a number of (mostly structural) problems including (in no particular order):

We start way too late.

We do way too little.

There is no incentive to learn just one language (like English in many other countries) so a whole smorgasbord is offered, which is not actually that helpful - many children end up doing a bit of everything and make no real progress with any one language. (I don't know what the solution is to this!)

Due to the above (no incentive to learn a particular one), languages are not taken seriously.

Because we leave it so late, there's a mountain to climb when it comes to GCSE, which means the level is way harder than many children can be expected to achieve in the time allocated and there's way too much content, which puts huge numbers of children off. (And the most recent changes to the GCSEs have yet again failed to really fundamentally address this.)

A lot of language-teaching practice that seems to have been passed down for many years now is based on the flawed notion that learning a second language is just like learning your first, so methods are often based on attempting to replicate that, e.g. using pictures instead of translation equivalent words to convey meaning, or exclusively/mainly using the target language in the classroom. This leads to so much frustration for children. (I don't actually know if teachers are still taught to do these things but I know my tutees still encounter them.) Learning a first language is the process of mapping language onto the properties of the real world (or humans' construals of these); learning a second language is a different process.

Text books are generally poorly set out (they are often very busy and/or illogical) and fail to offer enough practice of particular grammar points at the appropriate level before becoming too difficult for many students.

The value of languages beyond learning a specific language is rarely, if ever, made clear, and neither are the language-based careers they can lead to, so it's no wonder students don't see the point.

When I got together with German ex, I was looking forward to sprechening some Deutsch mit ihm. I'd barely used it since my long ago A level. But I was so shite and his English so fluent that we just never did.

I could never get on with Spanish. Find French much easier; even though they do a theatrical Gallic wince every time you murder their vowels, I think they like you to try

The main reasons that Brits' French, German, Spanish etc are poor compared with other Europeans' English are lack of general exposure, a lack of one obvious language to learn, plus a lack of necessity. I teach bright girls, many of whom like languages. They are a bit disheartened when they go on their foreign exchange trip to find that their partner not only speaks way better English than they do German etc, but that they speak cool, colloquial English.

This isn't because the German students are taught any better. It's because they are surrounded by English literally all the time, especially on TikTok, YouTube etc. Our kids have probably never heard a word of German outside school. And in Germany English is seen as a necessary skill. German is not seen as a necessary skill for British kids because, frankly, it isn't. Useful to a few, maybe, but not essential.

In the summer we were on holiday in Cyprus. (Local language Greek Cypriot). Most of the hotel guests were from Scandinavia. The Reps were from Scandinavia. The hotel staff were a mixture of Greek Cypriot and Turkish.

The hotel operated in English as that was everyone's common language. The Swedes didn't speak Norwegian for example, or the Finnish didn't speak Danish. They are taught English as its more useful internationally.

To return to the original point made by the OP, I think the move away from French (and indeed German) in favour of Spanish has been an attempt to address all the problems with language learning by adopting and promoting an "easier" language, rather than it having anything (or much) to do with Spanish being more widely spoken than French. Inevitably, this has not led to an increase in the uptake of languages or to higher levels of success with languages as the fundamental issues remain.

Interesting thread, @Dappy777 .

I'm not sure that is true about learning your nearest neighbour's language. We share a land boarder with Ireland, and part of the UK speaks Welsh.

@TaborlinTheGreat that reminds me of something a school friend told me. She went on a German exchange, the German student wanted to practice their English, the mother of the family spoke a colloquial dialect but spoke French so they used that to communicate. The only person she spoke to in German was the younger sibling of the host family.

On the being surrounded by English I understand that, I'm currently doing really badly on Duolingo Spanish because I watched Money Heist.

Dts are in y10 now and french has been removed as a gcse option. Can’t find a teacher being the reason given. They are doing Spanish out of necessity. I did French through to IB and German to GCSE. German was really pushed on us as a second MFL and I have never ever used it.

I have no knowledge of Spanish at all so I hope they don’t come looking for help!

Absolutely. In my long experience it's a myth that languages are primarily chosen for their usefulness (certainly by students but also by schools). If we are being honest, the vast, vast majority of British kids will not use their language for anything beyond ordering a beer on holiday. Schools teach the languages they've always taught and/or the ones they can staff, and if they are dropping one they will keep the one(s) that are most popular. Students choose the ones they enjoy (usually based on the teaching they've experienced in it so far) and find easiest.

In any case, unless you are planning to base your whole career on languages, it's hard to predict whether a language will turn out to be useful and which one. The fact that there are a few more millions of speakers of one language in the world than another will make very little real difference to the odds of you ending up needing or being able to use the one you chose in any job you might get.

DC’s school teach French, German, Latin and Spanish. Everyone takes all 4 in years 7 & 8, then they drop two in Y9, when they have the option to start Greek too. DD chose German and Spanish, she’s enjoying Spanish but not German and will only take Spanish for GCSE. DS was hopeless at languages, he took Spanish at GCSE but dropped it at the end of Y10 after getting a 4 in his end of year exams.

I wish I’d had the option to learn Spanish at school instead of French. We tend to holiday in Spanish speaking countries, I also worked for a Spanish bank for several years and thought it was a beautiful language when listening to my Spanish colleagues.