WHY IS FRENCH / GERMAN TAUGHT MORE THAN SPANISH?

[HAPPYFACE]

My dh and I had a choice of french or german in state secondary schools. When I said to him some primary schools are starting to do french he said he couldn't understand why spanish isn't taught more. Isn't it more spoken throughout the world than french and german? Thus making it more useful in adult life!
If we have got it totally wrong I'm sorry!
If we are correct, can something not be done?

mandarin is the most spoken/useful

now now everyone calm down, French is ze language of lurve, so we must carry one teaching it as much as possible

especially as the Academie Francaise is pretty much useless as letting the language evolve properly

enfin bon

saying that I learnt spanish and english and love spanish
want to learn italian now

That Dora's got a lot to answer for....

Another one for mandarin. It is offered by one of dd's prospective schools and a key attraction for me.

it really riles me ..its the only language that i want my children to learn..grrrr

DD's school has replaced german with spanish.She takes both languages .She finds it slightly confusing as they are quite similar,she'd like to drop french but isn't allowed to because she's in the top sets.

There may be other reasons for considering a language important, though, than just numbers of speakers. A language might be culturally important for example. Admittedly your average 11-y-o probably doesn't think about this that much, but later - e.g. when people take up a new langauge at University - it might be a factor. An interest in art or music (or pizza-eating?) often spurs people to start learning Italian.

That site Suew looks good,overall it seems to put french slightly above spanish, but german is way down the list!
I suppose a lot of our thinking is that for a quick warm break most people over here will go to spain for holidays and we loved going to america where I think it is a big second if not first language in lots of households.
French is obviously a good language to have as well. I actually chose to continue german in secondary school (it seemed easier!) and have had no use for it as an adult!

I did French at primary school in the 60's, then O level French, German and Latin, plus Italian in between doing A levels (it was a crammer).

DS is also doing French, German and Latin but has to drop one in year 8. Spanish is not offered.

I wish I could remember where it was, but I read something a couple of years back speculating that Spanish would overtake French as the top language taught in UK schools by 2010 or thereabouts.

It is MUCH more widely taught now than when I was at school and I'd be amazed if the trend didn't continue.

The real problem is recruitment in schools - I am trying to find decent teachers of Spanish and another language and the candidature is somewhat limited. I wish that I had done Spanish at school but it wasn't available at all - I now teach it to KS3. Primary schools will end up teaching more French due to the number of French teachers - most KS2 teachers have done some French along the line - it is a cruel case of supply and demand. French also becomes IMO very difficult beyond a certain level. If anyone knows of a Spanish teacher looking for work let me know!! :)

Where I live Spanish is traditionally taught in Ctaholic schools and German in non-denominational schools. Since there are more non denom schools could this be the reason?

Languages TAUGHT in school. I dont know any child that can speak another language (clean) that has been taught in an English school full stop!

I learned French, German, Spanish and Latin at school. I have since studied Polish, Russian, Romanian, Dutch and Hebrew. Latin was very useful for the Slav languages as the nouns decline in these languages as well. German was useful for Dutch as the grammar is pretty similar (and Dutch seems to be halfway between German and English). Despite being told that Romanian is the closest living language to Latin, I didn't find this at all - Spanish is much closer, IMO. Speaking Romanian means that I can now understand Italian as they are mutually comprehensible (tho Italians find Romanian more difficult due to odd grammar). I use French at work (but loathe the language, primarily due to my atrocious accent - I am told I sound Dutch, and most people here think I am a Flem!).

And absolutely nothing helped with Hebrew!

as others have said, I've also heard that it is the numbers - more adults have done French at school, thus there are now more people who can teach French than German or Spanish.
Apparently 'studies have shown' that doing Spanish first is the best choice, because it's easier than the other two languages and thus a very good first introduction to foreign languages. I am sure if more schools did Spanish first there would be a lot more children carrying on with languages.
Spanish would be my preferred choice for my children because (apart from the fact that they are bilingual in English/German already anyway) it's just so much more widely spoken.
I did English, Latin and French at (my German) school and then later one French and Spanish at uni. Wish I'd just done English and Spanish and maybe a little bit of French.

French and Spanish at our local secondary school.

I did German and French at school, although Spanish was an option and it was a catholic school but German was seen as more of a challenge and did do a degree in both. I have used German in business but very little French. Many of the companies I have dealt with had German parent companies. Apparently Denmark is the Company that sets up more companies in the UK now more than any other European country and therefore for business we should actually be learning Danish! However, I am now learning Spanish as am dealing with ex-pats over there most of whom dont speak Spanish which is really strange. I am mixed over this as Spanish is better for holidays but less used in business. I also speak Italian and have used this more for business than Spanish. Therefore I would continue with German in schools particular for those who want to go into engineering.

ks - languages can be learnt well in a classroom. I learnt English as a second language from 10 onwards and was fluent when I went to Australia at 16 on a student exchange trip. It just depends on the teaching - I had really good teachers.

I did some work experience at a local secondary school this year and mainly did conversation with the 15 year olds in preparation for their GCSEs. Some of them were really very good at speaking German despite never having even been to a German-speaking country.

Agree with Geekgrrl. My sister, who was studying A-level German, had a conversation with a German judge on holiday who assumed my sister was German but couldn't quite place her accent.

Good point about Spanish being a great introduction because it's easier - certainly breathed a sigh of relief when I switched to Spanish as an extra in the 6th form after scraping a C in O-level French.

ks - you know full well that languages are not taught like that any more (by most teachers anyway).

My classroom-only french was pretty good (it's faded now - would probably come back if i had to use it). It was good enough to hold conversations and pass a police "interview" in Morocco at any rate. Plus I've met many many Spanish people who speak very good english without ever having been to the uk and actually probably a higher propoportion of teachers here use those old methods.

also...I strongly disagree with the idea that target language only teaching is best for beginner and elementary levels for any language teaching. At higher levels, yes, it works well and is used (my french teacher used to speak mostly in french although she did still concentrate on written/grammar exercises rather than fluency).