Almost unrestricted choice of Modern Language for yr9. How to choose? Help!

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So - you're 13 and about to move from prep to senior school. You have to choose one ML to take alongside French. (Grammar reasonably advanced so far, vocab somewhat neglected ...) After yr9 you can carry on with both to GCSE or drop the new ML. (No late changes of mind possible.)

The options are Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin.

You like, and will continue with, Latin. You're neutral (and damn lazy) on Greek. If your choice doesn't work out you'll have only one ML GCSE / IGCSE (not certain which exam atm.) And you're currently 13 less unenthusiastic about Arts than Sciences so languages are more likely to feature in your future school career.

Your family are dithering. Pros / cons blah blah blah ...

Please advise.

Günter Grass has just died. So that's my last connection to German severed. I recall "reading" (picking my way through) The Tin Drum on the coach to and from a pre-O' level German exchange.

But I guess I could still teach the child my favourite Heine poem.

I've faced similar dilemmas with my children. If they don't have a particular yen to do a specific language then is it worth having a look at the school website to see the numbers doing each language and grades attained. For my DS's school there was one particular language where the results are spectacular, I guess due to particularly good teachers. Of course the teacher(s) could move on but maybe something to consider? It's also worth speaking to pupils in the year(s) above about how they've found studying the different languages.

BalletGirlMum has made me feel better as DS has also just picked Spanish on the basis of football. In mitigation I believe it is the one to go for in terms of being able to communicate in a number of countries.

If your DS leans towards architecture could you increase the appeal of Japanese by reference to the penmanship of Manga ?

I remember the ahead of our local grammar school telling my b and SIL that "Spanish isn't an appropriate language for a grammar school"- not realising that sil is Spanish

Fantastic literature- all the Latin American stuff. And (I think) the most widely spoken language in the world. And one of the few languages where GCSE standard is actually vaguely useful, owing to the grammar and reading being easier than most.

DS was offered quite a similar choice at yr 9 when changing his school and he decided that as Mandarin (same applies to Japanese) was not offered in his school beyond IGCSE level not take it, your level of proficiency wasn't likely to be that great.
German is quite easy if your very good at Latin.
But if my DS was reading this he'd say Italian because it's a beautiful language and a beautiful country, he and my DH also think it's easy to learn, I'm definitely no linguist (they are) but I agree a fortnight in Italy and I was delighted and surprised by how much I was picking up unlike a fortnight in Greece.

summer - no Japanese doesn't have tonality/different inflections. Phonetically, it's one of the simplest languages. It's also a very easy language spelling wise as there are no deviations - you write everything as you say it which causes them a lot of problems when they start learning English!

It's an odd language in that you don't really conjugate the verbs.....

As an extra thought a friend who speaks five languages fluently on top of English; Italian French, German, Spanish and Portuguese says "Spanish you can learn on the way to the airport, and Italian in the departure lounge but German requires lots of graft and input!"

German, German, German if they want to study philosophy. No contest.

Mandarin is very much in demand but is very hard, and you really don't get to a high level of proficiency at school. The same amount of time spend studying Spanish or German will take you to a much greater degree of fluency.

I was coming on to say what fleur said.

I did Latin and Greek at school, as well as French. Did Greek instead of German because, as my Dad said, you can always pick it up later. You can and I did. Ditto Spanish.

My heart says Mandarin but having studied it for a year and come away with only, "wo he pijiu," (which im pretty sure means, "I drink beer" ) , I second, third, fourth those saying it is very, very hard to get to a level where you can have even the most basic of conversations. My colleague studied Japanese at uni and she said that in comparison to the group that did Mandarin, the Japanese group were able to come away with basic conversational Japanese that could be built on, and she went on to do a sandwich year out there and now speaks it pretty fluently. There are several different alphabets in Japanese, one of which is syllabic (if I understood right) which makes it much easier to learn than Mandarin.

I have also done a few evening classes of Spanish. With very little effort I find myself able to get by, so my feeling is that it would be a waste of valuable teaching time to do Spanish.

Ah, I love learning languages. Finish is next on my list!

At DS2's school they usually start Mandarin in yr 9 I understand results are excellent so I don't think it's an issue. I understand from a boy who did it the first two terms were difficult then it got easy, he got a top grade at IGCSE but was not fluent by any stretch if the imagination.

German (I may be biased). I wish my dc had this choice...
And what happygardening's friend said.

German if engineering is an option in the future. DD found studing french and spanish at the same time confusing as they were similar and so muddled them up. She is now taking French and German (spanish unfortunately didnt run at gcse due to lack of interest) but prefers german.

As an extra thought a friend who speaks five languages fluently on top of English; Italian French, German, Spanish and Portuguese

Slightly off-thread but, I'm so jealous of this but always wonder when people say this, how fluent are they? What do they means by that? Can your friend hold an easy conversation with anyone in all of those languages?

Russian - it's a bit different and a talking point on the cv. The new alphabet is a novelty for about a week and then you just forget about it and get on with the language. The grammar is relatively simple compared to a lot of other languages and it's easy for native English speakers to make all the right sounds (not so for Mandarin, for instance).
FWIW I did O level Russian from scratch in 18 months back in the Dark Ages and managed a B grade (I also had a reasonable working knowledge of French and German, which didn't really make any difference).
Mandarin is HARD and very different from learning other languages (according to DS who did GCSE a few years ago - he had French, German, Latin and Greek as well).

To be fair, you wouldn't expect to be fluent in any language if you only have GCSE!

I'm learning Mandarin and whilst it's hard, because of having to learn the characters, it's also quite good fun - a bit like learning a secret code. And learning the characters is supposed to help develop the right, creative side of the brain - in case this is of any interest!

The private school pupil's guide to choosing a MFL
If you do a lot of skiing - German
If you fancy a gap year in South America - Spanish
If you have ambitions to earn millions and don't mind some extra work - Mandarin
If you fancy doing art history or music - Italian
If you are likely to be invited on holiday by your Russian oligarch friends - Russian ( not fun being lost in the underground because you can't read the alphabet)
If you want to be different (bonus if you are a karate or judo black belt) - Japanese

I have taught Mandarin. GCSE students are nowhere near being able to have a decent conversation.

The same is not true of those studying French, German, Spanish etc - the good ones in these groups are able to chat away.

I'm sure when I tried Mandarin as an adult there was a point where we had to confront a very different relationship between "pencil" and "desk" to anything we'd come across before. I think I was a little scared and ran away. But I may have misunderstood.

There was a golden moment sometime in the 80s/90s when I could have read the same novel in English, French, German and Italian - but it was brief and the moment has passed. It does mean I never felt the need to specifically, formally learn Spanish.

Going back to the current choice I'm dizzy with excitement at the absence of tonality considerations in Japanese. As far as I remember pretty much all of the MLs can be taken to A' level with Portuguese and erm, something I've forgotten also thrown into the mix. So no real worries about teaching competency.

It does not seem quite fair that I can't be 13 again.

Swedish my friend is completely fluent I'm absolutely pea green with envy and open mouthed with admiration. Ive watched her effortlessly change between the languages when talking to her students. Best of all when she speaks Italian she even adopts all their mannerisms and looks so Italian; the first language she learnt and her favourite of them all. Apparently (I have to take her word for this) when you know so many you are also able to quickly pick up others, for example many Eastern European language are a mixture of French Italian and German

I did Russian at school for 2 years and I haven't found any use for it since I left school. I'd probably go for Spanish or mandarin myself.

There's a school up the road that finds dyslexic children learn Japanese easily or perhaps easier because apparently it's phonetic least that's what they claim.
My DM had a 2nd cousin who many many years worked for MI6 post war or whatever it was called then) he was found to have an "ear" for learning Japanese he was then posted there but was sent on an exceedingly intensive crash course with the expectation of fluency in months rather than years. He managed it but said it was very difficult and very easy to offend, there's apparently a lot of cultural baggage around Japanese.

@ your friend happy. Oh, I want to learn another language now.

Portuguese is a strange one, it sounds like Russian to me.

I would honestly go for Russian. The alphabet thing is quite simple really and the sentence construction is v simple. Grammar is far easier than German. Lots of loan words from French/German.

It combines easiness with sounding impressive to people who don't know how easy it is. I used it frequently in the City.

I believe you're being a little ambitious expecting a dc to be reading novels in any foreign language studied to GCSE level, OP. They don't even read literature/ a novel at A level at the mo...

Spanish or Mandarin - mainly because of the spread (and increasing importance) of those languages. If you want to work in the US, a working knowledge of Spanish can't be a bad thing.

I did Latin, Greek and French (French compulsory yrs 7 - 11, Latin compulsory yr 8/9, choice of Greek or German year 9) at GCSE. I can read enough to get by in Spanish and Italian because of my classics background. I chose Greek over German because I knew that there would be plenty of chances to learn German in my future and I would only have one chance to study Ancient Greek.

This was back in the nearly-dark-ages where an AS was a two-year half-A-Level course so I chose to do AS French rather than take GCSE Spanish.