German or Mandarine gcse?

[Clairyann]

Which one we should choose? Which one is easier and helpful?

Thank you

Don’t know about the gcse courses, but having studied both languages, neither is necessarily easier. Mandarin obviously requires a lot of memorisation of characters, and hearing tones can be a challenge for non native speakers. The grammar construction is much easier/simpler than German, though. I found Mandarin easier to wrap my head around for basic level communication, but a much steeper learning curve to fluency as vocabulary is so rich. I didn’t spend as much time on German, but can see the learning curve being a bit gentler once you have a good grasp of mechanics.

in terms of what is more useful, depends on what you want to do career wise? Both China and Germany have loads of English speakers, so both easy places to be an expat. probably more global Mandarin speakers, but if your plan is to live and work in Europe, obviously German would be more useful

I know times change rapidly - but German is such a sought after language in the STEM space currently. Nearly all tech roles in my field cite German speaking as a huge benefit. I'd go with German as I think it leads into more European languages too and will make work / travel easier

I don't know about Mandarin but I found German very easy to learn as, broadly speaking, things stick to the rules.

German. Squillions speak Mandarin and English. Firms have no difficulty getting Mandarin speakers if they need them. German has fallen off a cliff in schools. DC don’t bother with MFLs full stop. Especially science minded ones! So German.

I grew up in the APAC region thinking there will be a huge benefit to learning Mandarin (even ended up studying abroad) with China's economy boosting and all that, the language was really trending. After around 10-15 years of leaving uni, not many still feel that way - the society and market is too restricted and the human rights issues are hard to ignore. It's a hard language to learn anyway.

I speak both to a decent level. Mandarin in particular took years of very intensive study. I honestly think it would be very hard to make reasonable progress in Mandarin over a 2 year GCSE course. Fine if it's to use as a stepping stone to further study, or if someone is just curious about the language and culture. And if you have a musical ear the tones are OK. But worth being realistic about how much you would speak / be able to function in Mandarin at the end of the 2 years.

As someone else pointed out above, Mandarin grammar is actually pretty straightforward. German grammar quite tricky, but overall German language much easier to pick up than Mandarin.

As to which is more helpful, depends very much on where you see your future! But a Mandarin GCSE in itself will be of almost zero functional use in any work environment (and there are, of course, many, many people in China who speak good English and obviously fluent Mandarin!).

I think whereas with most European languages you can function pretty well with good A level standard, to operate at an reasonable level in Mandarin probably requires at least a university degree in the subject (or a commitment to a serious amount of self-study).

No expert here but memorizing Mandarin characters would be more of a stretch for rote learning than German.

I took German A Level (together with French and two Maths A levels) and studied Mandarin at degree level. My DD - now in Y11 at her non-selective state secondary - has done Mandarin since Y7 so the suggestion children would only do two years for GCSE is incorrect. At her school, most children took French in Y7 but some children were offered opportunity to do Mandarin instead. InY8, all children added another language - either French, German or Spanish. So at the end of Y9 when they were making choices for GCSE, they could choose one or two languages (or, in a few cases, none at all). In my experience, whether German or Mandarin, there will always be native speakers who are better than you. For me, my languages have created job opportunities through recruiting managers able to see how my interest and involvement in other languages/cultures etc helped me stand out as a candidate.