Beginners Chinese or French?

[Travelban]

Hi all,
Dd1 is starting uni in September, studying ppst a level Sanish. However she has the choice to add a beginners language to her degree and she is undecided between French and Chinese Mandarin.
Does anyone have any experience of their child studying either and any major pros and cons? She didn't do gcse French so has never studied it, although she does speak Italian and Spanish so there are some similarities.
She likes the sound of Chinese but worried its going to be top difficult (although she can drop it). Does anyone have any experience/advice for her?

She's already got a decent grasp of Romance languages. I'd check what the expectations are for each language - I'd hazard a guess the mandarin would be to a lower final level? And also most students would have some exposure to french so it would start faster, where as mandarin will start from scratch. Certainly DB was reading books in his "from scratch" uni level european language pretty quickly.

Unless she's tone deaf. Then stick with French.

Chinese is more difficult as you need to learn the characters and pronunciation is trickier due to the tones, however the grammar is pretty straightforward: no need to conjugate the verb, no agreement of adjectives, simple formation of past tense and no articles. Dd learnt both at school and managed well with Chinese, but it did require quite a lot of rote learning.

I learnt French at school and didn’t really use it until dd started to learn and was surprised how much I could remember and ‘guess’. I rarely use Chinese now: my spoken language is reasonable but I struggle to read any characters which is frustrating. It’s a language that you need to keep practising.

Her prior knowledge of Spanish and Italian will give her a huge head start with learning French, so one question to think about is whether she's looking for an easy ride or a challenge.

Thanks all for the really good points and considerations. She has written to ask whether there are any differences in thr course structure, eg more hours for mandarin or anything else thar might sway her but your point about having a head start is true and also the one about working harder.

What does she want to do career-wise? Mandarin is much more unusual for UK grads and would make her stand out more.

I'd make sure she checks what "beginners" means - it's sometimes "less than 1/2 years' study", i.e. it could be that some students have done SOME Mandarin...

@trumporange she is bot sure yet but leaning towards a corporate career (business management, leadership, etc). That's what me and her dad do so likely to change her mind as she explores things!!

Which uni is this for? Are you happy to say?
My inclination is to opt for French - she has a headstart with her other languages, and the combination means that she can easily get to Spain on YA if she wants to [most unis will want her to prioritise French as the beginners language in 3rd year].

Hi, yes happy to say, it's Applied Languages at Portsmouth. I realise expectations may vary form university to university , so if anyone has any info specifically to Poetsmouth that would be great!

Well, French would be much easier. But in terms of standing out when going for a job and for future business careers, I think Mandarin would be much more beneficial.

@NanFlanders I 100% agree with this!!

@Travelban I should say, I have a degree in French but have also studied 3 non-Romance languages (Japanese, Hindi and Polish) and, while they require more work, they aren't impossible and, I think, are really rewarding in terms of opening up different cultures and expanding your understanding of "how language works".

Always lovely to see a prospective language student on here.

As many posters have said, French would be pretty straightforward for your DD to pick up Travelban with her Spanish and Italian. 4 years (if the course is across 4) is plenty time to build up ab initio language to decent competency alongside her Spanish studies, possibly with the option of focusing on one only in year 4. Given her professional aspirations, mandarin could be a great addition for coverage, but it is definitely has use it or lose it risks.

My DD did French, Spanish and Mandarin at gcse, taking her Spanish a level to UG studies with Arabic. She’s adding French back as an elective for year 2 which should be ok given the similarities to Spanish, but is honest about not remembering a thing about mandarin now. She was also v lucky with great language provision at school.

Challenge or easy(er) route, what adds more value to her career, what can be added later if needed etc through language suite learning etc.

Good luck to her though, exciting programme options!

Over 50,000 students with fluent Mandarin graduate from UK universities every year.

A combination of Spanish and French would be much more useful when looking for a graduate role.

Not disagreeing with that fact JocelynBurnell. Lots of students of non British nationalities graduate from UK unis. But I would not underestimate the stand out of UK MFL students who take a less conventional mix at UG. Especially since Brexit. And as has been said before, not all students do use their language/s in their working life, but apply the wider skills their humanities course has given them.

Individual interests come into play too, a balance of enjoying UG study as well as an eye on post study employment are my DD’s objectives; they’re all different.

The U.K. is rather desperately in need of people who can understand what's happening in business negotiations with other countries, so good on your daughter for running with languages. Personally I'd go for Chinese. They're the rising new world power, and it will only help her.

Note that in her final year, she will be doing the same modules as students who had done an A Level in the language. I feel the gap would be less wide in Chinese than in French.

I studied French and Mandarin at uni, and I started Mandarin from scratch. My course required all students of East Asian languages to do their year abroad there - I was buzzing as I was desperate to visit China and I had an amazing year there, but my final year French was absolutely nowhere near the standard of my peers who had spent that year in France. Even those who did 2 European languages (eg my DH did 6 months in France and 6 months in Germany) had much higher standards of French than I did.

It wasn't a huge problem for me because I was primarily focused on Mandarin anyway and have lived and worked in China since. But my French language grade was the lowest mark of my whole degree and I know others who spent their whole year abroad in China or Japan struggled too.

So if your daughter is more keen to use Spanish long term, I'd probably recommend doing French. If she's open to seeing where Mandarin could take her, even if it means she might not be as fluent in Spanish as some of her peers, then Mandarin might be the way to go.

I agree Mandarin will make her stand out, especially in a business world. My DD is learning it, she's been learning for 3 years. She's done a few other languages as that's her thing but says Chinese is extremely difficult, as is Arabic or anything with a whole different script and basic sound starting point. If your daughter is confident and good at languages I'd say give Chinese a go, but if she's not, and she does have the Romance language background, I'd have her do French.

Thanks, I think finding out whether they dk expect her to have a year in China is a deal breaker as she wants to do Spain and Latin America mainly... it.is looking likely she will end up picking up French..Still waiting for thr uni to get back to her on the details but all these considerations have been invaluable, thank you so much!

some great advice on this thread
I am a mandarin speaker - I took it as a masters with 0 prior knowledge. It’s possible to learn but requires a different part of the brain - it’s more “component” based if that makes sense. Like adding up pieces to make meaning. Precision is also key. After an intermediate level it gets very dense and contextual. It’s like the difficulty comes in waves. Absolutely requires rote learning.

completely agree with @ShanghaiDiva - Chinese is use it or lose it for a Native English speaker. Now that I’m back in the UK mine is now not great despite having lived and worked in Mandarin speaking countries for many years. It comes back with exposure like any language though.

Conversely, French is much more “un question d’accent” as Michel Tomas said… but as with any language to be really fluent you have to be in the setting.

I disagree with posters saying that Mandarin makes you stand out at job interviews. I work in professional services, and lead hiring at entry levels. I see lots and lots of candidates for roles with connections to China, many of whom has some qualifications in Mandarin Chinese these days. That was not the case when I was a grad but things have moved on a lot in 15 years.

What you say about your daughter investigating time in China as it’s a deal breaker for her is the decider for me. If she doesn’t want to go to the Chinese speaking world to live and work at some point then it doesn’t seem like the right choice for her. That said- if her uni offers time in Taiwan perhaps you can persuade her to reconsider. Taiwan is a really awesome place that people in the UK know little about - I knew little even when I was studying the masters. If I had have known then what I know now I would have been a more enthusiastic student and would have sought professional opportunities there earlier. Brilliant place, much more fun than France or Spain in my opinion!

It’s a language that you need to keep practising.

Never a truer word spoken. I’d been learning Mandarin in adult weekend and evening classes over the last two years or so. Intensive for part-time study and I’d got to a decent-ish level under the circumstances. Then I had to miss a term due to work commitments.

A few months later and I’ve forgotten almost everything! And am not sure I can face the slog it would take to recover it all.

By contrast, I took a short Greek course many years ago and half-heartedly studied a Teach Yourself Greece course. I was in Greece in spring and could read almost everything on menus, found vocabulary came flooding back… Much more confident about speaking it than Chinese even after such a long time and having learnt a tiny fraction of the vocab I theoretically have in Mandarin.

So worth bearing in mind that an easier language is something that can more readily be picked up at different points in life.

I did find studying Chinese fascinating though. A real antidote to learning tables of cases and declensions!

Applied Languages includes aspects such as culture and tourism. I think ANY level of Mandarin would make her CV stand out later on, but I also believe she would have the option of studying a third language too. Portsmouth is fabulous with getting people on practical placements/into industry, and I'm sure they'll advise her well.