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?

@Mikimoto that's really good to know.

@Mikimoto makes a very good point. She may well be in class with people who already have some mandarin.
This happened me years ago with Russian where I was s genuine beginner but many people in my class already had an O Level in Russisn or at least had done a nightclass. I was expected to be at the same level by the end of the year.

I would urge anyone reading this thread not to underestimate the dramatic changes UK universities in very recent years.

Numbers of UK students taking French at university level are reducing significantly year on year. The number of French students starting programmes in UK universities has reduced dramitically since 2021. From 2024, the number of graduates from UK universities with a reasonable working command of the French language will be few and far between.

In contrast, the number of Chinese students in UK universities has risen significantly. We will see over 100,000 students Chinese students graduate from UK universities every year.

Graduate recruitment in 2026 will be very different scenario to what it was just a few years ago.

@JocelynBurnell you also make a good point. Dd1 has read all your messages and hadn't thought about the number of great considerations. She is making a list of questions and calling today, as she thinks it would be best to talk through it with thr university. Will report back as to what they said....

I recruit as part of my job (education though, not business) and am also a MFL graduate.

Someone with Spanish and French would be probably placed on the "if nothing else comes along" pile. Someone with Spanish and Chinese would be interviewed as they'd immediately be seen as more interesting a candidate.

However- there needs to be the affective dimension for ANY language. She needs to do which one attracts her, which one she feels interested in, or hopefully, passionate about. Not just which one will look good on a CV.

I disagree @JocelynBurnell; a Brit/European who has gone and put effort into learning what is a very tricky language and understanding Chinese culture from a Western perspective is very different to a native Chinese speaker.

@Trumporange, it's not quite as simple as you describe.

A not insignificant number of 'Brit' (as you refer to them) students have Chinese heritage. Around have a million people living in Britain have Chinese heritage and the British Chinese community are amongst the highest academic achievers and are extremely well represented in universities in the UK.

Also, around 10,000 Chinese students who apply to UK universities every year have attended (often elite, fee-paying) secondary school here in the UK.

That should say - "around half a million people living in Britain have Chinese heritage".

DD did Mandarin, along with Japanese and Korean. She’d already spent years learning the Japanese characters (her main degree language), so the characters themselves weren’t the problem. She said the fact Mandarin is a tonal language was what made it very difficult for her. Her OH is a native Mandarin speaker, so it’s not like she didn’t get the opportunity to practice at home?

Given the number of Chinese people here already, and possibly many more to come from Hongkong, I don’t see how Mandarin would be so great on a CV, unless fluent? Why not just employ a native speaker?

Having learnt some basic Cantonese myself, another tonal language; and seen my ex, a native speaker of first Cantonese (the common dialect for his parents), second Hokkien (his father’s dialect) and third Mandarin (his mother was Shanghainese, but taught Mandarin), struggle speaking Mandarin in this country, I’d go for French. It’s way easier!

I hear MFL are dropping off a cliff in this country, and when DD went looking at unis for German originally, the MFL departments often told her, they’d offer her BBB, when the uni’s offer across the board was AAB - and that was years ago!

@Travelban, I would just like to add that I am not in any way discouraging your DD from studying Mandarin.

It's just the assention that 'Mandarin is much more unusual for UK grads and would make her stand out more' is absolutely not the case.

No wonder we have such a low take up of MFLs these days. The one dimensional view of language competency vs native speakers is such a barrier for students to overcome.

I know it’s a mainstream language, but, there are circa 160k Spanish nationals in UK, plus around 300k Spanish passport holders. So not including all other Spanish speaking citizens from other countries. I don’t think non native students are ever going to have the range a native speaker has, but this does not preclude them from job opportunities, if they can demonstrate the value add their MFL degree has given them.

My DD will never be able to compete with a true Spaniard in every sense, but this is not holding her back (so far) and has now C2 level competency that includes business Spanish.

I am 100% Indian, born in India, here since 1968. I have very little language native competency other than understanding my mother tongue, that’s not even Hindi.

Spanish take up is on the rise. Who knows, it may be because native speakers are in that mix, they were in DD’s cohort. But such a shame it’s deterring British students from taking, the argument of top grades going to natives does include strong non native candidates that are motivated by language programme study. Which includes wider skills than language alone.

Every student’s motivation will differ. Therefore going back to what may they want to do professionally and work backwards to the potential competency they are capable of/aspire to is key. And what will give them satisfaction, some will be up for a challenge more than others.

PS - learning to live in a Chinese community is fascinating though!

I understand all the points about native speakers and employing native speakers, I guess this will apply to many languages, including Spanish, and it is hard to predict which employers will.value a language over another...

Dd1 has spoken to the uni and has a bit more information to help her make her.mind up. French would be a lot easier to learn but the decision will boil down to whether she is prepared to learn one over the other and which cou try she would rather spend time in...thr Taiwan idea was brilliant and is now in the mix too!!!
Thanks everyone again for all the brilliant points and food for thought!

I hear your point @JocelynBurnell but I still think,as a former grad recruiter, I would find someone with no Chinese links who has learned Chinese impressive.

Hi all,
Just wanted to update this.. DD1 has made her decision and she has decided to study Mandarin alongside her post A level Spanish.
Initially she was keener on French but having read all the posts, she considered things like: she already hates the grammar part of Spanish, so with French she would have the same again.

She has researched Taiwan and China and is now bery interested in going. Her university also offers summer schools in China, so she could do that too potentially. She is good at rote learning.

We discussed how the decision shouldn't be based on whether it is going to look better on her cv, as it will depend on how far she gets with the language... but also they said that she will be taking the hsk, so even if she eventually drops it, she will have uopefull passed some of the hsk, which she can put on her cv.

No decision is perfect, but this thread has massively helped, so i can't thank you all enough for all the views and the time taken to highlight all the different points.

I also hope this tjread helps someone else in the same position in the future. Maybe in a year or so i will post with an update !!!

All the best to her on the next part of her education Travelban 👏

All the best to your DD, OP! The start of a very exciting adventure!
学无止境
”studying is limitless”
very true of Chinese! I hope she enjoys the discovery!

Thank you very much @ealingwestmum and @LazJaz !!!

Just to throw in that the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has a very-well established Buddy system for exchange students, where local students "look after you". Perhaps even more usefully to start off, they also do an online version, where you and the local student give and receive language classes.

Your daughter should be so excited - wish I was going!!!