Modern Foreign Languages for my dyslexic DD

[HandMadeTail]

My DD is about to start at Senior School in September. The policy of the school is that all girls learn two of French, German and Spanish up to Y9, after which they can drop one for GCSE (or continue with both). You get to pick the first, and they choose the second, depending on timetabling etc. (but I suspect pressure could be put to bear).

Does anyone have any comments on which of these would be simpler for my daughter to learn, given that she is slightly dyslexic.

I wonder if Spanish and German would be better, as their phonetic rules are simpler.

She has had a year of each of these languages taught in junior school, so has a small amount of familiarity with each.

Anyone's comments or experiences would be most welcome.

It's hard to say as each dyslexic person varies in their difficulties however my friends DS who is in year7 at a grammar school is doing French and German. He cannot hardly do French (his dyslexic Mum never could either) but he is doing very well in German. They don't do Spanish so can't comment on that. HTH

Thanks, fandango, this is useful to know.

My dyslexic DD does Spanish, apparently this is one of the easier languages for dyslexics to learn. She does struggle tbh and I have hired a tutor as she has to do the GCSE in year 9, but a lot of it is confidence. The class teacher thinks she is more than capable of an "A". I know a bit of French but absolutely no Spanish so I can't help her.

My DS preferred German to French, however the problem is the type of exams rather than the language. DS has problems trying to learn long reams of text which seems to be the way the exams are handled.

There was a whole thread on exactly this topic a couple of months back - try searching.

German was generally agreed to be the best.

Thanks for your input, kensingtonia, bruffin and bread. I'll try searching for that thread.

I wonder if Spanish and German would be better, as their phonetic rules are simpler.

I think you are spot on there. I have experience of all three of those languages, speaking French and German fluently and reading Spanish. French is by far the most difficult.

It is hard for a dislexic child - or indeed anyone - to begin learning two languages at the same time.

I am convinced that to get the motivation to learn a language means being exposed to the language and meeting people that you want to communicate with that speak that language. One way to boost her language competence would be (if you can) to plan - over the course of the next couple of years - one or two trips that will expose her to the language.

My severely dyslexic son started off well in year 7 but languages have become more of a struggle as the years have gone on. Spanish is better than French though. He has been advised against taking GCSE due to the rite learning required.

I have a dyslexic girl in one of my year 8 classes, French FWIW (we do German too but not Spanish). It is a weaker set but they are a very good year and she is one of my best pupils; she tries really hard and makes an effort to make it work for her, which is by writing everything down.

I personally think the notion that Spanish is easier (which seems to pervade MFL in England) is due to the fact that a lot of schools teach French in yr 7 and then pick up Spanish or German in yr 8; clearly Spanish is easier if you already know French! But to do from scratch I would say it isn't, necessarily.

German is more logical (very) but rigid with complex rules about cases and word order and about 16 possible words for "the"; French is harder to pronounce well, but it and Spanish are more popular because they are more usual holiday destinations. That's not much help is it!

I would agree that German is probably the easiest -the phonetics are very consistent (you pronounce every letter as it is written) and the words are quite 'logical'. The grammar is a little more tricky but again very logical.

French and English, on the other hand, are very 'inconsistent' in terms of pronunciations - and there are many exceptions.

Not sure about Spanish as I don't speak it.

Clary, we've been on lovely skiing/mountain holidays in Austria, so don't discount German from a holiday point of view .

Thank you, for your responses.

Having spoken to friends with older girls in the school, it seems that everyone gets French as there are more French teachers in the school, so the choice is really between Spanish and German.

I think we will go with Spanish as a) it's the one she wants to do (second to French) and b) as its more like French, it may be simpler to learn both concurrently.

Also, we usually go skiing in France each year, and have a summer holiday in Spain, so she will have exposure to both these cultures about once a year.

Spanish and German. Not French if you can avoid it. It's far more inflected in its articles etc and the verb endings are a dyslexic nightmare. Ds is dyslexic and has struggled with French and Latin but Spanish is like falling off a log at this stage.

Spanish would be the simplest as it is completely phonetic and MUCH easier than German in terms of grammar...