German or Spanish

[5plusMeAndHim]

Yr 8s have been told they have to pick a second MFL to study alongside French either German or Spanish.Which ever they don't choose they will not be able to take at GCSE
DD is quite good at French and has been teaching herself another language independently off her own bat .

She has no clue which she would enjoy most, which is more difficult, which is more useful, which is more sought after?

German. Biggest economy in Europe and German speakers are in high demand.

What other language has she been teaching herself?
You’ll get mixed responses. Spanish is another Romance language so it can be easier to learn if she’s doing French, German is harder (apparently) so if your DD likes a challenge she can go for that. Plus what Acopy said.
I did both French and German from year 7 to degree level so it’s nice to hear about another person good at languages!!

I would say that German is more difficult, but if DD is good at languages, that probably doesn't matter anyway.
My DD did Spanish and German up to Year 9, and then Spanish to GCSE. Her friends who had chosen French and Spanish sometimes said that they got the two languages confused, so wished they had chosen one or other of them, and German.

German German German every time.

Spanish is easy to pick up later - i recognise a lot of my GCSE French because i speak Spanish. Yes they are different, but there are similarities in vocabulary.

Plus all the Germans i know are lovely

French and Spanish are more similar. Spanish is still spoken by a much larger % of the world than German (and most Germans speak English anyway...).

German may not be as 'like' French as Spanish but I think it's an easier language to learn.

Marvellous literary heritage plus a useful language to have. Spanish is also very good, but I think I'd choose German over Spanish.

As something of a linguist, I wish there was more Russian taught.

I had this choice at the end of Y7 and chose German. I've never regretted that decision.

When you are reasonably linguistically talented and have some French it's relatively straightforward to pick up Spanish on your own. German is a very different kind of language in many ways (grammatically and lexically) so it's a different kind of challenge and formal teaching can be useful when you're getting started. You then have an easy gateway into languages like Latin (which is supported by your French lexically and German grammatically), Dutch, etc.

Anecdotally, a few friends who did French and Spanish GCSE found it difficult to switch between the two in high pressure environments such as exams, whereas French and German are far more difficult to confuse!

When you ask which is more sought after and useful, this totally depends on her future employment or holiday intentions. My DD is a French/Italian grad and uses neither. Never will one suspects. She chose Italian as her second language because the teacher was first class and she liked Italy and especially Italian art. We never considered the usefulness of the language. We hadn’t been to Germany or Spain!

Seriously though, the quality of teaching should be considered. Where you might wish to visit and what job she might end up
doing are all part of the mix.

Its very early to tell,but all her 4 older siblings have gone down the stem routes, particularly engineering.

She has decided on German because it sounds 'cooler'

I had to make the same choice in year 8 and chose Spanish. Massively easier as so much communality between the two languages.

Long-term it hasn't helped me in the slightest - I studied languages at uni and am now an accountant, and rarely speak French or Spanish - and I'm embarrassed by how much I've forgotten over the last 20 few years. I suspect Spanish is marginally more useful from a tourism perspective, but that's personal choice of where we choose to spend our holidays.

Pick what her friends are doing - it honestly won't make that much difference. But if it's neutral, I'd choose Spanish!

German
DD1 did spanish & french and was constantly getting confused.
DD2 does spanish & german and finding them ok alongside each other.

to be fair a language GCSE doesn't really give you any employment prospects... it's just a grounding/basis.

My dd took German GCSE and wanted to continue at A level. Applied to 4 college's who all advertised it but when results came out only 1 ran the course. Really frustrating as they all did French and Spanish . Her senior school has now stopped German GCSE. Seems around here ( south east) that it's not a popular choice no idea why as she loves it

My DS was doing German at uni and took Spanish, allegedly to A2 standard, in his first year. Believe only 500 students started under-grad courses in German a few years back.

If she is interested enough in languages to start teaching herself another one go German. The grammatical structure of germannis much more different from French so she would be learning "how to learn" a different language. Spanish GCSE will teach her some Spanish but nothing much new about language structure that French doesn't also teach.

And fwiw I've used my a-level French a bit and my German quite a lot more even though I'm much more confident in French. I'm now learning Russian for fun and German case structure is a very useful grounding for Russian grammar.

Yeah, when I did languages at university there were 150+ doing French and only 40ish doing German. Even in final year I’d be going into French language classes and coming across people I’d never seen before, whereas German I got to know everyone pretty quickly.

German. Business applications.