Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Which European language to study?

Do you plan to have your ds do Latin in high school or to just continue with the language chosen in middle school?
I am a bit jealous of your language options. In our public schools, there is no foreign language in middle school unless you are continuing in an immersion program, and there is no Latin in any public high school - only a few of the more competitive private schools and of course the Jesuit schools still have it.

Are you interested or able to travel to any of the countries where the language is spoken, or do you see your ds choosing to study abroad in one of those countries?

Thanks to everyone who replied. He chose French. The fact that many people thought French was a reasonable choice gave my son and me confidence to choose French. I had him read the thread yesterday -- he was surprised and amused by a few comments ("Italy is not a real country"). Since he likes math, the fact that several PhD programs consider French a relevant foreign language (a fact mentioned in the thread) interested him.

Late to the party, but here are a few more thoughts:

- The value of Spanish in the U.S. goes way beyond dollar value. Increasingly there is social currency in being able to chat in Spanish, which has intangible value for your employer as well as you personally.

- Because English shares its grammatical structure with German, but its advanced vocabulary with French, German is easier to start with, but becomes more difficult, while French is the other way around.

- French is harder for an English speaker to hear. This is because (to a first approximation) English, German, Spanish and Italian are stress-timed languages, while French is a syllable-timed language. The rhythm is really different.

- Of the romance languages, Italian is the most regular. I've heard it said that if you know English, French, and Spanish, you get Italian for free. Just learn a few rules about word endings, and you can fake it.

Thanks for the interesting comparisons of languages. There are books such as "Concepts of Programming Languages" that don't try to teach how to program in any language but which explain (to experienced programmers) how programming languages differ. I wonder if similar books about human languages exist.

Isn't that what linguistics is? The study of languages? Lots of linguistics texts out there.

Yeah. Getting up to speed is kind of a multi-year project.

Well, the important thing is that we now all agree that Italy isn't a real country.

Linguistics is really a secondary concern here.

Spanish, French and Italian are closely related, so if your child wants to learn multiple languages, any of the three would be helpful toward the others. I agree that French pronunciation is more difficult, but so many words in English come from French that vocabulary is relatively easy.

Regarding JonLaw's comments on Spanish, I couldn't agree more as far as its ability to increase your income, at least in general. I did get my first two jobs as a result of my bilingual abilities, the second of which was in the financial sector and paid quite well (this is probably an exception which confirms the rule). However, I now translate documents for my church, kids' school and pretty much whoever asks on a volunteer basis.

That said, living in the SW US, I use my Spanish almost daily, with the housekeeper, the lawn guys, the employees of our contractor, the lady who sells balloons at the grocery store. I may not any money this way, but I'm sure I've saved a fortune just by being able to communicate with the people who are actually doing the work, thus cutting down on mistakes and misunderstandings.

With my own children, we are starting with Spanish (but this is because we're already a bilingual household) and will add French when they are a little older, so they will be able to order in our favorite restaurant.

My son is taking Spanish and my daughter took Latin. I let them make an their own own informed decision. My son wants to learn Japanese but it isn't taught at any local high school. I looked into it last year and decided the best option was to wait till he could start taking it from the community college. (Next summer if he is still interested.) Spanish is very useful where I live and I figure he can't go too wrong with it. Spanish, Latin, Chinese, French and Sign Language are the only options at our High School. It is more options than at post local public schools, although Korean is also taught in my district.