Ah...Languages? Which to choose?

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My son can't make up his mind. He must pick Spanish, French or German. He wants something that isn't too, too hard. Any experiences or recommendations?

German's harder than spanish and french in my opinion.. French I found easiest... Spanish isn't that hard to learn once you can speak french...

I've taken all of those. Without prior experience in a romance language, German is easiest. English is a Germanic language, so a lot of the words have similar sounds. The sentence structure is slightly different, but not too difficult (it is a simple shift).

For all of my studies, German is the one that I understand the most easily. Granted, it is easier to read than hear, but I have CAPD, so that's tricky anyway. The language is closest, however.

I took two years of German, it was hard at first because I didn't really understand how languages work, but after the first two chapters it became really easy.

Assuming you live in America, there really aren't a whole lot of reasons to take French, with the exception of personal interest. I went with German because many famous scientists and engineers were German, and they have a large influence in that sort of stuff, which could help me later. And, of course, it's always good to know Spanish, as it's basically America's second language, especially if you live close to the southern border.

Chinese. There's a language that will have a big market for in the future.

I double-majored in Applied Linguistics and Spanish. Spanish actually made it easier for me to pick up other languages. I went on to learn some German and Korean. Learning Spanish first helped a lot with gaining strategies for learning and applying a new language, and it's enormously helpful in current society. If I had to go back to age 11 and pick a language all over again, it would still be Spanish. Second choice would be German, since it has so much in common with English.

Spanish, if only because in the U.S. it's incredibly easy and free to get access to native-language Spanish content, e.g. Spanish radio and television stations. Learning language in context, even if only by watching television or listening to the radio, will improve retention and understanding dramatically. Also, it's relatively inexpensive to travel to a Spanish-speaking country, versus travelling to France or Germany, and there are lots of opportunities to do good works there, a la "volunteer vacations," where your child may even be able to earn college credits as well.

I would say Spanish would be more useful if you are almost anywhere in the United States. I am fluent in French because I am a Canadian, and I did not find that too difficult to learn. I would love to learn either Spanish or German, so I am biased. I think it is just going to be a matter of personal preference. No one is going to agree either on which one is more interesting or which one is easiest to learn. The beginner classes are going to be all of equal ease or difficulty unless he already has a limited knowledge in one or two of the languages. If he has already taken a language in high school, and wants something a bit easier, maybe he can do that language in university too, as he will already have some familiarity with it.

In north america, spanish is useful.

Outside america, french is very useful due to its use in africa; and well, france. The French are evil narcissists that will disrespect any foreigner, and more-so if they don't know the language; so it may help to know it to get their respect. Again, ALOT of african countries use it; so most african immigrants in the US will be using it.

Overall, I would choose french.


HOWEVER, if you see a potential in your kid alongside engineering and physics/math, choose German. Knowing German will significantly increase his chances for a job in the future; under engineering (told to me by my engineering friends at college).

I can only speak for myself but I had to choose between French and Spanish and I chose Spanish. My reasons for it were enjoying the language and finding the language easier to learn personally, as well as Spanish being a pretty widely spoken and useful language world wide.

I'd say to your son to choose whatever language he enjoys the most and finds comes most naturally to him. Even just speaking a few words of Spanish I feel that the language comes more naturally than the other two options.

The most important thing is to pick a language that you enjoy and want to learn, as well as finding it useful

I chose Spanish (had the option of that or French). I was so bad at it I ended up doing no languages at all.

I have learned all three to some extent.

I found Spanish easiest by far.

No idea why.

But I really like German and think I should focus on brushing that up for a bit.

Spanish is relatively common so it's a logical choice, but if your son plans to move to anyplace besides the U.S., it would make sense to learn a different language such as French if one moves to Canada or France, but their really isn't a wrong answer. I, personally, don't enjoy the sound of the Spanish language so I'm interested in French (I might move to Canada and I'm French on my dad's side) and Japanese (I like video games and anime). Maybe Esperanto (just 'cause it's easy) or German (I used to live in Germany), but I don't really have a need for either.

In that big chunk of land just north of the USA, French is FAR more useful than Spanish since it is one of our two national languages (the other one not being Spanish)....

I did say to go with French overall! ;D

Indeed, but I am pretty notorious for narrowing down into the details. So I just thought I would point out, "hey, Canada is the giant landmass up north that barely uses Spanish at all!" We do make up a substantial amount of the global landmass, yet Spanish is not spoken widespread here. I knew you said French in the end, but it was just a clarification for others who are not familiar with the area and might not know that Canada does not use Spanish as the rest of the Americas often do.