Should I take Spanish, French, or German?

For a less in depth thing, skip to the latter half of this post. ;D

I am currently a sophmore in High School who is almost done with my second "year" of Spanish(We have trimesters here). We have to start making our schedules for next year.

Currently I only have 5 classes a day, but next year, we'll have 6, and that leaves lots of elective space I have to fill. I have been getting A's in spanish thus far, but I really, really don't like the language. Spanish/Mexican culture, and so on, just doesn't really interest me. To fill up my spaces I'll have to take a language, but now I am faced with a conundrum.

Should I start French or German, or take Spanish III? I am far more interested in French and German culture than Spanish, but Spanish is probably more useful here in the U.S.

Which one is the hardest? Would having taken 2 years of Spanish and doing well help me in one of these other languages?

The correct answer to such questions is always the same. Take whatever you want.

I'd say go with French.

You're American, right? Then I guess Spanish would be the most useful of them all, seeing as there are a lot of hispanic people in your country, but if you really don't like the language, I suggest French. French and English have many similarities, the latter borrowing a lot of its words from the former, whereas German is definitely a higher step to take, since it doesn't take its roots in Latin.

Of course it all boils down to which one interests you the most, but let's say you liked both equally, I would recommend French, as it is easier for native English-speakers.

I suggest german, since you can talk mad, and spit at people:P. Lol, besides, germans are the best with psychics and chemistry.

Spanish if your a yank

German if your european or bitish

french if your french

as your in highschool i'm guessing you a yank which would make spanish the most logical choice as your likely to meet a spaniard in america than german or french people

and by spaniard i mean spanish speaking peoples

I would say Spanish.

assuming you live int the united states, i would recommend spanish. within a moderate timespan, people from spanish speaking countries will make up ~25% of our population.

I had the same problem last year. I'm doing a major at university that requires a year of a language, either Spanish, French or Italian in my case. Because I'm doing a Commerce degree, I was told that Spanish was the best language to learn (out of the three) for business because of the potential economic growth from Spanish-speaking South America

Spanish is the most useful by far if you're an American since it's really the only foreign language you're likely to run into on a regular basis in the US unless you live in a part of the country with a large French-speaking population (ie Louisiana).

That said, from personal experience I'd say take whatever interests you. I took Spanish throughout high school because my school only offered the usual three languages (Spanish, French, and German) and I figured Spanish was the most useful of the three. In college I nearly took Spanish but opted at the last second to go with Japanese instead and I love it despite the insane workload (90% of my workload comes from that one damn class, and I'm a neuroscience major ffs). Definitely a far more interesting language, the culture is infinitely more interesting, and I can actually see myself continuing to study it after I'm done with the class. Even though it's definitely a lot harder than Spanish, I find that it's easier to study for it since actually get some inherent pleasure out of it unlike Spanish where it was a chore the entire time.

Anyway, I'd say go with German. It's a cool language and I'd imagine a lot more fun to learn than Spanish. IMHO the Romantic languages are the most boring languages out there, especially when it comes to learning them. Their classes seem to go out of their way to make the culture and languages as dry and boring as possible. I've never taken German so I can't say how much better it would be, but I'd imagine it would at least be slightly more interesting (and much more so if you're actually interested in it).

German

If you've already taken some, and there are far more countries/people that speak Spanish in the world, doesn't it make the most sense to take that?

Bio_Spark

The only language in this world that's really worth learning for utility's sake is English. As a result, I say learn whatever interests you most. When it comes to learning languages, most of it is going to be done on your own time so you need to be motivated to do it. Who cares if it's not as widely spoken? If you like the language and culture then I say it's worth learning. And as a bonus knowing a more esoteric language lets you stand out on job and college applications, as well as being something about yourself that's sure to impress other people.

Besides, OP is talking about a high school class. No one ever became fluent in a second language by taking high school classes. You have to continue to study afterward, and if OP isn't interested in Spanish then it doesn't matter how many years of it he takes in high school, he's probably not going to become fluent. Better that he take a language in school that he likes, continue to study it afterward, and become fluent in that than be fluent in no language at all.

Spanish/Mexican culture? Sorry, but that is borderline offensive...there are more native spanish speakers in the world than native english speakers. And theres more than just 2 spanish speaking countries in the world.

French.

Cuz then you can make a thread in French and only people that speak French can understand, including me.

Also, German sounds scary to me.

Learning a language because it's useful is ironically pretty pointless because you will not learn it to fluency or to a point that you can actually use it unless you have interest in learning it.

If you like French or German, take them. Don't let difficulty daunt you, I think "difficult" is the worst deciding factor in picking a language, worse than usefulness.

Since you've taken two years of Spanish, I'd go with French. But if German culture is more interesting to you, take German. Interest is the second most important driving force in language learning, the first being mindset (I can do it, this is easy vs. this is hard, fluency is a journey not a destination etc.)

You'll never find a polygot (a person who learnt (not "knows") 3+ languages) who says he studies those languages because they're "useful", if they do, they're lying. It may be a reason they started out a language, but eventually you don't need a "reason" to study a language, because the reason will eventually beocme "I'm learning the language because I started it".

Spanish. Easily the most relevent.

Do German.

Both English and German are West Germanic languages so it shouldn't be too hard for you. :P

German if your European or BritishJedi_Shearstone

What if you're English or British?

I'm taking German 2 right now, it's without a doubt the easies language to take. For most of the words you just add "en" to the end of them and another letter or two. Swim = Schwimmen, sit = sitzen.

German! It's such an awesome language

You can probably talk with more people in Spanish than the other two since it's probably more widely spoken.

French will get you the ladies 8)

German sounds bad@ss and you'll get into German metal

Spanish is more practical for you. Theres been many times where I was like dang it why did I only take one semester of spanish! also depending on what career you plan on being in knowing spanish can make you more valuable to employers.

For a less in depth thing, skip to the latter half of this post. ;D

I am currently a sophmore in High School who is almost done with my second "year" of Spanish(We have trimesters here). We have to start making our schedules for next year.

Currently I only have 5 classes a day, but next year, we'll have 6, and that leaves lots of elective space I have to fill. I have been getting A's in spanish thus far, but I really, really don't like the language. Spanish/Mexican culture, and so on, just doesn't really interest me. To fill up my spaces I'll have to take a language, but now I am faced with a conundrum.

Should I start French or German, or take Spanish III? I am far more interested in French and German culture than Spanish, but Spanish is probably more useful here in the U.S.

Which one is the hardest? Would having taken 2 years of Spanish and doing well help me in one of these other languages?

darkhadow

For a less in depth thing, skip to the latter half of this post. ;D

I am currently a sophmore in High School who is almost done with my second "year" of Spanish(We have trimesters here). We have to start making our schedules for next year.

Currently I only have 5 classes a day, but next year, we'll have 6, and that leaves lots of elective space I have to fill. I have been getting A's in spanish thus far, but I really, really don't like the language. Spanish/Mexican culture, and so on, just doesn't really interest me. To fill up my spaces I'll have to take a language, but now I am faced with a conundrum.

Should I start French or German, or take Spanish III? I am far more interested in French and German culture than Spanish, but Spanish is probably more useful here in the U.S.

Which one is the hardest? Would having taken 2 years of Spanish and doing well help me in one of these other languages?

darkhadow

Spanish would be the most beneficial to you, even if it's not the most interesting one. There are a lot of jobs in the U.S. that require or will at least give you an edge if you know it.

Take Latin American Spanish if you are an American. I wanted to learn Brazilian Portuguese so I could hook up with beautiful Brazilian women.

[QUOTE="darkhadow"]

For a less in depth thing, skip to the latter half of this post. ;D

I am currently a sophmore in High School who is almost done with my second "year" of Spanish(We have trimesters here). We have to start making our schedules for next year.

Currently I only have 5 classes a day, but next year, we'll have 6, and that leaves lots of elective space I have to fill. I have been getting A's in spanish thus far, but I really, really don't like the language. Spanish/Mexican culture, and so on, just doesn't really interest me. To fill up my spaces I'll have to take a language, but now I am faced with a conundrum.

Should I start French or German, or take Spanish III? I am far more interested in French and German culture than Spanish, but Spanish is probably more useful here in the U.S.

Which one is the hardest? Would having taken 2 years of Spanish and doing well help me in one of these other languages?

CleanNJerk

I think French is actually the most difficult to spell. They have game shows in France where adult native speakers attempt to write complex French sentences correctly.

Here's an interesting website that ranks languages according to relative difficulty, as well as providing some interesting information about each language. Spanish is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. French and German are slightly more difficult, but are both relatively equal in terms of difficulty.