<p>I take French and I self-study Spanish (but just for personal benefit, not for an AP test or anything). It's very easy, because the languages are very similar. If you love foreign language, you shouldn't have too much difficulty learning Spanish on the side.</p>
<p>I also suggest Latin. As others have said, Chinese is a very different language, and you probably won't gain a very strong grasp on it. Latin, however, is unique enough to give you that edge, and it also overlaps in other areas.</p>
<p>It sounds like you're really leaning towards Spanish, but I believe that you can self-study that. In the end, just pick the language that you're the most interested in!</p>
<p>Chinese is great if you're interested in buisness (lots of companies are shifting to China). If I had the space, though, I'd take Latin (Im in French now)</p>
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Chinese is great if you're interested in buisness (lots of companies are shifting to China).
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<p>That's one of the reasons why I'm considering taking Chinese. I'm not sure if I'll end up in business, but I'm definitely interested in it. I think the Chinese class is more geared toward learning the characters for the first year or so, then they start teaching you how to actually speak it.</p>
<p>If I really wanted to learn Chinese, I could get a Pimsleur course or something. I've been reading the reviews on amazon.com and it seems like it really helped people learn how to speak it, which is what I would be doing if I were to go into business. I could also attempt to learn the characters and grammar on my own, but I'm sure this would be very difficult. Perhaps I could get a tutor or something.</p>
<p>Spanish is obviously very useful in the US and I think it's a really beautiful language. I feel that I could self study this if I took French and Latin.</p>
<p>So right now, I'm leaning toward French and Latin.</p>
<p>The study of Latin will really help with the French vocab and grammar, and you probably wouldn't have too much trouble self-studying Spanish as well.</p>
<p>Take a Chinese class in college if it interests you that much.</p>
<p>If you want to learn Chinese you really have to do it early on. By the time your brain stops developing, at around 25 years of age, it's difficult for a human brain that is so used to thinking in English to adapt to the Chinese language. When you're young it's just easier to grasp things like that. It's also easier for you to learn the tones that are necessary to communicate in Chinese, which is of the utmost importance in the Chinese language.</p>
<p>Latin is easier to study later in life, as well as French and Spanish, because they use the same tones and have many of the same roots. Latin especially is very, very formulaic, which makes it easy to understand things like syntax once you learn what each mood means. Chinese syntax is generally easy to grasp for English speakers at the basic level due to the lack of tenses, but truly mastering the language requires a lot of studying and pratice and effort.</p>
<p>Furthermore, if you're starting a language like Chinese--which has absolutely no connections to any romance languages--how are you going to have time to learn and study it? Will you really be able to apply yourself to it in addition to balancing work and social life and errands, etc.? In my opinion, college is by far the best time for learning Chinese.</p>
<p>PS: I think it was a typo, but in an earlier post you said that Spanish and Chinese have many words rooted in Latin... for those who were wondering/confused, that is not true. Chinese and Latin are completely discrete languages.</p>
<p>I would go for the Chinese. But that's just me. Next year, I'm going to be taking AP Spanish, Chinese I, and studying Japanese in my free time. So yeah...just do what you want. Don't care how other people will view it.</p>