<p>My D starts high school next year and is torn between French and German. Her best subjects are social studies and English. Any thoughts on this?</p>
<p>I absolutely adore French, and hated German for all of the 3 years I took it, if that helps at all.</p>
<p>S2 is in his 3rd year of taking both, but has to drop one for senior year to fulfill a fine arts requirement. He likes German better, but dropped it for French because he likes the French teacher and the kids better.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that German grammar is harder to learn. One reason for the dilemma is that the German teacher is very well-loved and the students have her all four years.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I think the quality of the teachers of the FL will largely make a difference. One language may be “better,” but if it’s not taught well, what have you gained???</p>
<p>Does anyone know which language is best to have for careers, say in International Relations or business?</p>
<p>I’d look at it from a different angle if your D doesn’t have a favorite - how many years of the particular languagae does the school teach and do they offer an AP class in the language? If they offer 4 years of both including an AP course, then it’s really just about preference.</p>
<p>As to which is best for a career - it really depends on what she’d end up doing which is hard to say at this point. Depending on what she ends up doing the language most useful might end up to be Spanish, or Japanese, or some form of Chinese, or Arabic, or Farsi, or ??.</p>
<p>If she still doesn’t know what to take, maybe she can decide based on where she might eventually want to do a study-abroad or visit and just go with that.</p>
<p>For manufacturing or banking, I would guess German would be the better of the two. But French is cool! I was just in Italy and in talking with some local folks, I learned that the HS kids are required to take English and one other language. Most of them choose French.</p>
<p>With the economic growth of China, Mandarin Chinese would probably be the best one to take, but it doesn’t sound like any fun.</p>
<p>Both my Ds took four years of German and seemed to like it just fine - except for one year when the regular teacher was gone for some reason. So D1 took it that year from a teacher from the Math department who was pressed into service because she was native German speaker, but unfortunately not a skilled German teacher.</p>
<p>D2 is making more of her German. She is in college now and plans to spend her semester abroad in a cool program in Vienna.</p>
<p>Well, there’s a plus for German: my D dreams of going to Vienna. But then, she loves Paris!</p>
<p>Always go for the best teacher. Take Uzbek if that’s the best teacher.</p>
<p>I totally agree with mom2collegekids and JHS. Teacher makes all the difference.</p>
<p>You are making a lot of sense. D loves the French language, but I told her she could always take it in college. The kids just rave about this German teacher and both languages have the same teacher all four years.</p>
<p>Even though I have not heard of a school in our area offering German since before I was in high school ( Seattle- my high school had French, Spanish & Russian- now the schools offer Spanish, French & Japanese &/or Mandarin) , I would say take the best teacher.</p>
<p>Also, German is more desirable in the careers world because it’s less common.</p>
<p>Also, German is more desirable in the careers world because it’s less common.</p>
<p>I dunno that doesn’t make sense to me.</p>
<p>French or German would be desirable if you are interested in post grad scientific study-
These are the official languages of the United Nations.
Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish</p>
<p>Hello, parents. I’m currently taking both, but I’d DEFINITELY suggest taking the class with the better teacher, especially if the teacher sticks with the class all four years.</p>
<p>emeraldkity, I just meant out of those two, if you’re applying for a job with international elements, they’re gonna have scores of people applying with French and not as many with German, so it could be to your advantage.</p>
<p>I hated French and loved German. (Took French in high school, German in college.) I learned to like French fine, and speak it fluently after spending a gap year in France. I think my better experience with German had a lot to do with the fact that I took it up after I’d learned to speak French fluently. French is probably more useful - it’s spoken in parts of Canada, Africa and Haiti (though local dialects make it pretty hard to understand,) and of course at the Olympics. </p>
<p>In my experience, German has more grammar rules, but fewer exceptions to the rules. It’s a bit pickier about word order. I thought it was easier for an American mouth to pronounce.</p>
<p>However if I were recommending which language I agree with many of the other posters here - go with the one that has the best teachers. Especially in high school it will make a HUGE difference.</p>
<p>Mathmom is right – ESPECIALLY if the excellent teacher stays with the class. Important for high school, I can say from experience.</p>