<p>It truly isn’t worth punching in a little extra requirement, say 4 years of a language instead of 3. A friend of mine is very interested in music; ergo, he will have only 3 years of language in order to pursue his interest. I could be mistaken, but wouldn’t colleges prefer a passionate musician who used every opportunity, even school time --practice/free period? – to pursue his interests than one who takes another class and simply hates it? If or when your daughter decides to quit French, I wish her the best of luck.</p>
<p>Having taken 7 or maybe 8 years of Latin, I can say it is useful for:</p>
<ol>
<li>Settling obscure bets about word origins.</li>
<li>Talking to really old priests in Italy. Most of those guys must be dead by now.</li>
<li>Reading Caesar in the original. Maybe Cicero is worth that too. And the first books of The Aeneid but not the last, sucky ones in Italy. </li>
</ol>
<p>That’s about it. Oh, you can laugh at the absurdity of movies and tv shows about Rome and gladiators and the like. </p>
<p>For ancient literature, Greek is by far the better choice because the literature is that much better. For practicality, Spanish. I also took French. I’ve forgotten almost all of it because there’s not much call for it, but I hear Spanish every day and there are Spanish language tv channels and newspapers. Spanish also opens the door to Italian, which has a nice literature, Portuguese and let’s not forget Romanian.</p>
<p>My kids all took Mandarin and one is fluent. If your kid wants a challenge, try Japanese or Mandarin.</p>
<p>Due to a unique set of circumstances, I ended up with four years of French, two years of Spanish and three years of Latin in high school. This was way back in time so Latin may not have even been declared dead yet. However, I did find Latin very helpful in both Spanish and French at the time. And many years later the Spanish has become very helpful in my job. So I would vote for the Latin over the French if she wants to continue in a language and yet still learn as indicated in the OP.</p>
<p>“My kids all took Mandarin and one is fluent. If your kid wants a challenge, try Japanese or Mandarin”</p>
<p>Oy. DD just finished 4 years of Japanese. AP is supposed to be 5th year, but her HS didnt have Japanese 4, so they go from Japanese 3 right to AP Japanese. Contributed to her killer senior year. She is still vegging out recovering.</p>
<p>Ok - Let me throw THIS Question out to the crowd…</p>
<p>My son just finished Soph year, and will take Spanish 4 next year as a Jr. He wants to go into Engineering at Caltech, MIT or Norhtwestern, and they only require 2 years of a FL.</p>
<p>Rather than taking Spanish 5 - AP, I think he should drop Spanish and take a different elective, like stats, or computer programming. </p>
<p>I think taking a language through AP level is always impressive and even engineering schools (especially MIT) look for a certain amount of well-roundedness. If he hates Spanish I don’t think it will hurt him to drop it, but I don’t think it would necessarily be better to take stats or computer programming. The Comp Sci AP bares very little resemblance to what is taught at many engineering schools. It’s pretty low level Java programming. I know MIT and I think Caltech both start off with Scheme.</p>
<p>In learning a foreign language, the most important thing is motivation. I took Japanese from sixth grade until a gap year in Japan because I wanted to, and I have been so much more successful than I was in German (which I took at school) because it’s something I’ve actively been interested in. If your daughter wants to study Latin, she will get more out of it than French class where she doesn’t feel motivated to learn the material. See if you can talk to the guidance counselor about so they know to make a mention of it in her college recommendation.</p>
<p>Thanks mathmom. He actually likes Spanish, and gets A’s, but I was thinking of getting him an early boost in computers, - he has no comp prog background. Your tip on what MIT and Caltech use for programming might force me to re-think - but I asked for it, and I think that’s why I still post here! :)</p>