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In part because there are a lot more Spanish and Chinese speakers in the US, and one needs to practice in a language.
There's no denying the point about Spanish speakers, but whether or not Chinese speakers actually outnumber French ones depends on whether or not you count the various forms of "Chinese" (e.g. Cantonese, Mandarin) together, and whether or not you count the "Creole" varieties of French in with the parent language.
Having said that the median (not necessarily the mean, more on that below) American is probably more likely to encounter a Chinese speaker than a French one, since the former are less concentrated in specific areas of the country than the latter. (The main places where francophones would be concentrated are in northern New England near Quebec, the Cajun areas of Louisiana, and in Florida and elsewhere in the southeastern parts of the country where Haitian refugees have settled - listed in descending order of where French would rival the importance of Spanish. While there are also places where Chinese immigrants have settled in disproportionate numbers, it's not as specific as the stronger outliers where you'd find a concentration of French speakers or people with French ancestry.)
They should make spanish required in HS and more of a priority. Lots of workplaces are filled with spanish speakers who barely can speak english
I can see where you're coming from with that, but at the same time I disagree.....Spanish was one of two foreign languages offered when I was in high school, and looking back, it would have been nice to have other options.
I took French in high school and did poorly. At one time, rich American girls learned French in private schools. Why was that? Do many high schools offer French nowadays?
I took four years of French and don't know more than a handful of words. I'm nearly fluent in Spanish and only have soap operas and colleagues as instructors.
By fluent, I mean I can talk and mangle verb tenses.
French no longer has the international reach that it once did, as France has declined as a world power. That is really what is causing the eclipse of French as a language to be taught in school. French used to be the language of international diplomacy so it was very useful in that realm. German and Mandarin seem to be the up and coming languages, reflecting China's rise as a world power and Germany's ascent to European language.
For Americans of course, the most useful language is the one that we already know. English is the de facto common language through most of Europe and in many parts of Africa and the far east.
French no longer has the international reach that it once did, as France has declined as a world power. That is really what is causing the eclipse of French as a language to be taught in school. French used to be the language of international diplomacy so it was very useful in that realm. German and Mandarin seem to be the up and coming languages, reflecting China's rise as a world power and Germany's ascent to European language.
For Americans of course, the most useful language is the one that we already know. English is the de facto common language through most of Europe and in many parts of Africa and the far east.
That could be changing.
Forbes magazine, online, March 2014:
"Here’s the thing: the data suggests that French language just might be the language of the future.
French isn’t mostly spoken by French people, and hasn’t been for a long time now. The language is growing fast, and growing in the fastest-growing areas of the world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. The latest projection is that French will be spoken by 750 million people by 2050.
A study by investment bank Natixis even suggests that by that time, French could be the most-spoken language in the world, ahead of English and even Mandarin."
Whether to learn French or another language is a question people need to answer for themselves (French isn't in my top five languages to learn before I die).
Whether or not to learn another language at all should be an easy question to answer. Opening yourself up to a new portion of the world is an experience you can't get doing anything else, including traveling.
I don't know of any school in my region that teaches French. Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin, and German are all taught at different schools. I think French is on it's way out. Too bad because it is a neat language.
I don't know of any school in my region that teaches French. Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin, and German are all taught at different schools. I think French is on it's way out. Too bad because it is a neat language.
Interesting that schools are still teaching Japanese. I see that as a language on its way out more so than French.
I don't think French is getting phased out, but is certainly less popular in American high schools than Spanish for a decade or two. Spanish is easier for Americans to learn, and is more "useful" in that there is a significantly higher hispanohablante population in the US than francophone.
Is French useless? Absolutely not. A lot of people have said Spanish is more popular because it's more intelligible with the other Romance languages, but that's also not true. French is more intelligible to Italian than Spanish or Portuguese, and francophones can comprehend the other major Romance languages better than a Spanish speaker (with the exception of Portuguese).
As far as "utility" goes, learning Arabic or Mandarin are the most useful. Spanish comes in somewhat handy if you live in an urban American environment with a high Hispanic population, and Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, and Japanese are all great for pleasure/culture.
If you plan to live in Europe and have some sort of business career there, by far the best language combination you could possess would be English-French-German. If in South American, then English-Spanish-Portuguese.
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