Spanish should be a mandatory language taught in U.S. schools from early childhood elementary onward. amirite?

As someone who received mandatory French education in grade school, I can assure you nothing is less successful than teaching a language to kids that have no desire to learn it with parents who are apathetic to your success in learning it.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Canada?

by Broad_Acadia7067 3 months ago

Yep. All I got out of my French education is a fear of talking pineapples and hobo clowns

by Anonymous 3 months ago

The tramp family taught me how to fake French language comprehension

by Ill-Shoulder-9278 3 months ago

I know how to say: Je suis un ananas

by Anonymous 3 months ago

I'm practically illiterate in French, but I can ask to go to the washroom and conjugate the verb To be. So all in all I'd say it was a good 5 years spent

by Ill-Shoulder-9278 3 months ago

Je ne parle pas français. Another one that comes in handy!

by Anonymous 3 months ago

I'm an American who is fluent in french. +++Bragging rights ---spanish would be 100x more useful where I live.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

I blame the chemtrails for turning you French

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Because you took lessons and weren't in French immersion. World of difference

by melba92 3 months ago

Doesn't really matter. For the purposes of this conversation, the person is proposing mandatory Spanish lessons, not mandatory immersion. So the point stands: it will be a failure

by Anonymous 3 months ago

I took 8 years of German from 8th grade through college and 3 years of Spanish from Sophomore to senior year of high school. Early years of any language are easy IMO. The German class was very small and required high grades to get into. My German 5 class senior year of high school only had 8 people. One of them now actually teaches German at that high school. We learned so much during that class. We read books, studied the culture, and even went to a local university to compete with other high schools and universities performing a 45 minute play in German. Everyone tested into 200 or 300 level college courses. There was also a requirement to take a few years of any language so the majority of people chose Spanish. There were as many as 5 Spanish 100 courses going. So much of the time was dedicated to teachers addressing people goofing off. Only a small fraction truly wanted to learn Spanish. Progress was much slower, lessons were cut short, and it was just an awful experience. Speaking a language is also not like riding a bike. If you don't use it, you lose it. I can barely speak any German or Spanish now. Even my English grammar is worse than in the past when I used to be a more avid reader of books compared to online nonsense.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

As someone who took two years of French in high school, I agree with this statement. Oui oui. That's about all I know. Maybe baguette or croissant. I did not need two years of French for that.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

My parents are from Finland and had to learn 4 languages in school. My dad can speak Finnish, Swedish, English, and Spanish. My mom can speak Finnish, Swedish, English, and German. (The first 3 are mandatory, the 4th is your choice, but you have to pick one--other choices include Russian and French.) It seems pretty successful since they've retained this knowledge in to their old age.

by Brycengorczany 3 months ago

Well good for them but 5% of Finns speak Swedish and even less Spanish. It's not exactly a common thing.

by Felton63 3 months ago

Not only that but English is the Lingua franca. There's really no impetus to learn another language to succeed because everyone is learning English for business and education. For English speakers, there simply needs to be a desire to learn another language for cultural fascination or personal interest. This is a huge disadvantage learning wise

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Finns also tend to under report their abilities. People will say, "I don't speak English, I just took it in school" when really, they mean they're just not confident.

by Brycengorczany 3 months ago

Just another reason why Northern Europe is supreme

by pinkiefritsch 3 months ago

When and why would Americans need to use Spanish on a day to day basis? I say this as a Spanish speaker.

by mclaughlinaurel 3 months ago

Speaking Spanish is an advantage in many professions in the US. Personally, it has helped me build relationships with some of my kids friends parents.

by Tsipes 3 months ago

Depends where you live. If it's anywhere on the southern half of the US it's incredibly useful. As a job skill it's extremely attractive to employers.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Lmao for what jobs? Landscaping and retail? Mandarin and German are more valuable languages to learn if you want to talk about careers.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

I'm a stock broker and my co workers that speak spanish make 15k more a year. LMAO yourself.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

This isn't the gotcha you think it is. While learning Spanish might get you more money in some careers, it's really going to depend on the job. It's really going to depend on the employer too. Generally speaking an employee is better off working on improving their other job skills rather than investing the time to learn Spanish. Maybe if they live in the southern US but even then it really depends.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

As a job skill it's extremely attractive to employers This is one of the lies that councilors tell children to convince them to stay out of shop class haha

by Anonymous 3 months ago

In Colorado this would be helpful daily

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Honestly, autozone and probably any auto parts store knowing Spanish is useful.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

In Houston, Texas, I use it every day.

by Hungry-Still8560 3 months ago

Arabic and three East Asian languages have more speakers in the U.S. than French

by Weekly-Leadership 3 months ago

True, but it is a Lingua Franca in West Africa and has around 100M native speakers

by Anonymous 3 months ago

One bordering country speaks Spanish as their main language, and the entire world is now within a day's flight away, or a second away via the internet. How does this entitle Spanish as a language needed to be taught in the US?

by Anonymous 3 months ago

People coming to this country not learning to speak English is honestly a reason why not to teach Spanish, because it will encourage them to never learn English.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

But most US Spanish speakers are not monoglotts, most US Anglophones are, it is the same reason why it makes little sense to me for Canada to have such a policy with French. I can see an argument for some states like Texas and arguably Florida, but not for states like Alabama, Iowa, or Alaska, wjere it is a much less useful skill.

by SubstantialCopy6833 3 months ago

We have 43 million native Spanish speakers So 15% of people natively speak Spanish? That's not very convincing lol

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Maybe cause the entire south west and west coast of the US has ties to Mexico as it was once part of the Spanish empire then Mexican empire?

by Imaginary_Lie1792 3 months ago

Oh yes, because forcing kids to "learn" French in Canadian schools works so well

by mglover 3 months ago

Actually the immersion program is very successful. Some kids don't do well and they always have the English option. But for most it makes them much more employable and better able to learn another language. Everyone else in earth speaks multiple. It's kind of dumb that so many of us are monolingual

by melba92 3 months ago

I don't think he talking about the immersion program I think he is talking about the mandatory French classes in elementary and middle school that everyone (at least here in Alberta) has to take

by Torphyclyde 3 months ago

No. Encourage students to find joy in learning another language and explain that it is good exercise for the brain. But the student has to pick a language that he or she actually wants to learn and that isn't always Spanish.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

ASL would be a better candidate for a mandatory language.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

This would be a dumb waste of time and resources. How is knowing Spanish beneficial? So you can talk to your gardener? Nah. English is obviously the most important language for an American and half of us can barely grasp it. If I had to learn a second language it would be mandarin. It's the most valuable second language you can learn for business purposes. Also, your smart phone has a translator. So why waste the time and energy learning something like Spanish? The American public education system is going to hell. They need to make sure Americans are proficient in English before introducing anything else. I'd rather learn Latin or Greek before Spanish to be honest. I know a very basic surface level of Spanish and that seems like enough for me.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

In many areas of the US, this wouldn't make sense since there aren't that many immigrants from Spanish speaking countries. I would have been better off learning Portuguese.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

I learnt Spanish myself beginning when I was 26, but I have mixed feelings about the idea of requiring it in US schools beginning in early grades. Speaking as someone who immigrated to the US from Australia when I was 12, life as an immigrant kid would have been harder if I had been expected to have several years' worth of Spanish knowledge already under my belt.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

lowkey agree W take

by Emotional_Life_8404 3 months ago

Is this unpopular? I sure they're will be a bunch of recis....I guess it is. I 10000% it would be a lot easier to learn then than now that I'm old. It would also be super useful.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

De acuerdo. I would be okay with that. Also, Spanish is pretty easy to learn as an English speaker, and once you learn Spanish, there are several other languages which become easy to learn as well. I think this is a separate issue from immigrants needing to learn English when they move to the US, which I am also in favor of.

by Hungry-Still8560 3 months ago

The US is on the verge of not having mandatory education of any kind. Now is not the time to raise the bar.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Dwight has it on good authority that in 20 years everyone will be speaking german, or some kind of chinese german hybrid

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Yo solo hablo alleman y chino. I oftentn say that to Spanish speakers I meet. They laugh and then I say something in Mandarin. You should see the looks on their faces.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Lol no. People moving to a country should be expected to learn that country's language, not the other way around.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

The US doesn't have an official language, there's just predominantly more English speakers

by Bartellila 3 months ago

You can say that all you want, but English has been the de facto official language since the before the founding, and all government documents are in English (except for Puerto Rico, which is another reason why they shouldn't be a state). The majority of states also have English as the formal official language.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Growing up in south Florida I wish I was taught Spanish at a young age

by Smart-Wishbone-3714 3 months ago

I think the US should actually make English their official language, and require people to learn it when moving here.

by littellillie 3 months ago

Meh, I learnt French as a mandatory class in school. I did fine in those classes too. I don't remember a lick of French now.

by Ok_Treat 3 months ago

Estoy de acuerdo

by Anonymous 3 months ago

I learned Spanish in school and was so good at it that the other kids used to constantly cheat off me. I even worked at Wendy's with a bunch of Mexicans and got to use it for a short while. After that, if you aren't in an environment where you're constantly speaking it you forget almost all of it. I can read it pretty well still because the root words make most of it obvious, but actually speaking to someone is a whole other story. You don't use, you lose it.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Why exactly? I've never needed to speak Spanish in the US in my life.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Hard disagree. I learned Spanish for a while and didn't enjoy it at all. It was my old high school telling me I needed to learn a language than me actually wanting to learn a language. I wasn't interested. I wouldn't force that on anyone. Plus, it's nobody's responsibility to learn Spanish just because it's a common language.

by FrostyArcher 3 months ago

Read the room fella.

by Hillsbella 3 months ago

Yeah no. And I learned Spanish first than English.

by Olga27 3 months ago

did you forget america likes to americanize american children?

by Richie08 3 months ago

I was taught spanish in public school from kindergarten to graduation (in MA). I was also required to take a 2nd foreign language from 6th to 10th.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Schools have a hard enough time teaching English tbh

by Anonymous 3 months ago

At the very least Spanish, There are many Bosnians, Serbians and Croatians that to moved to my area around the time I was born and theres a whole population that I consider my neighbors and friends that I cant readily communicate with. This would also create more teaching jobs, not a lot, but a real amount

by Randireilly 3 months ago

I honestly kind of agree as someone who lives in the US who took 3 years of French in high school and 2 in college. As much as I love the French language, it really hasn't been useful in the real world. On the other hand, I can count on 2 hands how many times Spanish would've helped me.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Please. Have you seen those reports out of Illinois? Apparently we can't even teach our kids to read English.

by Jensen34 3 months ago

Because it's not really going to make too much of a difference to an Americans life apart from them making Spanish speakers feel a bit more welcome. I don't think something needs to be mandatory for this purpose

by Anonymous 3 months ago

One could also argue if you're living in a country whose primary language is English, you're expected to speak English. Most Americans will never need to speak Spanish or French in America. Most high schools also require at least 2 years of a language class to graduate anyway (Spanish and French being the most commonly offered but larger schools offer others as well).

by Lockmanotha 3 months ago

I learned it, but have had so few opportunities to speak it I never really became fluent, living in rural and urban areas in the midwest. I'm sure someone around me at one time or another spoke it but they probably also spoke English, so I never had to use it. If I wanted to practice, I had to look for Spanish conversation tables, which were other students mostly.

by After-Part4450 3 months ago

lol, good luck making that happen

by Laurence50 3 months ago

I mean I think it's cool when people know multiple languages but English is already the most commonly spoken second language and also the business/diplomatic language of the world so I fail to see how it's imperative. Knowing a language like French or Spanish would only be practical in niche situations as an American.

by Hagenesdevante 3 months ago

I agree..it's easier to learn French if you know Spanish…

by dfriesen 3 months ago

I mostly agree with you, but two bad Spanish teachers and 4 years with no alternatives has left me utterly uninterested in learning the language. Though I agree that everyone should at least learn a second language.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

But at what age did you learn? It makes a difference.

by WaitLive4632 3 months ago

This was in high school, in an area where Spanish wasn't common enough for me to retain much afterwards. It was mandatory, and Spanish was the only option. I would have been much more enthusiastic if I at least had a choice of language.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Honestly it's stupid to only have one official language

by melba92 3 months ago

No. On principle I chose not to learn Spanish in HS/College because the more English speaking Americans learn Spanish, the less inclined immigrants will be to learn English. I chose German instead.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Here come the uneducated Trumpettes....I think we should have at very least mandatory second language. It's so incredibly useful and profitable as an adult. Spanish speakers in my field (stock broker) make 15k more than me.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Hard agree. We have many immigrants coming in from Latin America and it's a relatively common language in the US and it wouldn't hurt for kids to learn about other cultures

by wheaney 3 months ago

It's genuinely absurd that it isn't.

by Anonymous 3 months ago

Spanish in the west and French in the east yes.

by Imaginary_Lie1792 3 months ago

French is not that important bro

by Anonymous 3 months ago

French is spoken in Canada bro

by Imaginary_Lie1792 3 months ago