Foreign language for children - which would you choose?

[xiaostar]

karenmok:

So which of the Indian languages is useful to learn? India is soon becoming an economic powerhouse.

Most Indians in politics and business use English as a working language hence Hindi is not a popular language for foreigners to learn.

[xiaostar]

phtthp:

think German and France are mature economy.

not sure if useful to learn German or French ?

Many jobs in international organisations like united nations, interpol and international Olympics committee still use both English and French as working languages. You can see the list here
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_organisations_which_have_French_as_an_official_language

French is also useful because it is very easy to learn Spanish, Portuguese and Italian after you have mastered French. But it doesn't work the other way around - Spanish speakers have greater difficulty learning French than French speakers to learn Spanish because French is more complex and has much more difficult rules. Knowledge of spanish , Portuguese is very useful if you want to break into emerging economies like argentina and Brazil. Knowledge of French is useful for working in Africa - and there are many jobs there which pays very, very well especially in mining and commodities if you are open to the risk.

German is useful because the richest european countries are German speaking - Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Languages of other richer european countries like netherlands, Denmark and to a lesser extent Norway, Sweden are also closely related to German. In the emerging eastern European countries like Poland, knowledge of German is far more useful than English or French. German is also a popular language among engineering students because most of the leaders in engineering are German companies - SAP, Daimler, Bosch to name a few, all of whom have a large presence in Singapore.

That said, I personally think it is more useful to learn a regional language like malay, Thai or Vietnamese.

[MsPizza]

My 6+ year old daughter took Mandarin since K1 but she opted for Malay during Pri Sch. Shes still learning Mandarin & Arabic on a weekly basis. Having said that, anyone here keen on language swap? I can coach you and/or your child Malay for free on a regular basis and in return im hoping you can do the same for mine. We live ard Holland Village. Tks.

[pehong]

I am interested to let my daughters to learn Thai and German. Any body can recommend me ?

[SecDad]

I currently know 9 languages to fluency, and my son is also interested in languages, but he cannot focus on only one language. He is jumping around Japanese, Esperanto, Italian, Hebrew and Greek. Can I ask, will he, after a long period of time, be able to reach fluency?

[ngl2010]

SecDad:

I currently know 9 languages to fluency, and my son is also interested in languages, but he cannot focus on only one language. He is jumping around Japanese, Esperanto, Italian, Hebrew and Greek. Can I ask, will he, after a long period of time, be able to reach fluency?

9 languages??? :yikes:

:udaman:

[jetsetter]

SecDad:

I currently know 9 languages to fluency, and my son is also interested in languages, but he cannot focus on only one language. He is jumping around Japanese, Esperanto, Italian, Hebrew and Greek. Can I ask, will he, after a long period of time, be able to reach fluency?

Are you an EU citizen? My overseas cousins from EU had to study 7 languages (Latin, English, French, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish) in Pr and Sec Sch. But they're not very proficient in most of them today in their adulthood, except Eng plus the official language of their country of birth, and possibly a third one if: a) they are dating a foreigner; b) working for the European Commission or United Nations Geneva; or c) working in a German/French MNC.

[Blinkish]

Language courses at NUS (open to the public)


Vietnamese Programme


Thai Programme


Korean Programme


Japanese Programme


Chinese Programme


Bahasa Indonesia Programme


Arabic Programme

[ssliana]

I think Malay is very useful! Probably a little easier to learn than a pictographic language too. : ) A friend of mine just finished an introductory course on it and has high praise!

[CalvinS]

If I were to choose, I will choose English because it’s a universal language that everybody must learn.