Which is the best second language?

[Jillpea]

Hi Aussies (and possibly relevant for other countries),

I am an English speaking Australian with parents that both migrated from England, I married a fifth generation Australian, so unfortunately we have no ties to a native language of any other country. I learnt Japanese at high school for five years and struggled every step of the way. One teacher said even a monkey could get 25% in a multiple choice test, but I managed to get only 15%!!! I have a Japanese friend today that I see regularly, but I can only speak about 8 words to her. (Good thing she's fluent in English). My point is, learning a second language when you hit high school is not something that I wanted my kids to do. But which language to choose, when English is the only one in our lives?

Although my son is only 14 months, I decided to ring around schools in my area and see if any taught a second language and which language it was. It turned out my closest public primary school teaches Italian from Kindergarten to year 6. Other schools within a 5-10 km radias either don't teach a second language or Greek & Arabic was sometimes taught to those kids who parents speak it only. So my kids wouldn't qualify. Therefore with so many languages to choose from and no ties to any of them in particular I now have somewhere to start. Italian it is. Just thought there might be a couple of parents wondering how to choose another language if English is all you know.

[hypatia]

In your case, as you have no specific bond towards a specific second language, I would chose an Asian one. Proximity to Australia & training your son's ear for tonal languages (such as Chinese) & a different alphabet as well.
You have a Japanese friend, so why not make the most of it? She would be able to help you find Cds & kids DVDs.
Just a hint.

[mtb999]

Jillpea - are you planning on staying in your area longterm?  It may be worthwhile checking out what languages are taught by your local high school or if you're sending your son to a private school for secondary education find out what languages they teach.  The other thing is that curricula of primary schools change.  I recently found out that the primary school for my area has just started to teach Chinese in the last couple of years.
I personally would either choose Mandarin Chinese as over a billion people speak it and it will be an increasingly important language for business/trade.  The other languages I would consider are Japanese and French.  Wink to learn is in English and Chinese and quite affordable as it's sold in Singaporean dollars (There may still be a 10% discount coupon).  There would be chinese "school" classes that your son could attend on weekends.  I recently discovered there is a Mandarin Chinese play group in one of the Adelaide Suburbs held on Friday mornings.
Alliance Francais (apologies if I've spelt it incorrectly) apparently has classes for children below schooling age, which is an alternative.
Hope it helps

[Nikita]

Just in my town is a variety of languages taught at primary and high school. Unless you are positive what school your child will be attending, you're best to teeach a few and hedge your bets. Infact, often times when a particular language teacher leaves the school they wont necessarily replace that teacher with a same language teacher!! Seriously, at my kids school, they were learning either French or Japanese, and I advised my kids to pick French as it would be easier to learn and I could help them. But that teacher left anyway, so now they only do Japanese. My oldest child swapped schools last year to do Year 7 elsewhere, and the school had done Indonesian for many years (as they are our closest neighbours and a very popular choice here..plus a really easy language to learn), but as she started Year 7 the Indonesian teacher retired, and a German teacher replaced her. So you see what I mean about being able to predict what will be taught when your child gets to high school!!

[Jillpea]

This has been great, thank you so much each of you. (Karma to all). I hadn't thought about all those different senarios. I think I'll give it some more thought and do a bit more homework. Thanks again.

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