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My youngest sister went to Adams Spanish in St. Paul, and I thought that was a pretty cool thing to do. She still knows conversational spanish. I would have liked to send Owen there, but now with his speech thing I think we should just get him speaking english first. I mean, he could learn another language, but speaking it is another story. I think it is pretty pointless to try to teach a second language in high school or middle school though. I think it is only beneficial if you teach it right from the beginning in an immersion fashion. I took 3 years of spanish and I can barely remember it, so it seems like that was a waste of my time. I think other countries teach english starting in elementary school, but here in america they start it too late to do any good. I guess that is because there really isn't one obvious language that americans should learn. I agree with David though, it doesn't really matter what the language is, because learning a second language at a young enough age sort of rewires your brain and makes it easy for you to learn any language. So just the act of learning any second language at a young age would make it possible for americans to learn all three, if they so desire, later on when they need it.

The Transitional College of LEX in Japan was created to study people and language. They found something very interesting (and I'd say counterintuitive) about language. The more languages you learn, the easier it is to learn another.

In monolingual countries, learning a second language is difficult. In bilingual countries, most people either know one language or the other. Also, there is often some tension between the two. In multilingual countries, however, (more than two, in this case) each person will commonly know three, four, five different languages and can learn more with ease.

(You can read a little more about it at http://www.lexlrf.org/hippo/ysomany.html)

So if there is this idea that Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin?), and Hindi each have these separate and unique reasons for learning them, they should all be learned.

On the other hand, and at the risk of sounding ego-centric, I don't think learning a second language is necessary at all (for English speakers).

It is predicted that we will be a type I civilization within the next 100 years. As a type I civilization, we will have a global language. All indications point to English as that global language. Yes, as far as first languages go, English isn't top dog. As a second language, it's big and getting bigger.

From Oxford Seminars:

"English is everywhere. Some 380 million people speak it as their first language and another 600 million speak it as their second. A billion are learning it, about a third of the world's population is in some sense exposed to it and by 2030, it is predicted almost half of the world will be more or less proficient in it. It is the language of globalization - of international business, politics and diplomacy. It is the language of computers and the Internet. You'll see it on posters in Beijing, you'll hear it in pop songs in Tokyo, you'll read it in official documents in Prague. Deutsche Welle broadcasts in it. Bjork, an Icelander, sings in it. French business schools teach in it. It is the medium of expression in cabinet meetings in Bolivia. English is now the global language."

Of course this isn't to say that English will "take over". Those who see English as the future Global Language also hold that there will still be local languages that will continue to dominate daily life. In that case, I'd say Spanish is the language to go with. You'll be able to communicate with the world using English, but you'll probably want to know the language of the local majority population.

And yet, we plan on sending Bella to Yinghua Academy. I figure she should be able to pick up Spanish just about anywhere in the future. I'm also not quite sure what China will do with its superpower status.