Quick – if you could pick right now, what second language would you have your kids learn to enhance their economic prospects over the next 50 years?
If you said, "Spanish", congratulations. That’s a nice choice, and you’re towing the company line. My
guess is that 95% of American’s would give that answer. After all, Spanish is rapidly becoming the language of choice, or strong second option, in many American communities.
Spanish is certainly a solid choice for your kids. Learning Spanish will help them navigate through the increasing diversity they’ll find in the states over the next 50 years. If they’re managing a call center or expanding a retail presence stateside, they’ll need Spanish to make sure they’re getting their fair share of the labor pool for the businesses they support.
Here’s the dirty little secret. Spanish will help them maintain the lifestyle you’ve established in your killer career. It won’t allow them, however, to have economic prospects that are better than yours.
To transcend what you’ve done economically, your kids are going to have to think outside the box, and look westward across the Pacific.
Your kids need to learn Mandarin.
Before you tell me that I’m simply drinking the Olympic kool-aid, I’m not. I’m thinking raw economics. Depending on who you believe, the Chinese economy will pass the US economy somewhere between 2015 and 2050. Regardless of when that event happens, the Chinese economy will have an increasingly stronger pull on the US.
Two concepts come into focus with this recommendation – global trade and the concept of a Billion…
It’s a global world, and China’s going to be the rising partner in what your kids are involved with globally. Want them to go to Harvard? Great!! To put the degree pedigree to work, they’ll be taking the shuttle to Beijing or Shanghai every month.
Why? Because China has a BILLION people, most (regardless of what the Chinese government told us during the Olympics) without iPods, two pairs of jeans or even (GASP!) a pair of Nikes. It’s a blank slate of a market, and your kids are going to have to crack it to hit the numbers needed for the annual bonus.
Or maybe they’ll work for a Chinese multi-national with operations stateside…
Here’s hoping the Olympics planted the seed of capitalism/global markets within the little guy in China – or at least made him want to have a Coke and a big screen TV. For now, do like Dr. Evil and start thinking "Billions", not "Millions".
And find a Mandarin tutor near you…
I think it’s Arabic.
Definitely Spanish is helpful to navigate – my kids school district has been offering Mandarin for the last 2 years (I think summer school, maybe regular year too) Here’s an article from the Washington Post that discusses the offerings in the DC Metro & Burbs…just to back you up! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082501418.html
So it’s Mandarin now? No longer Spanish, which replaced Japanese. (remeber when Japanese was the hot new “must learn” language?) Call me a skeptic, but I wonder what’s next… maybe Arabic, like Laurie suggests… Maybe it all depends on WHERE you are and WHAT your kids end up doing.
But since you’re asking, I think it’s still Spanish, if you’re living in the US. Over the next 50 years the US population is projected to be nearly 40% Hispanic (see Census Bureau release from Aug 14). Sure, for the very few of our children who end up as jet-setting executives for multinational firms, Mandarin may be better. But for the vast majority, who will be residing in the US (yes, most people born in the US stay in the US) and occupying some service-type job, Spanish is a safer bet.
interesting convo in the comments section here. i’ve gotta say it’s a toss up between mandarin and arabic though. why not have your kiddies learn both? trilingual isn’t a bad thing.
to chris though, it isn’t only jet-setting execs who need to learn mandarin. just because you stay in the US to live or work doesn’t mean that the rest of the world won’t make its way over here. i think the point kris makes is that in order to help your kids grow and be as successful as they can be – in order to help them tap into the global economy and all the promise therein, spanish isn’t going to help them one bit. but if you’re OK with your kids staying i nthe service-sector… then i guess it’s a different story. i’m coming off as sounding completely elitist… i’m just sayin’ though…
Jessica,
We’re talking about investing in our children’s future. The “jet-setting” was a bit of hyperbole. All I was suggesting was that Mandarin is a much higher risk/reward than Spanish. Sure the payoff to Mandarin may be higher in the next 50 years, but the odds are longer too. You’re investing on the expectation that the Chinese will make their way over here. The Spanish speakers are already here (about 15% of population, 20% of workers today), and projected to grow even larger (see previous comment). They are as close to a sure thing as there is.
When we’re talking about children, I’d rather invest in the conservative mutual fund than the risky IPOs. Elitists can afford the gamble; their kids will have cushy trust funds to fall back on. But for the average American, Spanish looks like the better choice.
I’m in the process of moving to a house across the street from the local language arts magnet elementary school because I think it’s so important that my daughter is exposed to both Mandarin and Spanish from an early age.
Even though she’s just 18 months old, we’ve thought a lot about getting her a Mandarin teacher since the language is so different than Texan. For now we’re just watching a lot of Ni Hao Kai-lan and Dora.
I am 45, with a previous science-based degree, and am going back to college full time to learn Mandarin. I have no doubt that, combined with my experience, it will give me a leg up on my peers over the next 20 years. I’ve been to Beijing twice (2000 and 2002). You have no idea until you have been there what level of energy, capacity for work, and hunger for growth can smolder within a mass of people who throughout the last 100 years experienced so much privation. What makes them different is that it is in their nature to be more motivated by what success means for their people, than by what it means for themselves. They also have what some might consider an absurdly strong belief in the miracles that come from hard work. They will be a force to be reckoned with for far longer than we will be alive. That said, right now Spanish is vitally important domestically. Chinese is vitally important internationally. That includes on the internet (China now has more of its people online than the US). The reason I would start my child in Chinese is that its vocal production is much more difficult than Spanish for a Western tongue. Children typically pick it up pretty quickly. It plays absolute hell with adults, whose palate and neural pathways are less flexible. Thus, I think it will be much easier for an adult who learned Chinese as a child to pick up Spanish, than the reverse.
KD checking back in….
Eric and Fran – you are seeing what I am seeing…
Jessica, Laurie and Chris – I’m still firm that it’s Mandarin if you want your kids to be global, spanish for domestic. In terms of Arabic, I like the thought, but it’s really only a play if you want to translate in a war – the total population alone tells me that Arabic is a bit player. There’s only so many translators you need for the princes in Saudi, and no one else can afford them.
Chris – last thought – a couple of Billion people isn’t an IPO…