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What language should I study

So I’m currently in year 11 and I want to be a MFL teacher when I’m older. I’m doing the Spanish gcse but I also need to take another language at Uni to be a teacher. The only issue is that I hate & can’t stand French, it seems like German isn’t been taught anymore in schools. What language would u recommend me doing? Don’t suggest french :smile:

Reply 1

demoti007

French. Definitely French.

Reply 2

FishFinger04

Original post by demoti007

French. Definitely French.

Haha

Reply 3

demoti007

Seriously though, if you want to be an MFL teacher and are already taking Spanish, the next best option should honestly be French. I’m a B1 Level French learner at high school, and it’s honestly not that difficult. Practice is the key :smile:

Reply 4

demoti007

But if you really insist on not taking French, I guess you could take something like Portuguese or Italian, which would be closer to Spanish than any others. It could be beneficial especially if you’re planning to take a Latin-centric path :smile:

Reply 5

FishFinger04

Original post by demoti007

It’s not that. It’s just I dislike the language, just the way it sounds etc

Reply 6

Napp

could you narrow the question down at all? As in do you want to focus on european languages or do you have a desire/interest in middle eastern, Asian etc.?

Reply 7

TehZia19

You could independently study German and then sit the exam.

Reply 8

Quick-use

Well, I have to say that I used to hate French and yet have done a degree in it. I've been learning French ever since I was a child but I really disliked it during GCSE level. GCSE time is also when I began my Spanish studies and I instantly fell in love with it (mostly because of my teacher). I took both up to A level standard. My Spanish clicked during AS but French didn't and then during my A2 year I applied for Italian and Spanish. But, by the end of the year, my French clicked and I started loving it; in fact, I actually thought I had failed the French exam but I ended up getting near full marks. :lol:

I switched my degree to French and Spanish at uni and picked up Japanese. At uni, I absolutely adored French and found that the difficulty of French and Spanish did a 180. French starts off rather intimidating and difficult while Spanish doesn't; but, at more advanced levels, it's the complete opposite!

At the end of the day, everything's fluid. Maybe your experiences up until now have marred your vision of French but it really is a superb language to learn and it complements Spanish very well. I'd highly recommend it. Otherwise, maybe you could pick up a different language like Portuguese, Italian, German, Japanese, Chinese Mandarin, Russian or Arabic. For all of the languages I've listed (even including German sometimes), universities generally don't need an A level to learn it at degree level. Ergo, you could apply for Spanish + another language at university without doing the other language at A level. That said, for degree level French, you'd definitely need A level French.

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 9

FishFinger04

Original post by Napp

could you narrow the question down at all? As in do you want to focus on european languages or do you have a desire/interest in middle eastern, Asian etc.?

I’m quite interested in: Russian, mandarin and Korean tbh

Reply 10

Napp

Original post by FishFinger04

I’m quite interested in: Russian, mandarin and Korean tbh

Russian is a good one, once you get past the alphabet it all becomes quite simple.. although the declensions are a pain in the ass!

Reply 11

MichaMicha

German is still taught more than russian or korean. Mandarin Chinese may be a good option, I heard it was getting popular.

Reply 12

FishFinger04

Original post by MichaMicha

German is still taught more than russian or korean. Mandarin Chinese may be a good option, I heard it was getting popular.

Id rather learn Mandarin than German but I’m worried that I can’t get onto the PGCE course with mandarin

Reply 13

MichaMicha

Original post by FishFinger04

Id rather learn Mandarin than German but I’m worried that I can’t get onto the PGCE course with mandarin

If you’re near a bigger city, there’s quite often Confucius institutes that will offer the official HSK exams. Not sure what counts for PGCE but would imagine if it’s equivalent to GCSE level you’ll need around HSK 3 which you could get with a semester of very intensive study or 2 semesters. Do you specifically need a GCSE or does any kind of language qualification count? You can also take HSK without attending classes, you just need to find a centre that offers the examination, so you could in theory self-study and then take the exam with a centre.

Reply 14

BlueIndigoViolet

German

- personal opinion

Reply 15

Nathalieb280

I speak Spanish and it sounds good for me , obviously I’m from Spain so I will say that , but also it depends where you go , there are more than 20 countries where people speak Spanish so they have COMPLETELY different accents so it’s just depends , but also I get it’s your opinion that you don’t like how it sounds

Reply 16

benchan

I had this dilemma as well when I wanted to apply for university, and was considering applying for MFL (am currently a Y13 student applying for Architecture).

Little life story (skip to the bottom if it's TL): Back before GCSEs I hated languages, I've been learning French since I was 8/9, and Spanish since year 8. However, moving to a new school in year 10 meant that I wanted to make friends, and what better way to make new friends than to go on the French and Spanish exchanges? I ended up loving the exchanges and that ignited my passion for Spanish as a language, and subsequently my passion for languages in general.

However, when it came to A Levels, due to parental pressure, I could only choose to take French. I had to decide between the two and chose French even though I loved Spanish more as I thought it was a more technical language and I'd be able to keep up Spanish at a higher level with less maintenance. At the start of Year 13, I decided that I wasn't doing enough languages to be happy with myself, so I signed up for Italian GCSE (a completely new language that I started in January 2019 (ok not completely in Year 13)), French DELF B1 and Spanish DELE A1/B2.

To be completely honest, if you can't stand the idea of learning French, Italian is a great language to learn for someone who is sure they want to study the Spanish language. Speaking from experience, Spanish is a great base for an Italian beginner, and the both go relatively well at university, I know someone who got into Cambridge for Spanish and Italian!

Another thing to add as to why you should do Italian, if you don't speak any other languages (other than English and Spanish of course), broadening your horizons to Italian is a great starter for learning other languages. Languages like Portugese (and other romanic languages) are quite easy to learn the more romanic languages you have, however Italian is definitely the easiest to start with with Spanish. An argument on the other hand for German (and you can take A Levels outside of your college if you wanted) is that it's a Germanic language, and can open you up to things like Swedish Norwegian Finnish and Danish (if you ever wanted to learn those) :smile:

.

Hope this helped!!

Reply 17

Sorcerer's Storm

Original post by Nathalieb280

She said she doesn't like how French sounds. She wasn't talking about Spanish.

Reply 18

Katja93

I realise this was posted a few months ago, but I hope my feedback might be useful for you as an MFL teacher myself. Spanish is on the increase nationally in terms of uptake at GCSE and A level, which gives you excellent prospects going forward, especially if you aspire to teach post-16. It's fairly commonplace for schools to request two languages from MFL teachers, and French is still the most popular language taught in schools, at least for the time being, so on that basis I'd recommend French even though you hate it (sorry!). Even having enough proficiency to teach it at KS3 should put you in a good position for jobs. I would advise caution with German. I am a German teacher, and as much as teacher training providers like to paint a rosy picture of MFL shortages, it simply isn't true in the case of German. Myself and the other German MFL trainees really struggled to find jobs because there were so few vacancies due to schools dropping it. By the time March rolled around there was a very realistic possibility we weren't going to have jobs for September if we wanted to specialise in German. Due to location restrictions, I was unable to move from my local area and I was extremely lucky to get the only job I applied for in my locality. There were three German jobs advertised the whole year in the county. My classmates did get jobs, albeit very late in the day, and all had to relocate. German jobs vary depending on location- London and the South seem much better for prospects than the North and Midlands, generally. Alarm bells started to ring very early on as when I was doing my PGCE, the university were unable to find a school that offered German to take me for my last placement. I ended up teaching French instead. I was fortunate because my family speak French and although I've never studied it formally, I can teach to KS4 if needed. The other German trainees have all had to teach French or Spanish as well, whether they knew the language beforehand or not, meaning they had to start learning quickly. Even if you do German at university, I suspect most schools will make you teach French as well. In terms of lesser taught languages, I also speak a number of Eastern European languages and I teach Russian in an after school club. So if you do opt to study a less traditional language, you could always do this, or seek work in a grammar school where lesser taught languages are slightly more the norm. All languages are amazing, but if you're thinking about teaching you do have to consider the job market too, especially as it is becoming more competitive. I hope this helps!

Reply 19

username402722

I'm saddened to read of your dislike of French. If it really is that much of an issue and you don't feel German is taught much (sadly) then I would suggest Italian.

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