11 Plus Exams Forum

My DD has the choice of Mandarin,Spanish German and French ...she has to select 2 ...

is Mandarin a difficult language to learn...

would Spanish and German be a better selection???

What level/school year is she in?

Sorry, this is for Year 7 - St Helens....

Two of mine do Mandarin and love it. My daughter has done it since year 8 as an after school club only, but will be sitting the GCSE this summer and has got A/A* s so far for all her controlled assessments, so although challenging I would not say it is ridiculously hard.
My son is doing it as his second language after French , he is not one of the world's natural linguists but is also doing very well.
I think that for both of them it's" difference" is exciting and engaging and they feel very proud and lucky to be given the chance to study it at school.

There have been several threads on this 'below the line' (beyond 11plus) down the page. DD did Mandarin for GCSE. Did very well; loved it. Do it -why not? Be different!

My DS has been learning Mandarin since Year 7 & is now in Year 10 & preparing to take the GCSE next year. He has really enjoyed it from the very beginning. As others have said, it is challenging but not impossible. My DS has made flash cards to test himself & much prefers it to Spanish which is his other language. It's great to do something a bit different!

what are the benefits of learning Mandarin, benefits other than good to learn a different languauge etc

in terms of career benefits, what are they ? it is only spoken in China, so only if u need to live/work in China then it becomes useful.

u dont find a need to use Mandarin if you are not in China, though Mandarin is spoken by around 1 billion people but most of them are in China. so no point of learning it becaz 1 billion use it, how far it will be useful for our children in their career

please suggest

One could say the same about German but with far fewer speakers.

I think that a language at GCSE level should be taken for the joy of it rather than for any possible future career benefit. I am aware that some universities( UCL ?) require a GCSE in a language for entry but perhaps this is to show some level of intellectual rigour than any use it may be for say, a maths degree.
My daughter also studies Latin and Ancient Greek, fat lot of use they are but they certainly exercise her mind and give her a lot of pleasure.

She should learn something she thinks she may enjoy. In Year 8 she gets the chance to learn Latin and for GCSE she can take Italian or Japanese from scratch.

If she's not sure, listen to the languages being spoken on the web and see which she lies the sound of best. That's how my daughter chose German, rather thn Spanish and loved it!

harrow123 wrote:what are the benefits of learning Mandarin, benefits other than good to learn a different languauge etc

in terms of career benefits, what are they ? it is only spoken in China, so only if u need to live/work in China then it becomes useful.

u dont find a need to use Mandarin if you are not in China, though Mandarin is spoken by around 1 billion people but most of them are in China. so no point of learning it becaz 1 billion use it, how far it will be useful for our children in their career

please suggest

The thing is you never know what will happen, so as Sally says, pick the ones you enjoy.

I preferred French to German, so that is the one I chose at O level. If I knew then what I know now, I would have picked German as it would have been far more use to me. (My DH has extensive extended German family. He didn't get the chance to learn at school so he can't speak much either.) As it was I didn't know I was going to marry someone who was part German.