why is it that so many people take spanish in school and not french?

Question

spanish is cool, you know, but french is so pretty. and they're like "well yeah many people speak spanish here (U.S.) and itd be more useful"...but people speak French in Canada which is also close to the U.S....

Answer 1

there are about 7 million French-speakers in Canada, compared to 100s of millions of Spanish speakers from Tierra del Fuego to the Rio Grande. And there are more Spanish speakers in the US than French speakers.

I know what you mean, though. Je prefere le francais.

Answer 2

If it have been me, I'd take Spanish. While French is an exciting language, Spanish is spoken by means of a LOT extra persons on the planet in these days. French is a bit of more difficult, however now not all that so much, however the complete rationale for a language is to speak, so I'd pass with the one who helped me speak with the finest quantity of persons.

Answer 3

Although Canada is a bilingual country is most of the provinces (especially the western ones) french is not commonly used here. Spanish is more useful in terms of world travel as well, there are something like 18 countries in the world that use Spanish as there primary language.

However all that said, both french and Spanish have similar routes and either one you take, it is easy to expand your knowledge and adapt to learn other things.

Answer 4

I'm French and I think it's more practical for Americans to learn Spanish. That being said, usually, you don't learn a language because it's practical. But apparently, Spanish is easier for English speakers.

It's always good to learn one language. If you want to work in international trade, then French might be interesting (a lot of African countries speak French), but I think Chinese might be more useful.

And, contrary to what Kermadec said (that sounds like a French name...), not all French people can speak English. Most high-school students might be able to write in Eglish, but because of the French system, we usually don't speak it very well. It depends where you go, though.

Answer 5

With more Hispanics moving to America, it's a good language to know, and people just learn it. It seems more useful than French. Unless you're moving to France, Canada, or doing high-level technological stuff, you'll probably need to know French; and maybe Japanese. But French isn't really useful to the average American, but another language always looks good on your resume. (Which is also why people take Spanish; most jobs with customer support need people who speak Spanish to answer phones.)

Answer 6

I think people should just study whatever language they want, it doesn't have to be practical. It does suck at small schools, mine only offered spanish. And even though there are a lot of Spanish speakers, most people who study spanish don't ever really use it, and four years of hs spanish is nothing. And you don't really need it. You would need to be at a fairly high level for it to be useful for a job, and if spanish speakers can easily get around without knowing english, english speakers people can do the same thing.

Answer 7

Because French is a friggin hard language. I live in Canada and have studied french for 11 years, and can barely put together a sentence, whereas I took Spanish for one year, and can speak perfectly fluent spanish. Most Canadians would rather learn Spanish than French, because Spanish is soooo much easier to learn.

Answer 8

I think spanish is more useful than french, whenever people travel outside the USA, ex, to Latin countries
Only small population speak French in Canada the Quebec Province. those people hate English language.
And as you have figured out more and more people will learn spanish in the future. another reason to learn it.

Answer 9

My Spanish teacher said it's alot easier to speak Spanish b/c a lot of the words are spelt and said almost like the English word.
And it's b/c alot of people use Spanish compared to French.

Answer 10

It's more useful. More americans speak spanish than French.