Should I take Latin or Spanish in High School?

Question

I have to take a foreign language (and I'm not exactly an A/B student). My mom said Latin because it would help with Language Arts and vocabulary, and it's not exactly "conversational". My friends and a teacher from last year (that happened to overhear this conversation with my friends and who happens to be the Spanish teacher) said Spanish would be easier. Some realistic advice please!

Answer 1

Take Spanish. It will help you out later in life. I have been amazed about how much I have had to use my 5 years of high school Spanish (my high school was 8-12 grades) in the years since I graduated high school. I worked in retail for a few years in high school and college, and I had a few occasions where I actually had to converse in Spanish to sell items (and no, I don't live in Florida, Texas, or California). The language is not that hard to learn-- the hardest part is learning the verb tenses. Not to mention that you can impress friends by being able to read "the other set of instructions" that come with everything you buy!

Answer 2

Personally, I'm going to go with Spanish. Why? Because there's a lot of people out there in this world who speak Spanish, so it'll most likely be of more use to you in the future. Also, I know quite a handful of people who have been able to get a good job because they spoke both Spanish and English. This is because the place where they wanted to work in was looking for workers who could speak more than one language, thus being available when someone needs a person to translate for them. Also, it'll be easier to find someone who can help you out with your Spanish instead of Latin. Last but not least, Spanish is less complex than Latin and the terms are usually more simple.

Answer 3

Learning Spanish is a lot easier language to learn than Latin. NOBODY speaks Latin. Spanish can be extremely useful after mastering it.

Answer 4

Spanish will open a whole new world for you. You can learn it and have better chances of knowing many cultures and countries. It can score a plus whenever you search for a job as well. You can go for spanish because it is a "live" language where latin is not.

Answer 5

I would suggest Latin - once you have learned Latin, you can pick up a newspaper in just about any Romance language, and make sense of it. Its a short step from there to learning the other Romance languages.
Besides, there is a lot of great literature in Latin.
You can get a taste of spoken Latin from the latinum podcast - which has extensive lessons for online learning of spoken Latin, and examples of latin texts read aloud. (If you learn to speak Latin, you'll be a much more secure and fluent reader of Latin texts)
http://latinum.mypodcast.com

Answer 6

How many times have you asked yourself why do I have to learn this? Or will I use this later in life?

Go with Spanish.

There are job opportunities everywhere for bilingual employees. And I'm sure that you have noticed that a growing portion of our population speaks Spanish.

Answer 7

Latin would be harder but would give you a basis to learn other languages easier....Spanish would be more functional in the country these days.

Answer 8

you should take spanish because it is really easy i learned it in 2 months and i got a A in it i tried to learn latin and it took 4 years and i got a C in it

Answer 9

Spanish hands down. When's the last time you got stopped by a guy in a toga and asked for directions?

Answer 10

i think you should take spanish, much easier, and t would be better because you would be able to put it to better use. Latinis lie dead now aand spanish is well like the 2nd language of the Us, so spanish would be better