My 25 YO daughter is fluent in Spanish. Has been since HS. It’s a marketable skill, no question about that.
Nonetheless, it burns me royally that in places in this country, Americans HAVE to speak Spanish to live and work. It’s not optional. How about some attempt at assimilation from these people?
I’m glad to see that folks agree on Spanish being useful. That was my original gut-response to recommend to her, since I used Spanish when I did NGO work in Latin America back in the 1990s. Again, it’s one of those touchy issues, because her parents got quite upset at me when I mentioned that I use Spanish at the store where I work (in Texas), and basically said I was using my “talents” to delay assimilation.
I thought Russian would be kind of interesting since it’s a complicated language, but there aren’t many native speakers where my cousin lives. Latin is seriously out for religious reasons, not defending my uncle’s sentiments, just saying that the man literally dislikes candles in a church because they’re too “Catholic”. French would be kind of neat, setting aside the current anti-French political thing, which has gotten kind of silly, but again not any native speakers near the US besides Quebec and parts of Louisiana.
When I talk to her next, I’ll feel more comfortable making a good case for Spanish. Not trying to pressure the kid, it’s just that she seemed motivated about learning, but ambivalent as to which language.