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.
” 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”.”
She would not be studying church Latin.
That's a terrible mistake, bordering on child abuse. No language—not French, not German—will improve her English vocabulary and grammar, critical for scoring well on the Verbal SAT, more than Classical Latin. To forbid that because of the taint of popery is worse than ignorant, it's obscene.
Failing that, Spanish is actually the closest language to Classical Latin you'll find in high school (the only closer one is Romanian). Then of course there are the travel and business benefits others pointed out.
Our children speak German, Mandarin, and Spanish fluently.
“Useful” needs a context. If this is a child who is gifted, German is a far better choice because it is a language of high scientific, cultural, and business achievement. It may be true that many educated Germans speak English (but far from all), but the ability to converse with scientific, cultural, or business colleagues in their own language is a significaqnt advantage. Spanish is a pleasant language, but the Spanish speaking countries to our south contribute little to the world economy or science.
Russian would be a good choice,too, but again only for a gifted child.
Well, like other people have said, the Latin taught in schools isn’t the Latin used in churches... can her parents actually stop her from taking it if she just signs up anyways? For one, it’ll help her immensely with her SAT scores and such. Also, I took two years of high school Latin before going to a school where that wasn’t an option, where I took one semester of Spanish and one semester of French. I can say that, thanks to taking classical Latin, learning those two languages was literally effortless, and even with only a single high school semester of each, I can mostly understand and read Spanish and French.