Which language is more useful in Europe, German or French?

Yann:

Si mis libros de historia mexicana no se equivocan, en México existió una época llamada "El porfiriato" en donde la segunda lengua hablada después del Español en México era el Francés, también el Francés era usada como idioma administrativo, según tengo entendido habia en aquella época mucha admiración por la cultura Francesa en las altas élites de la sociedad. Pero también en ese época sucedió la revolución mexicana, con lo cual, todo el régimen anterior (incluida la enseñanza del Francés como segunda lengua) se eliminó.

Estoy de acuerdo contigo en que sería mejor enseñar una lengua romance como segundo idioma en paises de habla latina.
En Escandinavia ya se ha probado la efectividad de tu idea, dado que los nórdicos hablan lengua germánicas, aprender el Inglés se les facilita mucho y logran dominarlo al nivel de un hablante nativo, lo cual los motiva y les da la confianza a seguir aprendiendo nuevos idiomas extranjeros.

" I think we should be taught a Romance language first because we could learn it faster and better than English. The kids would have a better confindence in their ability to learn foreign languages thanks to that and would thus be more motivated to learn English afterward. "

Yann, je suis d'accord, mais dans le système scolaire français d'aujourd'hui le choix de la première langue étrangère se fait entre l'Anglais et l'Allemand.
Ce serait bien que l'on puisse choisir l'Espagnol ou l'Italien en première langue étrangère.

***Strangers in their own land***

Guest.......That's a terrible situation down in Spain! Can you imagine a reverse scenario in the UK? Not on at all, and I don't think that the Spanish people should have to be subjected to this sort of treatment in their own country, and to be made to pay a sort of penalty for having a climate which attracts all the old people from the rest of Europe to see out their lives in sunshine versions of their own home territories with all the amenties of home contained in linguistic enclaves in Spain. Or any other climatically favoured countries to which these monogot colonists migrate along with their own lifestyles to the detriment of the natives'.

Italy? Though I've never heard of anyone getting along there without Italian. Maybe in Rome...

L'espagnol, l'italien, l'allemand et le français sont tous aussi importants. Tout dépend de l'usage que vous voulez en faire. C'est ça la force de l'Europe : la diversité ! Vous avez le choix. Et chacun des choix est valable.

Maintenant, pour des raisons pédagogiques ou politiques, il peut être intéressant de construire une politique intelligente d'acquisition des langue étrangères en fonction de critères adaptés aux objectifs fixés. Bien entendu, ces politiques doivent rester incitatives — surtout pas coercitives. En clair, il faut les vendre, pas les imposer.

"Guest.......That's a terrible situation down in Spain! Can you imagine a reverse scenario in the UK?"

We're starting to get the reverse situation in the US -- Spanish is slowly displacing English. Example: I got solicitation for a credit card just a few days ago. I open the envelope, and the soliciation is in Spanish. (The English version is on the 2nd sheet , underneath the Spanish.) I don't even live in an area with a lot of Latinos.

"Which language is more useful in Europe, German or French?"

L'anglais est la langue la plus utile en Europe.

I don't even live in an area with a lot of Latinos. *****

Well here's an example of the bad and ignorant use of the word "latino" by our beloved american friends..
Dude may I remember you that not only the speaking spanish (wheter are they from spain of from latin america) people are latins? Don't forget the french, romanians, french-canadians, brazilians, italians, portuguese please.

>>Well here's an example of the bad and ignorant use of the word "latino" by our beloved american friends..
Dude may I remember you that not only the speaking spanish (wheter are they from spain of from latin america) people are latins? Don't forget the french, romanians, french-canadians, brazilians, italians, portuguese please.<<

No, "Latino" has more specific connotations in English.

"No, "Latino" has more specific connotations in English."

Just like the word "Anglo-Saxon" as used in French.

No, "Latino" has more specific connotations in English.>

That's the problem in Spanish are not such specific connotations, if you say "Latino" in Spanish it covers all romance speaking people (French, Italians, etc) not only Spanish speaking people. This a is reason of great misunderstandings.

Latino is Latin in Spanish

There are not two words (Latin and Latino) like in English to describe differences between contexts, there's only one word "Latino" in Spanish to describe them all.

It's impossible for a native Spanish speakers when He / She heards the word "Latino" to think only of hispanic people. She/He will thinks of all Romance speaking people when someone says: Latino(French,Italians,Portuguese,Romanians,Spanish and others) .

<<Which language is more useful in Europe, German or French? >>

To be fair both are in decline so I would never base my decision on taking up either of these two on how "useful" they are. Besides nobody should be forced to learn anything if they don't want to. It should be up to the individual which language (if any) tickles their fancy and proceed from there. I like French but when I finally decide to set aside some time to learn it ,it won't be because its particularly "useful' to me. Only because I personally find French culture and history intriguing and appealing.

<<It's impossible for a native Spanish speakers when He / She heards the word "Latino" to think only of hispanic people>>

It's similar to the liberal use of Anglo-Saxon on this forum - we just can't think of it as applying to everybody in the English-Speaking world. It's a group of people in history for me.

As I asked once: How does everybody think "Latino" to describe only those in Latin America came up (and thus creating the Latin/Latino divide in American English)?

I am no historian but I think it might have been the people from Latin America labeling themselves as "Latino". We started calling them the same way they called themselves. However, Latin was already well-defined in English and we kept that word as applicable to the Latin people of Europe as it had been traditionally. From this, I would gather that the Quebecois are not thought of as "latinos" because they never labelled themselves as such (as in "latino" literally does not exist in their vocabulary. They say "latin" as we do)

What do the rest of you think?

>>I am no historian but I think it might have been the people from Latin America labeling themselves as "Latino". <<

Yes, but particularly those who migrated to the U.S.