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Money. It's all about money. In the end analysis, The United States is a capitalist country and our students are using their academic studies to achieve economic success and a stable future. French may be beautiful and lofty and poetic, but Spanish is where the money is.

American students aren't stupid. They see the value of Spanish. Most of the products that we buy today have labels written in English and Spanish. There are Spanish language shows on television. Even modern children's programming such as "Maya and Miguel", "Sesame Street" and "Dragon Tales", is filled with Hispanic characters and Spanish vocabulary. The Hispanic population in the United States is growing rapidly. The Francophone population is not. In France, students are learning English better than many Americans. But many of the Hispanics in the US are able to speak only survival English.

This means that in business and government, there is high demand for speakers who are Spanish-English bilingual. They are needed in sales, customer service, retail, hospitality, education and government. Workers who speak Spanish are more likely to be hired and will be paid more for their skills, even in entry-level positions.

While it is becoming more and more economically advantageous to study Spanish, the cost of studying French can be prohibitive. The study of French tends to be largely for academic purposes, almost like the study of Latin was before the 1970s. Certainly, it is difficult to find opportunities to interact with native French speakers and the majority of American students are taught by non-native speakers. So while it is possible that a high school student has had enough exposure to Spanish to use it in real life situations, the French student has not had such opportunities and probably will not until college, if they can afford a higher education.

It is financially burdensome for most American students to travel to France or another francophone country and even more expensive to stay there for an extended period of time for language and cultural immersion experiences. In other words, if a student wants to learn a foreign language, he stands a better chance of gaining fluency in Spanish than he does in French. And it will cost a lot less.

Until there is some economic reason to value the acquisition of French over Spanish, French foreign language studies in the US will continue to decline. It's all about supply and demand.

Learn more about this author, Andrya Lewis.
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