What language should I teach my kids at home?

Of the 7,139 languages spoken in the world, what criteria might one use to determine what to learn? The 3 factors we would consider are:

1. Amount of time it takes to learn the  language
2. Number of people in the world who speak it
3. Location of speakers of the language

Which language should you teach your little homechooler?

Ease of learning

We start by focusing our attention on the category 1 languages – which based on the US State Department’s Foreign Services Institute ^[1]https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/ we have the following Germanic and Romance languages:

• Danish (24 weeks)
• Dutch (24 weeks)
• French (30 weeks)
• Italian (24 weeks)
• Norwegian (24 weeks)
• Portuguese (24 weeks)
• Romanian (24 weeks)
• Spanish (24 weeks)
• Swedish (24 weeks)

Most Spoken Languages

Among the top 10 most spoken languages in the world, only Spanish and Portuguese make the cut based on total speakers.

Location of speakers

According to polls carried out Expat Insider, 3 of the top 10 destinations for expats (Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador) are Spanish speaking. Flights to all 3 locations are cheap from the US, the timezones are similar, and weather is amazing. As an added plus, most major cities in the US have a large Spanish-speaking contingent and many caretakers are native speakers, so Spanish is an obvious first choice for learning a second language.