When employers and universities look at applicants, they do not start looking at the bottom of the list to see who has done only the minimal amount of requirements necessary or taken the easiest route available, they start at the top of the list and look for those students who have risen above the rest. High school students should consider studying at least four years of a foreign language.

Language is arguably the most important component of culture because much of the rest of it is normally transmitted orally. It is impossible to understand the subtle nuances and deep meanings of another culture without knowing its language well.

Young children are inherently capable of learning the necessary phonemes, morphemes, and syntax as they mature. In other words, they have a genetic propensity to learn language. They come into the world as eager learning machines, and language acquisition is a major aspect of this learning. How children actually learn a language is not entirely clear, however. Most linguists believe that they do it primarily by listening to and trying to communicate with adult speakers. Initially, this means that they imitate the phonemes. Later they begin to learn grammar by imitation as well.

Studies of average Filipino children show that there is rapid learning of language in the early years of life. By age one, typically, they use about three words consisting of single morphemes (such as eat, mom, and more). By six years old, they use about 2,500 morphemes. Simple sentence construction (such as "more milk") usually has begun by about age two. However, in the early stages, children may start by creating a vocabulary and grammar largely of their own construction. They are trying to systematize and regularize their own simple speech. Parents often encourage this "baby talk" by imitating it. This provides positive reinforcement to the child to continue learning. However, some parents continue to do this long after it ceases to be useful because they think that it sounds cute. When children begin to learn standard grammar, they tend to over regularize it. That is, they learn a general rule and use it in all situations. For instance, the past tense of 97% of English verbs is indicated by adding the suffix ed, as in worked. Young children will often apply it to irregular verbs also. Give becomes gived, take becomes taked, eat becomes eated. Unfortunately for children in English speaking societies, their language has about 165 irregular verbs that must be memorized. Compounding the problem is the fact that the 10 most frequently used verbs in English are irregular (be, have, do, go, say, can, will, see take, and get). The irregular verbs are very old words in English. Changes in their conjugation have been resisted because they are constantly used in common speech and most native speakers are comfortable using them. The Bridge method of learning focuses on the individual's ability to learn the language regardless of age, feeding them information on the new language by unlearning old language. This immersion approach is an effective way of getting the new language patterns into long term memory.

But which language should I study?

Spanish is the world's third most spoken language, after Mandarin Chinese and English, and ranks second in terms of native speakers. At the end of the 19th century, 60 million people spoke Spanish. Today, almost 500 million people worldwide speak Spanish! Spanish is one of the easiest foreign languages to learn. Much of its vocabulary is similar to English's, and written Spanish is almost completely phonetic: Look at almost any Spanish word and you can tell how it is pronounced.

French, the language learned by those interested in French Art and History and their integral links to American culture; by those wanting to visit American tourists’ favorite destinations. With French you have access to the most widely spoken foreign language in the world after English and they become familiar with a culture that significantly influences our own. The French economy is one of the strongest in the world and is increasingly a leader in technological innovation.

Russian, the language spoken by millions of people from Eastern Europe to the Pacific Ocean; by those interested in international affairs and business opportunities in the East; by those interested in science and mathematics where Russia still leads; by those wanting to explore the Russian heritage in this country, particularly Brooklyn and the neighbourhood of Brighton Beach.

Portuguese, an official language in countries on five continents, spoken from Mozambique to Macao; it is the language of Brazil, which has the eighth largest economy in the world and the second largest economy in the Americas; it is studied by those interested in making connections between the Americas, either in culture or in business; by those interested in the history of European empire-building and its effects in Africa, Asia, and South America; by those interested in connecting with the over 1.3 million native speakers of Portuguese living in the United States.   

German, the language of the friendly economic giant of Europe, the European country with the deepest and most extensive ties to U.S. commerce; of the genius in music, literature, philosophy, and science; of Austria and most of Switzerland; of some of the the worst outlaws and some of the most poignant victims of the 20th century--in short, the language of the culture which, if only for the spectacle of its contradictions, has extraordinary significance in the modern age.