Mandarin and Hindi are among the five most commonly spoken languages in the world, yet few U.S. high schools teach them.

Learning a new language is highly beneficial, but there are improvements that can be made to better the education.

High school language course options are often limited to only a few languages. Spanish, French, German, and Latin are the most common languages being taught in high schools across the country.

Mandarin and Hindi are scarcely taught in the United States, and yet are widely spoken. 

Schools should focus on teaching languages that can be beneficial for students in the future.

But adding a new curriculum isn’t as easy as it may seem.

Mandarin and Hindi are scarcely taught in the United States, and yet are widely spoken.

The cost to hire new teachers would dig into school fundings. And finding teachers to hire, especially when it would be a high demand subject area, is currently difficult.

Although there are a few drawbacks, the outcome would be worth it.

Along with adding more languages to the curriculum, beginning the classes in earlier years of school would help the overall effectiveness of learning a foreign language. 

Most foreign language classes are not introduced to students until middle or high school levels.

When a child grows up, they are exposed to their native language from the moment they are born, and they have years as they are developing to grasp the language. To mirror the effect in schools, languages should be taught earlier on to give students the ability, as they evolve into maturity, to learn the language. 

The use of common languages for their future will be more beneficial in terms of communication. People around the world are able to communicate with each other more easily than in the past. 

As humanity continues to advance, foreign language education should advance too.