Cash Rewards for Good Grades?

[Jacob]

Never got in trouble for bad grades or rewarded for good grades, but I tended towards good grades.

[Ideologue]

She's not being born into the Malthus Family, at best she'll be the one someone else will get to that for them.

I'd hope unlike you that she'd reach for the stars.

She needs to keep her expectations realistic.  I don't want her to develop personality disorders.

[garbon]

She's not being born into the Malthus Family, at best she'll be the one someone else will get to that for them.

I'd hope unlike you that she'd reach for the stars.

She needs to keep her expectations realistic.  I don't want her to develop personality disorders.

Is it that hard to imagine that she could manage people(/outsource) who handle the local transactions?

[Ideologue]

No, but I think you're radically understating the economic value of knowing a foreign language, especially a hard, "rare" one.

[garbon]

No, but I think you're radically understating the economic value of knowing a foreign language, especially a hard, "rare" one.

I think you are overestimating it. Not really sure Hindi counts as a "hard" one and again I think English would be enough for that. I suppose maybe Mandarin could be more worth the investment but our resident penny pincher, Mono, told us not to bother.

Also Portuguese?

And Arabic?

[Ideologue]

Ok, ok, maybe not Hindi.

Portuguese is for Brazil, a rising economy.  Not for the HVCs and Martim Silvas of the world.

Arabic is for oil; though their position is of course likely to wane in time, they're still the big producers.  Also she could do military work.  (Same deal with Mandarin BTW.)

[MadImmortalMan]

Portuguese and Arabic sound pretty useful to me. Hundreds of millions speak them, after all.

[garbon]

Portuguese is for Brazil, a rising economy.  Not for the HVCs and Martim Silvas of the world.

And English leaves her in the cold in dealing with any of that? Particularly the latter examples which are people who mostly (word added for HVC ) speak English.

Arabic is for oil; though their position is of course likely to wane in time, they're still the big producers.  Also she could do military work.  (Same deal with Mandarin BTW.)

Oh, I didn't realize we were positing military work here as a positive.

I think really on the language front, only useful if you have some sense of where you might actually want to get involved. Learning Mandarin isn't going to be a useful pursuit if your future dealings involve just Europe.

[garbon]

Portuguese and Arabic sound pretty useful to me. Hundreds of millions speak them, after all.

And how many of those dealing internationally are open to speaking English?

Again, I wasn't saying learning a foreign language is useless, but in a place where we are only celebrating an American's accomplishments in economically useful skills, there seems to be a marginal return.

Actually, Ide, if being more realistic, how likely would it be that this daughter of yours would be having dealings in other countries?

[CountDeMoney]

She should learn French.  Still the largest "second language" population in the world.

[Ideologue]

Trying to totally dictate someone's future is a fool's errand.  But learning a foreign language early is easier (like going transgender ), so whether it wound up a hard-skill advantage or just a party trick, I wouldn't say it was totally wasted.

Also, there's the possibility that it could open up mating opportunities with well-off people from the culture whose language she learned.  I dunno how good that idea is (subject to many factors and individual assessment, but I suspect that there's a good chance I'd be mildly opposed to marrying outside of Western civilization), but it could help if that's the direction she believed was the most advantageous to her well-being and comfort.

[Ideologue]

Actually, Ide, if being more realistic, how likely would it be that this daughter of yours would be having dealings in other countries?

I've been trying to ignore these little barbs.  I'd awfully rather you knocked it off.

[Ideologue]

She should learn French.  Still the largest "second language" population in the world.

She'd wind up [REDACTED].  How mortifying.

[garbon]

Actually, Ide, if being more realistic, how likely would it be that this daughter of yours would be having dealings in other countries?

I've been trying to ignore these little barbs.  I'd awfully rather you knocked it off.

Hey I was the one saying that she could probably be successful so she wouldn't need to aim low.

[Sheilbh]

Portuguese and Arabic sound pretty useful to me. Hundreds of millions speak them, after all.

I think Arabic is tough because it's so based on dialect for day-to-day communication.