I guess mandarin is better to learn because every german speaks english very well, but most of chinese do not speak chinese. i think chinese really appreciate to have the people who speak mandarin, and so few people can do that.. German and irish are pretty much burned into my mind now, and whenever my spanish and french get rusty and/or i want to learn about something specific i just whip out my learning materials, watch some media, and top them up when necessary.. I'm going into my sophomore year in high school next year. i'm taking spanish, but i've made the decision to learn a second language in high school. i've narrowed my choices down to german and chinese. here are my opinions on them. german: i'm learning this now on duolingo, and i think it's cool. i know the teacher well, but i've heard that she's not the best..
I am a native chinese, to be frankly , now in every chinese company who do business with foreign country, there must be someone can speak english well, btw, our students learn english as a second language from age 12, so for business' shake, you. The "difficulty" of german or chinese is subjective-it depends on the person who is learning the language, what languages (s)he speaks already and the person's interest in the culture and language. i don't find either mandarin or german to be difficult.. Http://preparetoserve.com/china learning chinese vs learning japanese. some differences in the languages..
