Should I take mandarin online or Spanish in a classroom?

It's clear that you are motivated to learn Mandarin Chinese, and that helps a lot in maintaining the effort. And you will need that, because an average it takes about 3 to 4 times longer to become fluent in Mandarin, compared to any Romance or Germanic language. Mainly because of the four tones, and the fact that you will have at least to memorize the 2,500 common Chinese characters.

It is always better to take a language in a class because it is more interactive. Mandarin Chinese is hard enough without giving yourself an extra handicap by taking it online. I recommend you take Spanish now in class [your chances of getting an excellent grade are good], and maybe Mandarin in a local community college class in the summer or on weekends.

If you look at this from the logical way, Spanish would be the ckrrect thing to do. If you want good grades, spanish is easier to learn than mandarin, so it kind of guarantees better grades. Also, after school there is a greater chance that you will forget about everything you learned about mandarin in half a year or so. However, there is greater access to spanish series or movies online or even courses so that you can always stay on track with the language. Furthermore, spanish is actually a great language, once you start learning, it is as interesting as any other asian language, even though it uses the latin alphabet with the only addition of the letter ñ. Phonetically, it also sounds sexy and brautiful. And most importantly, learning a language online does not seem very logical to me. A real classroom where you can talk to the teacher personally would definitely help you.

Even if you still want to go for Mandarin, remember that it will take more effort than you think...

Te recomendaría 100% español. Sin ninguna duda.

Saludos ^^

Go mandarin. It is not easy though.

1

If you decided in understanding to speak Chinese then you need to now that the best selection is a Program for Mandarin.