Saturday, November 1, 2008

Learn Spanish as a Second Language for These Reasons

If you learn to speak Spanish as a second language, you can develop a positive relationship with those who communicate in Spanish as their native language and are part of our population. The Hispanic population has an increasing influence on the U.S. as well as globally.

The economy is becoming increasingly interdependent; Spanish is currently third in line as the most commonly spoken language. This means that if you know how to speak Spanish, you'll gain a number of benefits.

If you are bilingual in Spanish and English, you are much more likely to be in demand in the marketplace. If you can speak Spanish, you'll be much better able to communicate with coworkers, employees, customers, and clients who are native Spanish speakers.

It is also increasingly important to be able to communicate in Spanish with regard to career and business matters in general. Recent marketing studies have concluded that the Hispanic portion of the population is the most rapidly growing portion of the consumer market. This means that companies are scrambling to attract and accommodate those who speak Spanish.

What does this mean for you? If you learn to speak Spanish, this can enhance your career. In addition, this need is only going to increase, because the Spanish-speaking population is continuing to increase.

Globally, Spanish is the first language of more than 40 million people. It's the third most common native language spoken, behind Mandarin and Hindi. Because there is such a broad use of Spanish, and because Hispanic culture is growing globally, you can understand why it's prudent to choose Spanish as a second language.

It's certainly true that if you can speak Spanish, you'll be able to interact with more people in more situations. For example, if you develop friendships or a romantic relationship with someone in a Hispanic family (or if one of your relatives does), it will be good to know how to speak Spanish. Or you might have Spanish-speaking neighbors, have Spanish-speaking employees or employers, or simply have situations in which you are going to have to communicate with those who speak Spanish during the course of a normal day. In addition to that, Hispanic communities give us many rich and flavorful foods, which means that it's even more intelligent of you to embrace both Spanish culture and the Spanish language.

If you don't have the time to enroll in a Spanish language course, you can choose to do independent study at home. With these programs, you can learn Spanish as your schedule permits. Some of these courses, such as Pimsleur Spanish are only available in audio; these are good if you just need to learn to speak the language, but don't need to learn to read the language. However, it's likely that you're going to want to both learn to read and speak the language. If this is true, you're going to want to look at a more comprehensive program such as Rocket Spanish or Rosetta Stone Spanish that teaches you to both read and speak the language. Additionally, you will retain more with an interactive.program than with one that does not require interaction.

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