Reasons to Learn Spanish

Have you ever thought of learning another language before? It might be a good time to learn Spanish. While many people may go their whole lives without knowing more than one language, others by desire or necessity find themselves acquiring one or more languages in addition to their native one. Yet, others just like the challenge. Below are a few reasons to learn Spanish.

1. Increase your ability to communicate with the world around you.

Spanish is one of the top three most spoken languages in the world and is second most studied language as a second tongue. By learning Spanish, you greatly increase your chances of being able to communicate with someone while traveling.

2. Enhancing your traveling experience.

If you travel to a Spanish-speaking country, it helps to know the language. When you learn Spanish before you go, you can be ready to take care of all your basic needs while staying at your destination.

3. Ability to get directions and understand menus.

When you learn Spanish, you will know how to ask for directions and understand the answers you get back. You can be the first in your group to figure out the menu at a Spanish restaurant and help the others to order. If you learn Spanish, your trip to a Spanish speaking country will be much more pleasurable instead of frustrating. This is because you will be able to communicate well enough to handle situations as they arise.

4. Increase your ability to communicate with those around you.

Another reason to learn Spanish is to be able to speak to others in this country. There are over 35 million Spanish speakers in the United States and they make up the fastest growing portion of our population. I run into a large number of Spanish speakers every day. They clean my office, build my deck, care for my lawn, wash my car, deliver my appliances, and serve me at McDonald's. If you live in any major population center in the United States today, you will run across them too and if you don't know Spanish, you will be reduced to smiling and gesturing when trying to communicate with them. However, if you've made the effort and taken the time to learn Spanish, you can hold a polite conversation with the person. Who knows, you might even make a friend.

5. Increase your ability to handle emergencies.

If you learn Spanish, you can more easily help out in emergencies in this country. Many times, there is a Spanish speaking person who is in need of assistance. If no one trying to come to their aid can speak their language, their troubles could get worse. Yet, if you learn Spanish, you can make yourself useful in situations like this by finding out what the person needs and providing assistance yourself or by directing them to where they can obtain assistance.

6. Increase your job qualifications.

All the major cities in the US have significant Latino populations and people who take the time and make the effort to become bilingual, especially in Spanish, will have a clear advantage over those who are only English speaking. As a bilingual employee, you are more valuable to your company because in order to fully reach their target customers, most businesses will do best if some of their employees learn Spanish. These employees can be anyone who deals with people such as clerks in stores, receptionists in office buildings or restaurants, sales people, marketers, or business developers. This ability to speak another language will help both the business and the consumer.

7. Increase your ability to conduct business.

Businesses that deal via the internet, phone, and correspondence with companies or individuals in Spanish speaking countries often have to bridge a communication gap. Many times the employees, especially in small companies, just fumble through it without really knowing the language. These business dealings can go much better if employees will learn Spanish.

8. Its fun to learn to speak Spanish.

Learning to communicate with others in their own language can be fun, especially when you see their faces light up when you say a few words in their native language. The fact that you took the time and made the effort to learn their language implies that they and their language have value and can go a long way toward establishing a positive relationship.

9. Spend quality time with your children.

It can be both fun and rewarding to learn Spanish with your children. It gives your children an additional skill which they can use later in life, while at the same time, you get to spend quality time with them doing something you can all enjoy. The kids will take to it quickly because language learning comes easiest while they are young before they have determined what sounds are distinctive. When they learn a new language at an early age from a native speaker (whether in person or on an audio recording) they can learn it without a significant accent. This is a good reason to learn Spanish with your kids while they are still young, before they block out sounds that they do not recognize as distinctive.

10. Read famous works or watch foreign films in their native language.

If you enjoy the arts, you may have a good reason to learn Spanish. If you know how to read Spanish, you can read all the works of the great Spanish speaking writers in the original language. You can watch foreign films from Latin America or Spain without relying on subtitles, and you can understand the words of Spanish songs.

These are just a few of the many reasons people have to learn Spanish. Some people's reasons are much more personal than this, such as my son's in-laws being Spanish speakers. No matter what your reason, you will find that you will enjoy learning Spanish as much as you will enjoy being able to speak it.

So, what is the best way to learn to speak Spanish? I think most experts would agree that learning a new language by living in a country where it is spoken as a native language is the fastest and best way of learning a new foreign language. This is often called total or full immersion. A number of language schools specialize in offering language courses in various countries of the world to take advnatage of this method.

But what if you can't take advantage of such an opportunity? Perhaps you cannot afford either the cost or the time required. In that case you will have to resort to some other method for learning Spanish. There are an abundance of books, tapes, and CDs available on the market, but which ones offer the best approach or are the most effective?

In my experience many are almost worthless and are a waste of both time and money. And unfortunately, no single program seems to cover all the bases. However, I have found a combination of Spanish language programs that works well and I offer it for your consideration. It involves using both the Rosetta Stone Spanish Language program and the Pimsleur method. The Rosetta Stone Spanish Language program comes in two versions, Latin American and Spain. With both versions, you learn to understand, read, write, and speak Spanish. The program is offered as a CD version or by online subscription. In either case you have to have and be seated at a computer to use the program. The Pimsleur method allows more freedom of location as it is primarily an audio only approach to understanding and speaking Spanish. With Pimsleur, you can listen to the CDs in your car, while walking or jogging, etc., and the CDs are very much focused conversational Spanish. Used together, they work synergistically to build your understanding, vocabulary, and ability to use the Spanish language much faster than either program alone.

Upon completion of the Rosetta Stone Spanish Language program and the Pimsleur method for learning Spanish, you can take advantage of several methods to continue to develop fluency in your new language. You can download a chart in .pdf format on Learning Spanish that lays out this process for a better understanding of how it all fits together. While perhaps not as effective as the full immersion courses to learn Spanish in Spain, I believe the approach outlined in the Learning the Spanish Language chart is the next best thing.