Why Learn Spanish?

There are so many languages to choose between, so why should you go for Spanish?

Never before have Spanish language and culture received as much attention in the non-Spanish world as today. You can see it anywhere you look, regardless of whether you live in the US, UK, Scandinavia or Germany; music, movies, business… you name it. Spanish is in.

It is like this giant source of dynamics and life had been sleeping for years and years and then suddenly is waking up… This is of course not true, but for us who live outside of Spain and Latin America, the difference between before and now is evident.

Penelope Cruz and Shakira! Today Antonio Banderas (from Malaga, Spain) and Penelope Cruz (from Madrid, Spain) are among the biggest Hollywood actors, and Shakira (from Barranquilla, Colombia) and Ricky Martin (San Juan, Puerto Rico) are famous pop stars.

Buena Vista Social Club (from Cuba), have been around for half a centennial, but experienced, metaphorically speaking, a new spring, when the interest for everything Spanish took off.

Robert Rodriguez and Christina Aguilera! And, in the middle of this, let us not forget that the US has the fourth largest Spanish population of any country.

Many Americans of Hispanic origin has risen to accomplish the American dream, names like Christina Aguilera (Staten Island, NY), Jennifer Lopez (The Bronx, NY) or Robert Rodriguez (San Antonio, TX) comes to mind.

Tip of the iceberg… or the entire iceberg? The names above are the famous, the stars, the few… will this interest disappear, go out of fashion, or has it come to stay? An important question, if you consider investing time and money to learn a new language.

You don’t want to learn Spanish simply because Antonio Banderas suddenly is a hot shot in Hollywood.

The question is, is this the tip of the iceberg or is this the entire iceberg?

430 million native Spanish speakers! The answer is pretty obvious. It is the tip of the iceberg only. Just look around… To prove this, let us first examine a few numbers. There are approximately 430.000.000 Spanish speakers today.

Spanish is spoken in 22 countries (21 in the Americas). The population numbers are in parenthesis (from the CIA World Factbook and US Census):

In the US. The number of Spanish speakers is increasing rapidly in the US. Today close to 40% of all households in California speaks another language than English, and the vast majority of these are Spanish speakers.

You will also find large minorities in Texas, Florida and New York. The number of communities with more than 100.000 inhabitants where more than 90% speak Spanish is also increasing rapidly.

Schools and Business. What does this mean? It means that there will be more students whose native language is Spanish, there will be more English speaking students wanting to learn Spanish, so if you are a teacher these are great incentives for learning Spanish.

Further, if you aim for or are in business career, Spanish business is flourishing. Both Spain, the Spanish speakers in the US, Chile, Mexico and other countries are experiencing a tremendous growth. If you can speak their language you will have an advantage.

Culture! There have of course been some setbacks; Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia easily come to mind. However, in the larger picture, the trend is evident.

Learning Spanish is not only wise for your career, but it will also open a whole new world to you… salsa, Flamenco, literature, movies… it is a dynamic, vivid and most exciting world. Read more about this in “Why Spain?”

But first, let us look at Why Learn Spanish at a Language School