Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Want to Learn a Second Language? Choose Spanish

If you learn Spanish as a second language, you can develop a positive relationship with those who speak Spanish as their native language and are part of our population. The Hispanic population has an ever-growing influence on the United States and the rest of the world.

Our economy is becoming increasingly global; Spanish is currently the third most frequently spoken language. This means that if you learn how to speak Spanish, you'll be rewarded with a number of benefits.

If you are bilingual in English and Spanish, 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 speak Spanish as their native tongue.

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

Why is this important to you? If you learn Spanish, this can enhance your career. In addition, this need is only going to increase, because the Spanish-speaking population is continuing to grow.

Worldwide, Spanish is the native 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 currently, and because Hispanic culture is growing globally, you can see why it's wise to choose it as a second language.

It's certainly true that if you can communicate in 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 perhaps you have Spanish-speaking families in your neighborhood, have Spanish-speaking employees or employers, or simply have occasions in which you are going to have to interact with Spanish speakers 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 self 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 do both. 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. Finally, an interactive course will provide you with the greatest retention

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