Spanish Version
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Why Study Spanish in Mexico or Spain?
Why is important to learn Spanish
"Increasing importance is given by companies to employees who have knowledge of Spanish, a language that gives access to one of the fastest-growing markets in the world."
If you learn to speak Spanish, you can get in touch with roughly 500 million people all around the world. It’s amazing how many more job opportunities that gives you! You can also journey to Spain or Latin America, a little knowledge of Spanish will go a long way.
Why Speak Spanish? - Statistics
- After Mandarin Chinese and English, Spanish is the world's third most spoken language ranking second in terms of native speakers.
- In the 19th century 60 million people spoke Spanish. Today, almost 500 million!
- Approximately 350 million people in 21 countries speak Spanish (Peru: 20 million, Venezuela: 22 million, Colombia: 36 million, Argentina: 35 million, USA: 39 million, Spain: 39 million, Mexico: 98 million)
- In North America, Hispanic consumers are the fastest-growing market segment with a 60% growth rate in the last 10 years. Moreover their buying power is expected to exceed $1.3 billion by 2013.
- Spanish is the second most used language worldwide, and an official language of the United Nations and its organizations.
Why Speak Spanish? - Economic Indicators
- Approximately 1 of every 10 US residents speak Spanish at home that is 29 million US residents. That represents an enormous consumer and business-to-business market.
- As David Graddol stated: The world is rapidly becoming multilingual and Arabic and Spanish are both key languages of the future", commenting on a report presented to the British Council.
- It’s quite noticeable that the markets are globalized. More and more companies hold international trades and foreign language fluency is a significant asset for job seekers.
- The 39 million Hispanics living in the USA make up 12.5% of the total population. The US Census Bureau reports that the nation's Hispanic population is expected to jump to 49.3 million from 38.2 million by 2015. This population growth has increased demand for Spanish language media: radio, television, newspapers, magazines…
- The existing free trade agreements between Hispanic countries and North America (ALADI, the Andean Community, CACM, NAFTA, G3) and recently created MERCOSUR are expected to bring further growth to Latin American economies. This is the proof of the fact that Latin American countries are experiencing strong economic growth and becoming important global commercial partners.
Why Speak Spanish? - Cultural Indicators
- Who has never heard that the most expensive painting ever sold is a Picasso? Who is not familiar with Cervantes "Don Quijote de la Mancha", the second most translated book after the Bible? Latin culture continues to have a global weight on architecture, art and literature
- The spanish architect Santiago Calatrava is internationally recognized and he is still active on a global scale with his current projects in Germany, Sweden, Ireland, the site of the World Trade Centre in New York and the Olympic campus in Athens among others.
- Spanish language writers like Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Márquez continue to guide global bestseller lists and win international critical praises.
So why is learning Spanish so important? Chiefly because Spanish is becoming increasingly important in terms of the global economy and it can also play a pivotal role in your own personal development. Furthermore, the Spanish passion for living is contagious. In fact once you start to study Spanish and learn about its culture you won't ever want to stop.
