subject: It's Time to Learn the Spanish Language [print this page] It's Time to Learn the Spanish Language It's Time to Learn the Spanish Language
The Spanish Language is extremely popular. Here are a few very interesting statistics...Spanish has at least 3 million native speakers each in 44 countries, making it the fourth most geographically widely spoken language behind English (112 countries), French (60 countries) and Arabic (57 countries). With 329 million native speakers, Spanish ranks as the world's No. 2 language in terms of how many people speak it as their first language. If this is not enough reason to choose Spanish as your second language from a professional or personal point of view...have a read below for some very practical reasons.
I am 38 years old and was never really great at languages while at school. French was the chosen second language back then and, even though it is a beautiful language, I never managed to pick up enough to become comfortable speaking it to a native French speaker. I always regretted that.
My wife, 3 kids and I holiday most years on the island of Mallorca, just off the coast of Spain. Fantastic place with lots of fun activities.
Even though many of the natives speak english to a certain degree because they are catering for tourists, we always make a big effort to speak the Spanish Language while on holiday. It's fun, the Spanish natives appreciate the effort and hey, why not learn a little along the way.
I remember the first year we holidayed there. We would rent a car and spend a couple of days touring to various parts of the island. We just wanted to get away from the places where tourists mainly concentrated and see more of how the local folks live and work. The problem was that even though the people in these areas were still very friendly, they had no reason to learn to speak english because they were not involved in the tourist industry, so it was a real struggle for us (and them). We'd go to a market where local produce was for sale...fruit/veg, cheese, breads and some artifacts made by the people from that area. It was so frustrating not having the spanish language or even the most basic spanish phrases to communicate with them.
I remember coming home that year and making myself a promise to never be in that position again.
Well I kept that promise (somewhat). The following year we traveled a little more south to the 'Costa del Sol' region on mainland Spain. A different experience to the island vacation on Mallorca but very enjoyable. I managed to get some Spanish Phrase books prior to the trip and it did help with some of the basic conversations like "How much is the icecream" or "Where is the waterpark" but to be honest we came home still feeling a little deflated because there were many time when my wife or myself were trying to speak Spanish but the person looked back and said "Sorry I no speak English"! We had made such a poor attempt at the Spanish phrase or sentence that they just assumed we were trying to speak English. Embarrassing and disappointing...and proof that the Spanish Phrase books I bought were not up to it or perhaps more accurately, the learning methods used in the books were not suitable to us. I was determined to find a solution that would work for someone like me who wants to learn but may be weak at picking up new languages and who also has a busy schedule to deal with.
Then, just over two years ago I found a great solution that really worked for us. The online spanish lessons provided by Rocket Languages were so easy to follow and so flexible to work with that we just improved our level of competence at speaking the Spanish Language very quickly. We just fit it into our schedule, followed the step by step instructions, had fun with the "Language and Culture" lessons, the games and quizzes...and before we knew it, we were able to hold conversations among ourselves with confidence. Of course, the real proof would be when we talked with a native Spanish speaker.
In August of that year, we went back to Mallorca...and back to some of the village markets where we had struggled a couple of years before.
I won't lie and tell you that we ended up sipping sangria and telling stories with the locals...but we were able to speak the spanish language with them with confidence and to our joy, they understood perfectly.
Just like all the previous years, we went home after having a lovely relaxing holiday. But this time was a little different, a little more special...we had managed to bridge the gap between our two cultures by speaking the Spanish Language. I can tell you it felt great!
Since then, we have completed the full online course and are quiet fluent in the Spanish Language. Speaking to anyone in Spanish is now simply a joy.
Today is your day to start learning. How will you do it? All I can say is that you need to find the solution that works for you.
Take a bit of time to work out how much you can afford to spend on lessons and how much time you have each day/week to do so (this will largely influence the way you go about learning). One to one lessons take both time and money but I'm sure will help you achieve the desired results. For us, the Online Spanish language course worked perfectly. It takes a single fee at the beginning only and after that, you can work away to your own schedule.
Have fun whichever way you do it. You will never regret it.
