The world speaking Spanish Spanish is the world's third most spoken language, after Mandarin Chinese and English, and ranks second in terms of native speakers. At the end of the 19th century, 64 million people spoke Spanish. Today, almost 500 million people worldwide speak Spanish!.
The list of countries where Spanish is either the primary language or the largest secondary language covers 28 different places - Andorra, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, France, Gibraltar, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, USA (12%), Venezuela. "The world is rapidly becoming multilingual and Spanish and Arabic are both key languages of the future" said language researcher David Graddol, commenting on a recent report presented to the British Council.

Make traveling fun and enhance your travel experiences. If you've ever dreamed of visiting far-off, exotic, tropical places, you don't have far to look when you consider the great number of Spanish-speaking countries that fit this description. Wherever you decide to go, be it to Central America, Spain or South America, knowing the language will get you far. Knowing the language and culture of the land you visit will give you insights into the people and culture that a non-Spanish speaker would never have access to. Knowing even a little Spanish ahead of time helps travelers communicate more successfully. Whether giving an address in a taxi, making reservations in a hotel, ordering food or drinks in a restaurant, or meeting the locals at the main hang-out, your travel experience will be much smoother and more enjoyable when you can communicate. Also, the best way to truly understand a culture is to be able to speak the language.

Spanish help you to improve your employment Opportunities. With the world becoming ever more global, contact with people of other countries has increased tremendously in recent decades. Just having a basic knowledge may be all it takes to separate yourself from the crowd of applicants for the job you are pursuing. With the rapidly increasing Hispanic population, there are a multitude of career fields in the US that need Spanish speakers. Among them are nurses, social workers, teachers, salespeople, translators, and many more. Internationally, people who speak Spanish often have opportunities to work in trade or business fields. Other options include diplomacy, interpretation, and security applications, which all require a sensitivity and proficiency of another language. And did you know that bilingual employees often receive a larger salary than their non-Spanish speaking counterparts?.

Learn Spanish to prepare for study abroad opportunities. Many high schools, colleges, and universities offer study abroad opportunities. Many different types of programs are available to choose from and they vary in time from as little as a week of study to one semester. Without taking that first step of signing up for a language class, you may just miss out on one of life's most exciting adventures possible. What could be better than living, breathing, and using your newly acquired language skills than actually putting them to use in one of the many Spanish-speaking countries from around the world? Not only does an exchange program give you the opportunity to use the Spanish you know, but also the opportunity to improve your language abilities on a daily basis.

Better appreciate Spanish-speaking cultures. Apart from opening up access to areas of "high" culture such as art, literature, and history, a knowledge of Spanish can help learners understand and appreciate day-to-day culture in the Spanish-speaking world. The ability to read and understand authentic Spanish -- whether that be in the newspaper, on television, in magazines, in letters from friends, or on the street -- truly gives an "insider" view into the language and all of its different shades of meaning. Learning the Spanish language and culture go hand-in-hand. While not impossible to learn Spanish never having experienced the culture first hand, direct exposure to the culture will give language learners insights into the language that would otherwise not be possible.