Why Learn Spanish?

If you have decided to learn a second language in order to further your career, why choose to learn Spanish? First of all, it’s a world language, coming third in the list of most commonly spoken languages, after Chinese and English. Secondly, it’s an important business language, coming fourth in the league tables, but with predictions that it will move to the second place by 2030, just below Chinese.

With Chinese and Spain becoming increasingly important in the business world, either of these would be a good choice. So what are the advantages of choosing Spanish?

Perhaps the main reason is that, for Europeans, it is a lot easier than Chinese! The alphabet is more or less the same, many of the words are similar and the grammatical structures are relatively easy to understand for someone who speaks English or another western European language.

But you may think that with so many people in the world speaking English as a second language, why should we learn Spanish?

If you want to work in a company which does business with Spain or Latin America, relying on English is just not good enough. If you’ve ever spent time with people who were speaking a language you don’t understand, you probably felt frustrated and wondered what you were missing. If someone was translating for you, you probably only got half the story.

Now move this into a business context and you can see that you would be at a distinct disadvantage. So not only do you need to speak the language of your customers or partners, but you need to have a high level of listening comprehension to make sure that you can follow the negotiations carefully.

Listening is one of the most difficult skills for beginners learning Spanish, but with regular practice, this can be improved rapidly. Rocket Spanish gives you thorough listening practice, with clear pronunciation to help your spoken Spanish and the downloadable audios can be listened to any time you have a few moments free.