Why Learn Spanish (Instead of Chinese)?

Why learn Spanish? Why not learn, say, Chinese, which many experts are predicting could become the most important language of the 21st century as China takes a lead in the global business world?

As a resident of the U.S. and a native English speaker, I've chosen to concentrate on Spanish as my main second language. Why?

1. Most of us (in the U.S.) encounter more speakers of Spanish in our daily life than we do those of any other language except, of course, English. There may be pockets on the West Coast where Chinese is more common, but around here the prize goes to Spanish.

2. The countries of the Americas are being tied together in a huge trading bloc. U.S. companies are increasingly doing business in Mexico, Central America, and South America. In a large part of this region, Spanish is the language of business.

3. Whatever your opinion of immigration (both legal and illegal), the fact is that native Spanish speakers seem destined to play a large role in the economy and politics of the U.S. Learning how to speak Spanish can be viewed as a practical move for those of us whose first language is English.

4. Like English, Spanish originated in Western Europe and has many similarities to English. As different as it is from English, it still has a familiar feel to it as compared to far-eastern tongues such as Japanese and Chinese. That makes it easier to learn for most of us.

Of course, a person might want to learn both Spanish and Chinese, or yet other languages altogether. There are great learning resources available for all of the major world tongues, and not a few minor ones as well.

Spanish can be easy to learn. It doesn't matter if you flunked it in high school, or you think you have no language aptitude, you can learn to speak Spanish. Learning to speak Spanish will open a whole new world of adventure to you. There are tons of resources for learning Spanish. Nothing really clicked for me, though, until I discovered the unusual method discussed at http://www.spain-living.com As incredible as it sounds, with this method you can actually learn to speak Spanish naturally and confidently in as little as 2 months!