Learning Spanish should be seen as an investment.

Not only will you speak this beautiful and ubiquitous language, but you will receive a deep discount on other fine languages from the Romance family:

Should you want to learn French, Portuguese or Italian, three important languages, or even mess with Latin, Catalan or Romanian, you will learn them in 50% to 80% less time than it took you to learn Spanish. Those languages have very similar vocabularies, with many words derived from Latin, and almost the same grammar. Learn the dreaded but all-important subjunctive tense and you can use it in all these languages. The differences in grammar are minor and you'll need to concentrate mostly on differences in pronunciation, idioms and vocabulary.

If you do not already speak another Romance language, learning one is an absolute must. Spanish makes good candidate for a first Romance language, because if you stop after you have learned Spanish, you will be stuck with a useful language. If you start by Romanian because you like Vlad Tepezsch, you will still benefit from the 'discount' should you want to later study other, more important Romance languages, but in the meanwhile you will be stuck with a language that is spoken in few countries only. It's like buying one DVD for $19.99 and getting an 80% discount on every other DVD in the store. Or a lifelong all-you-can-eat buffet. French is a close competitor for a good first Romance language.

Table of languages significantly similar to Spanish

	Similarity			Statistics
	Vocabulary	Grammar		Speakers	Countries	GDP
Spanish	100%	–		376 M	25	$3,198 bn
Portuguese	85%			203 M	6	$666 bn
French	80%			213 M	17	$2,223 bn
Italian	80%			58 M	2	$1,490 bn
Romanian	60%			28 M	3	$60 bn
Latin	50%			–	1	–
Total				878 M	54	$7637 bn

EXPLANATION

Similarity
VOCABULARY: Percentage of vocabulary that isvery similar in both languages.
GRAMMATICAL: Cactuses () indicate the relative difficulty of learning this language if you already speak Spanish. The fewer cactuses/cacti, the easier.

Speakers
NUMBER: total number of native speakers of each language.
SHARE: number of speakers times % similar vocabulary (see above). This gives you an indication of the number of people you can reach indirectly by learning Spanish.

Countries
NUMBER: Total number of countries where the language is an official language or widely spoken.
SHARE: The number of countries times % similar vocabulary (see above). This gives you an indication of the number of countries you can reach indirectly by learning Spanish.

GDP
NUMBER: Combined total nominal GDP in US dollars for each language.
SHARE: Combined GDP times % similar vocabulary (see above). This gives you an indication of the economic importance of the language group you enter by learning Spanish.

The purpose of this table is to list the most important languages similar to Spanish and see how closely related they are. It helps you select the language you want to learn by appraising you on what significant other languages you could learn more easily on the basis of your future knowledge of Spanish.

If you feel the figures listed in this table are not correct and you have learned one of the languages listed above, please feel free to contact me and let me know how this should be improved and why.