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Spanish for business? Business languages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Sionis Newbie United States Joined 4904 days ago 33 posts - 34 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Romanian | Message 1 of 5 25 January 2012 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm curious what makes Spanish such a great language for business. I realize there is a large Spanish speaking population in the States, and it continues to grow, but I don't see many reasons to study the language seeing how those who speak the Spanish language and are in some relevance in the business world seem to always be fluent in the English language. I'm sifting through some languages out of curiosity of which one to study at the moment, and people continue to recommend Spanish. Some other languages I'm considering is German, French, Russian, and Portuguese.
Domestic and International interest just to be clear. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4866 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish | Message 2 of 5 25 January 2012 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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At least in Mexico your Spanish skills would be greatly appreciated. If the businessman
in question speaks good English, at least he would be surprised that you took the time to learn his language, which would give a very good first impression. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5419 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 3 of 5 25 January 2012 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's all regional.
As for the domestic situation within the US, any factor that would suggest against the utility of Spanish ("they all know English anyway") would apply TENFOLD to any other language you're considering. So you may as well just not bother learning any language. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mad Max Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 5055 days ago 79 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Russian Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 4 of 5 26 January 2012 at 12:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, Spanish is spoken by 50 million people in USA, and Spanish speakers will be 135
million in 2050 in the United States. Spanish is official language in NAFTA (North America), official in European Union, and the lingua franca of Latin America (UNASUR). It is very spoken and studied in these areas: it is the first or second language of some 500 million people, more spoken than English (500 million of potential customers). Besides, it is official in African Union, CARICOM (Caribbean), Central American Common Market (Central America) and Antarctic Treatry (Antarctica). It is not official in APEC (Asia-Pacific), but Chinese and Spanish are promoted in this organization. So, Spanish is becoming a World lingua franca, like English. The business language between a Brazilian and a French can be Spanish, or between an American from Miami and an Italian, or between a Portuguese and a Moroccan, etc. It is also official in United Nations and the World Trade Organization. Spanish is compulsory subject in the school system of Brazil (190 million people) and it will be also compulsory in the Philippines (100 million people). It is also very studied in the United States, the European Union, Morocco or Australia. Finally, Spanish will be the World most spoken language by 2045 (more than Chinese), according to several reports (10% of the World population), perhaps more. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5266 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 5 26 January 2012 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Well said, indeed, @nway! I see this type of question being asked quite regularly on the forum. "Which language is most useful?" The single most useful language in the world to know and speak is English. Most people involved in international business speak English to some extent, but that's not everybody else. I do find in my travels that not everyone speaks English. Speaking the native language in-country, or with native speakers of the language anywhere, shows respect and quite often will open doors that may remain closed to those who do not make the effort to do so. Speaking the language is your entree into another culture. It's a window to another people and another way of looking at the world around you. To me, that's what makes any language useful. A language is as useful as you want it to be. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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