Why Study Spanish ?  

                                       ¿ Por qué estudiar español ?


• Approximately 360,000,000 people in the world speak Spanish.

• Spanish is one of the several national languages of Spain (including the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands). It is the official language of twenty nations in North, Central, and South America. Spanish is spoken on the African continent in Ceuta, Melilla, Marocco, and Equatorial Guinea. In Asia, Spanish has a historical presence in the Philippines.

• There are twenty-five countries in the world that speak Spanish either as an official language or as a primary language.

• Spanish is widely spoken in the United States; 35,000,000 people of Latin American and Spanish descent live in the United States, mainly near the U.S./Mexico border, in Florida and the New York metropolitan area, while every state of the Union counts Spanish speakers among its population.

• The U.S. is the third largest Spanish speaking country in the world. According to the 1990 Census Bureau, Spanish is the language most spoken at home after English. It comes ahead of German, Chinese, Italian, and French.

• Spanish speakers have been immigrating to the U.S. for over 400 years. Many people in the U.S. have Spanish as a heritage language.

• Spanish, or español, is a romance language that envolved from Latin.

• There are many different varieties of Spanish spoken in the Americas.

• The study of Spanish offers learners the opportunity to communicate, to learn, and to function appropriately in Hispanic communities. Increasingly, music, film, and foods produced in the United States for the general population feature the Spanish language and cultural phenomena from the Spanish-speaking world.

• Students enrolled in the study of languages including Spanish have higher SAT scores for each year of language studied than students who do not study a foreign language.

• South and Central America represent a growing market for American companies.

• The NAFTA treaty with Mexico, Canada and the United States opened the doors for additional trade and communication among these countries.

• According to the Kiplinger Washington editors, the Hispanic share of the workforce will increase 25 percent by 2010.


Compiled from the following sources:
1.  Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century. "Standards for Japanese Language Learning, pages328-332. The Allen Press,  
     Lawrence,KS.1999.                        

2.  NCDPI Instructional Services,News Information and resources- Second Languages
     http://www.learnnc.org/DPI/instserv.nsf/