Spanish: A Door to the World
Hola, buenas noches, adiós amigos, o despacito, son algunas de las muchas famosas palabras en español que muchos conocen. Español or Spanish is a beautiful language, one of the “romance languages” imbued in our culture today, including songs, movies, dances, sports, etc. Who hasn’t heard about salsa, flamenco, merengue, tango, Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Messi, Iniesta or Picasso?
Yes! At least 21 countries have Spanish as their official language, which makes it the second most widely-spoken language in the world. Apart from Spain, twenty countries in Latin America have Spanish as their first language, plus Equatorial Guinea in Africa. A significant number of people from other countries also make use of it.
In total numbers, Spanish is the third most spoken language in the world after Chinese and English and the second most used language amongst businessmen. If you intend to start a business in future, you won’t want to lose a big market of prospect clients or buyers who speak Spanish (many of them do not know English).
Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.
Blanca Dean is a Spanish language teacher at Hispanic Horizons (hispanic-horizons.org), the only accredited Cervantes institute in India, the only international accreditation for Spanish language institutes.