How to learn Spanish easily?
Spanish is a fairly familiar language to almost everyone in the world. It is not something that people haven’t heard of at least once in their lives. Spanish comes from the Romance language family which includes other famous languages like French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian. It is the world’s second most native spoken language after Mandarin Chinese and the world’s fourth most spoken language after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi.
Why should you learn Spanish?
Before we get into the benefits of learning Spanish, let’s get into the basic benefits of being bilingual.
An easier and enjoyable travel
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.” -Nelson Mandela
It stands true to this day. Let’s say you learn a foreign language and you are fortunate enough that you get to travel to that country in the near future. You wouldn’t have the problem of the language barrier. Local citizens adore the tourists who can speak their native language and hence your travel will be much more enjoyable and easier than you will have hoped.
A prime example of this is in the revolutionary film, ‘Rang de Basanti’
Alice Patten’s character ‘Sue’ is instantly adored and beloved by the group of friends and the locals as she speaks Hindi, their native language.
Broadens perspectives and educates about different cultures
This point has to be undeniable. There is no better way to learn about a culture than learn the language associated with it. Cultural knowledge goes a long way in personal development.
Academic advantage
Learning a foreign language adds one more feather to the ‘personal development’ hat. It allows grasping multiple complex things at once which is a plus point in academics when you are specifically required to multitask. Studies have also shown that some other advantages of bilingual education is improved memory, cognitive development, better achievements, and the like.
Job market opportunities after learning a foreign language
After the personal development advantages, let’s now move on to economic advantages. Learning a foreign language opens gates to a lot of job opportunities as it increases your chances in the competition of the market. Let’s say for example if a German company is hiring. Germany happens to be the economic superpower of Europe and hence a job in Germany would be a big deal for you. But they prefer someone who has learned German over you, who doesn’t know how to speak their native language, and you lose that golden opportunity. The point being, it is always better to learn a foreign language, specifically if the country of that language excels in your career field.
Career opportunities
When you learn a foreign language, it expands the fields of jobs that you can apply for. An academician, or a personal tutor perhaps. But if you want a job in the corporate world itself, you can become a translator for multinational corporations. It has great pay and high respect. You can further broaden your chances in the career fields as and when you learn more languages. Knowing just one language restricts you in various aspects of your life while learning a foreign language or more can break those barriers and help you reach greater heights. There are some added benefits of learning Spanish.
Spanish is the second most spoken language in the USA
With Hispanics being the largest minority in the United States, naturally Spanish is the second most spoken language in the country. Along with that, the Latin American countries are one of the biggest trading partners in the world, and being able to communicate with them in Spanish would be highly beneficial to you and your corporation.
Spanish is Easier to grasp
Spanish is one of the few languages that are so close to English that it becomes extremely easy to grasp the knowledge of the new language. If you are a native English speaker or the one who has a fair good amount of the English language, then mastering the language of Spanish is piece of cake given you are willing to invest your time and efforts into learning it with utmost determination.
Opening the world of entertainment
If you want to expand your consumption of entertainment then learning Spanish will be highly beneficial. Some of the best OTT content is produced in the Spanish language. Some fantastic series’ like “La Casa de Papel” popularly known as ‘Money heist’; or “Elite” is originally in Spanish and it makes you understand the content better than what you do with the help of subtitles.
After learning Spanish you can Travel to 20+ countries without thinking about the language barrier.
Spanish is the official language of 20 countries around the world and also one of the most spoken languages in a maximum of North America. Your travel will not only be easier but you can also dream of retiring overseas and not worry about the language barrier if you learn Spanish beforehand.
How can you learn Spanish?
Because of the growing popularity of the Spanish language, the ways to learn it have also expanded and developed over time. Here are some ways you can learn Spanish and number one is my personal favorite.
1. Languagefluent
Language fluent is an online platform where they teach more than 10 foreign languages which obviously includes Spanish as well. There are trained professionals to guide you throughout the process and they teach all the six levels of the Spanish language (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2). You can start learning at any level based on the prior knowledge you have of Spanish.
2. Duolingo
Duolingo is an American website and an app for language learners. It has over 98 different language courses in 38 languages. With the help of Duolingo, the language of Spanish can be mastered. They start teaching any language from scratch or from a level based on your knowledge of Spanish.
3. Lots of different websites
Apart from Language fluent and Duolingo, there are other various websites from where you can learn Spanish. Babbel, Rosetta Stone, Coursera, youtube are some of the famous sites that can help you master this language.
4. Books
To kickstart your learning of the Spanish language, there are various books that may also guide you through this journey.
‘Easy Spanish Step-by-Step’ by Barbara Bregstein
‘Short Stories in Spanish for beginners’ by Olly Richards
‘See it and say it in Spanish’ by Margarita Madrigal
‘Conquer basic Spanish’ by Linda Plummer
‘Madrigal’s magic key to Spanish: a creative and proven approach’ by Margarita Madrigal and Andy Warhol
These are the books that are easily available online and you can start learning Spanish with the help of these. As mentioned earlier, because of its growing familiarity and popularity, there are now offline Spanish classes available in the major educational hubs of India and most of the United States of America, or whichever country you reside in. There are classes there, everywhere.
The number of Spanish speakers in the world.
“Spanish continues to be the second-most spoken mother language – topped only by Mandarin which is spoken by 950 million people.
Today, Spanish is spoken in 7.8% of the world, a percentage that is predicted to remain the same until at least 2050 – unlike those for Mandarin and English which are expected to drop. The study carried out by David Fernandez Vitores, a philology professor at the University of Alcalá, found that in addition to the 477.6 million native speakers, further 73.7 million people have some knowledge of Spanish and another 21.2 million study Spanish as a foreign language – a total of 572.6 million people.
This number is expected to rise to 754 million people by 2050, pushed by population growth in Spanish-speaking countries as well as the growing number of Spanish speakers in the United States.”
