Spanish is between the second or third ranked language in the world, depending on who you consult. It is, amazingly, the official language in at least 21 countries. An excellent reason to learn Spanish is that it can open up a whole new world of cultural experiences. It is potentially a great way increase the quality of your social and business life.

Spanish is one of the languages labeled as a “Romance” language. This means that its roots lie in the ancient Latin language spoken in earlier Mediterranean civilizations. Another great reason to learn Spanish is that it will allow you to better appreciate the Hispanic community. You will also be able to keep pace with Hispanic influences on culture. As you can probably tell, with over 500 million speakers, that influence can be large.

The best way, for me, to learn a language is to use an interactive software or audio course. I found a great resource that reviews many of these courses available and makes it easy to pick the best spanish learning software.

Sometimes I hear someone ask, “Does anybody know where I can find a good software to learn Spanish?” Well, I happened upon a little website called Teach Yourself Spanish that a family man built in order to spread the word on a software he tried. You can take a free lesson there.

Honestly, I’m terrible at trying to learn a language just by reading a textbook. But if you’re able to learn that way, I found a great website at http://spanishlearningbooks.com that catalogs the highest rated guides for just this purpose.

Even simple things, such as reading signs and menus, asking directions or telling a cab driver where you want to go requires some knowledge of the language. Knowing the language will prepare you to better navigate the new interconnected world we live in. After you know Spanish, it will be easier to learn French or Italian. Reason being is that they are also “Romantic” languages and are very similar.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 9:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.