Spanish language: An asset in a loosing economy?
(article provided by LearnSpanishReview)

Spanish is a language that is gaining increasing importance in the World today. The language is now spoken widely by a significant percentage of the World’s population.

The language’s importance is further being highly placed because of the globalization. In the recent past, we have witnessed increasing opening up of economies for international trade.  The so called Spanish speaking zones are now increasing in significance.

 Latest statistics show us that over 500 million people and 21 countries including Mexico, Spain, Peru, and Venezuela are speaking Spanish. Hispanic consumers are a very big market can not be ignored.

In the US, statistics show that one in every 10 consumers speak Spanish. The Hispanic population is also said to account for over 12 % of the US population. Spanish language is also a UN official language for its organizations. The language is also the second most used language in International communication, only second from English. Counting the languages that have the largest number of speakers, Spanish language can be said to be the third after Mandarin Chinese and English. It is also the second ranking in terms of native speakers.

With the era of globalization, countries are encouraging companies to take advantage of it and penetrate the undiscovered markets. The Spanish speaking regions may provide a big market for economies relying on Agriculture and cash crop exports. The economies can also allow Spanish speaking investors to penetrate their markets if the language barrier is broken.

Another very attractive scenario is in the arena of culture, media and entertainment. We have witnessed a lot of translations of Spanish movies and soap operas (particularly from Latin America) to English. The rich diverse culture can be well preserved in Spanish language and increase the consuming population. Artists from losing economies can sing in Spanish and attract that population. Similarly writers can expand their markets and grow their home economies.

Another advantage brought by the language will be in the remittances to home from employment of citizens in the Diaspora. Learning Spanish will increase the competiveness of a person in international jobs, especially the ones offered by international bodies. This actually means that these economies will increase the incoming incomes from the Diaspora.

Opportunities are many to be gained by individual citizens and countries if their people would take the exposure to language seriously.