For language enthusiasts I think a great reason to learn Spanish is that it is such a “gateway language”.

Knowing more than one language will inherently help you to appreciate the differences when faced with learning a new language. Being able to really understand that you can’t just take one word or phrase and directly translate it into another language will help break down a lot of barriers that people get stuck on when asking “why” is something as it is in a lanugage. Sometimes you really can’t understand why a word or phrase is used in a language until you’ve assimilated it and used it a couple times in a couple different scenarios .. then the understanding will come.

My Chinese language teacher always has to remind us when we get hung up on a concept and keep asking ‘why why why’ .. “meiyou weishenme”.

I am interested in Spanish for mostly social reasons. I have a number of friends that are originally from Latin American, and so I have lots of friends of friends that I cannot communicate with directly.

There are also a number of specific situations where it would be good to improve my Spanish.

I go to restaurants from time to time where the people working there are able to speak English, but are much more comfortable in Spanish.

I like to watch soccer on tv, and it is more likely to be broadcast on Spanish stations than English ones.

I have recently started learning latin dancing. I expect that as I venture out to apply what I have learned, I will have opportunities to also practice my Spanish.

Thank you very much for starting this service.

Rick in Atlanta

I am also a language teacher and one who believes in many of the ChinesePod tenets for language instruction/acquisition (comprehensible input, lots of repetition, de-emphasis on grammar, development of a community of learners).

I have wanted to learn Spanish for many years as I live in the U.S. and it is our second language after English. There is some speculation that it will replace English within fifty years, but that is another matter. I find it very limiting (and even disrespectful) to go into a Spanish-speaking section of my home town (Des Moines, Iowa) and not be able to interact with people in anything other than English (or Chinese ;-)).

Yet another reason to study Spanish [or any other language] is that doing so will help me to have greater empathy for my students, who are struggling with a new language (as I’m sure I will be).

I must say I’ve enjoyed my two days at Spanish Sense. I hope I’m able to contribute something.

Hasta luego.

Randall Damon

I am a happy ChinesePod student. I am also an American who has been living and working in Central Mexico for eight years. When I was in high school in the United States I studied Spanish for two years. When I arrived in Mexico, however, I found that my previous training was almost useless. I couldn’t understand anything but the simplest phrases. For the first year I lived with two Catholic priests in a parish house in a small town and that is how I learned Spanish. However, the Spanish of the priests was very formal compared to the Spanish of the people that I was working with so I actually learned several forms of Mexican Spanish. Then I moved to a different part of Mexico and I found that the Spanish there was a bit different than what I had learned during the first year. I think it is the same way with Chinese. The people from Shanghai speak a little different than the people of Beijing. I think that your Spanish is very beautiful and it would certainly be understood here in Mexico where I live even though it is quite different from what we are used to. Since Spanish is spoken in 23 countries I imagine that it will be very interesting for you to cover all the bases. I have been corresponding with Antonio Vergara from Spain. He is the administrator of the Spanish Blog on Chinesepod. I am sure that we both smile when we read each other’s Spanish although he also speaks excellent English just like you do. It will be very helpful for me to learn how to speak Spanish in different ways so that I can improve my Spanish speaking ability and communicate more effectively with people from other Spanish speaking countries. By the way, I never would have thought that you are from Argentina. I really thought that you are from Italy
Saludos,

Mexico Bob

I have followed three methods of learning Spanish so far: first I started with two Birkenbihl courses. I like the methodical approach very much but the content is really outdated now. Then I joined classroom-training offered by my employer, 90 min per week, which I still continue, despite all draw-backs of classroom trainings such as different pace-requests. Fortunately our teacher is native Spanish (Castilian).
I had subscribed to a monthly print periodical “ECOS” with some internet pages, a Spanish magazine targeted at German learners.

Generally I am lazy in actually speaking. For another previous project I did Italian with Birkenbihl method, but I answered in English to my key users when they spoke Italian with me - worked perfectly for the objective then, but could be considered as a lost opportunity. When starting with Spanish I completely abandoned any Italian as I kept confusing all the time.
I have a basis of 5 years Latin at a German high school (”Gymnasium”) in Bavaria… anyone a bit familiar with the German federal system will know what that flavour means: old-fashioned rigid rote memorizing, solely using the left brain half, plus a strong request for perfection.
I do find any latin language pretty easy to acquire as there are a lot of similarities. I did a bit of “tourist-Portuguese”, too.

In terms of business reasons I should be reasonably fluent in German English French Spanish, but for the latter 2 that is still a way to go.
But I am also interested pretty much in Spanish culture and history. For example it puzzles me that Spanish-speaking countries had been dictatorships for rather a long time. Is that over or still lurking in the background?

Where I live in Australia Spanish is seldom heard. For me, Spanish is not for communication, it’s like playing music. With a little bit of theory and a lot of practice you can improvise beautiful sounds for hours. I’d like to start again and regain the skills and pleasures that I’ve lost. I don’t want to become fluent, but I’d like to know enough to have a short “bus stop chat” and to use a dictionary wisely.

But the world is a different place now. The Internet provides communication opportunties that were not dreamed of 20 years ago. Who knows, I might use it for more than my own spoken music this time.