BENEFITS OF SPEAKING A SECOND LANGUAGE
Once you have acknowledged and discarded the obstacles which are going to stand in your way on your quest for knowledge you can now begin to think about the benefits of learning to speak another language. Let us illustrate to you the many doors that the Spanish language will open up in your future.
YOU WILL BECOME A PRICELESS COMMODITY TO YOUR COMPANY
Learning to speak Spanish is becoming an important factor when you step into the workforce. Due to the advances in technology that our civilization has made there is no part of our economy that is solely our own. We are very much a global civilization, and our business dealings are going to occur all over the globe. You will become a priceless commodity to your company if you have the ability to converse fluently with any of the twenty-plus countries that claim Spanish as its native tongue (although if you are smart you will take the opportunity to ensure that that price is very high indeed) as well as earning a great deal of respect from your international clients.
YOU CAN REMOVE THE CHANCES OF SOMEONE PLAYING YOU FOR A FOOL
Face it, it is very tempting to talk over someone’s head when you know full well that they cannot understand you. We do it to our children all the time. What is to stop any of the millions of Spanish speaking citizens of the world from doing the same to you, knowing that you do not understand what is going on? Are you willing to place your fate entirely in the hands of an interpreter, who could have their own agenda just as easily as the person with whom you are interacting, or do you want to take your fate into your own hands? The choice is yours.
Even though English is a fairly international language it is not by any means spoken everywhere. Even in areas where it is taught as a matter of course it is truly mastered by very few (how much do you remember from your high school language classes?) Unless you are willing to engage the aid of an interpreter (and we’ve already discussed the wisdom of that) you are at some point or another going to find yourself forced into interacting with one of the natives of the country. You are going to need to understand at least the fundamentals of their language in order for your stay in their country to be a pleasant one.
Even though there are millions of English speaking people in the world there are even more that do not speak English well enough to carry on a conversation. Have you ever taken the moment to consider that we are a huge country surrounded by two other very large countries and situated just north of another very large continent, yet we very rarely get to know our neighbors because we of the United States do not learn to speak Spanish or French with any type of fluency unless we have independently made the effort to do so and therefore are eternally separated by a language barrier? Think of the hundreds of thousands of people living in those countries that could share stories and experiences with you, people that could potentially become friends and/or business associates, that you will never get to know because you declared them lacking the importance to justify the efforts spent to learn their language. It seems very unfair to deny them and yourself the opportunity.
Speaking of the hundreds of people that are out there in the world, imagine what being able to speak other languages will do for your dating life! Have you ever felt as though there is no one in the world who was created just for you? (If you are already married or involved in a serious relationship please skip over this question-there is no way you are going to get away with the excuse, “the report on the internet told me to.” If you are not, keep reading.) Have you ever taken the time to consider the possibility that there is someone on this planet for you, they just don’t happen to share the same nationality? Imagine how vast your dating pool is going to become when you learn to speak another language, and will therefore be able to interact with a whole other country (or two, or three, or twenty…)
Have you ever felt as though you are tired of being stuck in a rut? Have you ever yearned to break free of your daily routine and experience all that life has to offer you? Have you ever considered doing so by learning to see life through another person’s eyes? There is no way to learn a new language without learning the ins and outs of its culture; its religion, its manner of dress, its holidays and methods of celebration, its foods and its people. The opportunity to see a whole other culture and incorporate the best of it into your own to broaden your horizons is one that you should never pass up.
You will be able to gain a greater appreciation for history and the way that our government and manner of living developed. There is no better way to learn history than to see it through another’s eyes, and when you are learning to speak a new language you are doing precisely that. You will learn how their ancestors came to be, and how their language developed from its roots to the full fledged manner of speaking that it is today.
You will be able to read many historical documents and texts in their original form. If you are a history buff you will truly appreciate the benefits of this. Due to the fact that Spanish is so widely spread across the globe many of the greatest documents in history were written in Spanish, and regardless of how fluent an interpreter may be in the individual dialect a document always loses some of its power and appeal in the translation. By learning to read the language in its true form (something that is going to come very easily to you once you know how to speak it by the simple virtue of the fact that the written form of the Spanish language is as close as possible to the way that it is spoken) you will be able to read many of these historical documents and gain an impression of the feelings, emotions and hidden agendas that drove their creation, a task that is all but impossible when a document has had to be translated into English.
If you are thinking of going into the military, or performing any sort of government service, you are going to need to learn Spanish, along with many other languages. Members of the military are given the opportunity (not always by choice) to learn Afrikaans, Arabic, Chinese, Dari, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kurmanji, Pashto, Persian, Portugese, Russian, Sorani, Serbo, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu and Uzbek.
As you can see, being a part of the military, especially a member of a military field unit, is going to require that you stretch your language abilities far beyond their commonly perceived barriers. It is essential that, should you find yourself in a foreign country and separated from your unit and/or interpreter, you be able to conduct yourself appropriately, blend in with the neighbors and ensure that the natives (particularly those involved with the conflict that you were sent there to resolve) do not choose to take advantage of your ignorance.
YOU WILL BECOME MORE INTELLIGENT
In addition to the doors that learning to speak Spanish can open to you in society, did you know that learning another language can actually make you smarter? That’s right. The brain is a muscle, and like any muscle when it suffers from disuse. When we are children our brains are forced to take in a tremendous amount of information. We must learn to walk, talk, dress ourselves and identify basic objects. A majority of the knowledge that we are must have in order to function in society we learn before we ever set foot in a classroom. The vast variety of information that our brains must take in forces us to use our brains to the maximum or their ability, and it is as we are children that we are the “smartest”.
When we become adults we cease to use our brains as strenuously. Upon entering the workforce we find ourselves falling into a daily routine, and the knowledge that we use on a daily basis becomes commonplace. We no longer force our brains to work to take in new information, and because of this our mind begins to become sloppy.
Due to the differences in grammatical structure between English and Spanish the brain is forced to work in different ways, stretching beyond what it previously viewed as boundaries. This allows the brain to connect different electrical synapses, and as the brain is exercised it grows stronger. Your intelligence will rise exponentially! Just as your brain will become accustomed to stretching around the shape and size of its new language so too will it become accustomed to approaching other factors of life from a new viewpoint, exploring all of the angles. This will allow you a greater understanding into the workings of the world that were previously closed to you, and it is understanding, not the ability to recite fact verbatim, that equals true intelligence.
It is very easy to look at someone and wonder why they don’t just learn to speak English. It is often very humbling to discover precisely how difficult it truly is to gain any type of fluency in a language that is not your own, particularly if you do not hear it on a regular basis. The differences in grammar alone between English and many of earth’s other languages will be enough to throw you into a tailspin, regardless of your intelligence, and you will begin to understand why it is unwise to judge too harshly those that live in your country but do not speak the language. Add on to this the fact that within any language is a number of dialects and phrases particular to a region and not understood anywhere else and you will begin to understand the true difficultly and bravery that those people who have taken that step to start a new life in a new country with a new language have truly shown.
Learning to speak Spanish is fun! Aside from the practical matters addressed earlier it can be a great adventure to learn a new language, and Spanish is close enough to English that you are going to find yourself learning far more quickly than you might think. In a matter of months you are going to find yourself able to carry on simple conversations, and the very fact that you are stepping beyond the boundaries of what you originally believed to be possible for yourself and instead are going on an adventure to learn even more is going to be more thrilling that you may have originally believed to be possible. Remember to take the time to enjoy that, and when you find yourself moaning and groaning underneath the weight of hundreds of vocabulary lists take the time to remember that you are doing what many of your counterparts do not have the courage to do, and enjoy the experience.
🌟Did you know that learning another language can actually make you smarter? Share with us! 
