Why Do So Many People Speak Spanish?

By Diana McGrew

The Spanish speaking population is constantly rising in the world. At the end of the 19th century, 60 million people were Spanish speakers. Today, nearly 500 million people across the world speak Spanish! Spanish is the mother tongue of approximately 350 million people in 21 countries including:

Argentina: 35 million

Colombia: 36 million

Mexico: 98 million

Peru: 20 million

Spain: 39 million

USA: 39 million

Venezuela: 22 million

Spanish is the second most used language in international communication, and an official language of the UN and its organizations. There are 29 million U.S. residents above the age of 5 who speak Spanish at home. That's approximately 1 of every 10 U.S. residents, an enormous consumer and business-to-business market. Spanish-speaking countries all over the globe are uniting in trade agreements, creating influential blocks of power in the international economic arena.

Many people of different cultural origins are constantly migrating to the United States, and the increase of people who speak Spanish has created a lot of diversity in the country. The Hispanic population in the United States has grown by 60% in just one decade. At present there are 35.5 million Hispanics, representing 12.5% of the total population. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the nation's Hispanic population, which is now 38.2 million, is expected to jump to 49.3 million by 2015.

With this kind of growth in the Spanish speaking population you can see how beneficial it would be to learn Spanish. Whether your looking to further advancement in your place of employment now or trying to get into the work force, learning Spanish will boost your marketability. No one is aware of the changing trends of business but one cannot fail to notice that there will be an increasing growth to operate in global markets. Foreign language fluency is a significant asset for job seekers, as more and more companies trade internationally.

Are you ready to join the statistics and further your career? Maybe you would just like to learn Spanish in order to be able to communicate with these vast amounts of people. Whatever your reason, learn more about why do so many people speak Spanish and find tools that will help you learn this popular language.