7,000 languages, why Español?
General estimates conclude that there are around 7,000 spoken languages around the world, but each of us has decided to learn Spanish.
My question is, what inspired you to learn Spanish? What captivated the imagination? or what situation or context made learning Spanish seem like an interesting or necessary goal?
I would love to hear some responses which share with each other some small part of why we are all here, learning together this wonderful language.
57 Answers
I am amazed that there are still over 350 native languages spoken in South America. Once, when I was a police officer in Central California, a witness to a crime only spoke one of the Oaxaca languages. The only person we could find to translate Oaxaca didn't speak English, only Spanish and Oaxaca. So then we needed someone to translate from Spanish to English. I found the whole thing fascinating and got interested in languages. I decided to finish my degree and go to law school. In first year of law school, they taught a class dealing with symbolic logic and the concept of language. That interested me so much that I started working on a joint degree in law and linguistics. I needed to be able to read at least two languages besides English so I went with Spanish and French. I always wanted to read Don Quixote in the original Spanish (I read an English translation in high school and loved it). Later, I married a Latina and realized that there was no reason I couldn't learn to speak Spanish, with her help, in addition to reading it.
The 2000 census says the county in which I live is 4.51% hispanic. That was a load of malarkey in 2000, and it's even more ridiculous today.
My town of 10,000 people has three Mexican groceries, two panaderias, six Mexican restaurants (not counting Taco Bell) at least one salon de bellesa (I don't exactly go looking for those) and 4 Mexican churches that I can name off the top of my head. My guess is that there are at least 10,000 hispanic immigrants here in my county of about 40K.
I refuse to be one of those Americans that insists that, "If they want to talk to me, they've got to learn my language." I think a lot more people on both sides ought to be bilingual.
I'm a deacon in a church, a Red Cross volunteer, and a citizen in a community full of people that speak Spanish. It's something that I can do if I put forth the effort, so why would I not do it?
There are several reasons why I am learning Spanish. The most obvious reason is that I live in the U.S. and we are neighbors to Mexico and most of Latin America. It is the second most common language spoken here.
I have quite a few friends who speak Spanish and I want to be able to better communicate with them.
I enjoy speaking with people in their native tongue when I visit Spanish speaking countries.
I am currently involved with ministry work and helping to teach music to Spanish speaking students, who know very little English. We are helping each other!
I always like to challenge myself in new ways. Learning Spanish is definitely a challenge, but it has been so much more rewarding than I ever dreamed.
Besides all of the above, I get to learn from the great people on this site. 
Gracias a Todos!!!!
I've always been really interested in what was going on in the rest of the world, outside of the U.S., and because of that I've wanted to learn to speak another language fluently. Spanish seemed like the natural choice because I live in the U.S. and a lot of people here are native spanish speakers.
Plus I'm a grammar geek, so getting to learn a whole new grammatical structure is a lot of fun for me. It's pretty awesome what learning a new language can teach you about your own.
When I go into almost any store in my area, there are Spanish-speaking people shopping. Occasionally, they have difficulty getting their point across to the English-only speaking people they encounter. I would like to help them; therefore, I am studying Spanish and, in some small way, maybe I can make their life a little easier. Additionally, I would like to volunteer at a community center where assistance is offered to these hard working people.
I starting learning Spanish when I was 8 years old. It was a class offered as an alternative to students who did not need extra help reading. I continued to take Spanish classes from then until I was 15 years old in order to meet the state Regent's recommendations (In the State of New York it is recommended to complete 'Spanish III'). I never thought about continuing with Spanish because I never thought that I would use it again.
When I was almost 22 I was asked to serve as a missionary for my church in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I have been learning and speaking/reading/writing in Spanish ever since.
I am learning Spanish because I moved to Bolivia - just to see something different after retIring (or rather being retired) from work in England. It is a bit of a bore not understanding what your friends are talking about and chatting up the local ladies is a bit difficult as well. Anyway knowing another language opens up all sorts of opportunities and helps one understand the world and life better. I experienced this first when I lived in Denmark and got to know Danish very well and Norwegian and Swedish (They are alike in a similar way that Portguese and Spanish are alike). It also gives me something to do - I hate being idle and like a challenge.
For my own life, it's just been something that's always been a part of my life. I don't think it was a "choice." Everyone around me always spoke spanish, my friends ever since like forever have spoken spanish...so it wasn't a choice. I guess you could say for me it was more a matter of necessity than of choice. I wanted to know what people were saying...I didn't want to be at the side all the time, so I listened close and asked questions and made a fool of myself until I could understand what people around me were saying. Then later I got to speaking it and developed the style of speech and the accent and the speed...that's how it's been in my life. 
First foreign language I have ever learned was Russian. I started being 11. Formal education - 8 years. I'm able to find same stuff on Russian's sites if I want it. I can also communicate in that particular language. However, considering it's similarity to my native language (Polish) and length of education - my fluency is not worth mentioning and is not satisfactory at all.
German - 4 years of formal education. God help me to not meet German not able to speak English...
Finally - English... well - it wasn't such disaster. 2 years of some kind of introductory lessons, 4 years of quite good education, then couple of years (4?) of "just passing" exams - with good marks though. And here I am - in UK. With "reading with understanding" ability probably above average inhabitant, yet unable to communicate with them at all... (the time I arrived).
Some people here talk about "immersion". Yeah... First 1.5 year I got - MAY BE - 20 new words...
Frustrated enough - I found reeeaaally good software for memorizing new vocabulary... 3000 words over 3 months - not bad score... Yet still - the same pain - I know what I want to say - in my language - I search my memory for the proper words to express it, then proper grammatical structures to use... That´s the way to have perfect score in written exam - not for enjoyable conversation with native speaker...
To cut the story - I was since long time interested in - how the mind, how the consciousness works. While searching through this, I stumbled against one sentence - profound for me - language is unconscious process - you don't know, how you speak your native language - you just do. Looking for and following the patterns which I used to learn my native language I managed to lift up my English to level which I can call for myself - satisfactory. That means accomplishing within a year more then I have done within previous 10.
Since then I was wondering, how much time would it take for me to learn some other language... However - I had completely no motivation to do so with any...
Just for sake of it, I learned few words in Spanish - as I checked moment ago - today passed 40 days since then... Few days later I found (by chance) this site...
For the first time I learn new language exclusively for fun and just looking for new, entertaining ways of doing so.
With increasing curiosity - where this adventure is going to lead me to...
Even when I was a very young girl, I was interested in Spanish for some odd reason (who knows maybe I have Spanish blood from way way back?). Anyway, where I grew up, there was no opportunity to learn Spanish at school or anywhere close by. There was no internet in those days either, no Spanish speaking people around here only French, a few Ukrainian and English. The need to learn Spanish stayed with me all those years. Then my husband and I started discussing what we were going to do when we retire. One of the things we are very interested in doing is going to work as volunteers in Latin America, possibly Haiti or the Dominican Republic (perhaps in an orphanage). My husband talked to a local priest about this and he said we had better start learning Spanish if we were going to do that kind of thing. So here I am! I love it. This is a terrific site!
My consideration for learning Spanish is not to talk to a sixteen year old, he can learn English quickly, I want to make his grandmother more comfortable by being able to say few words in her language.
More than two years ago I started learning Italian, but I quit after a month - probably because I was about to give birth. Anyway, then my motherhood began, together with waking up at night and being always on the go. Four months ago, on my birthday, my husband took me to the cinema to see "Vicky Cristina Barcelona". I really enjoyed it, especially Penelope's acting. I can't remember exactly how my learning started (although I was perfectly sober 
). I began to look for some general guidelines on pronunciation, useful phrases etc. on the Internet and that's how I ended up here. Everyone, including me, is a real pain in the neck,the lessons are so-so, the dictionary sucks, not to mention the forum.... Just kidding 
I got addicted from the word go.
I used to live in LA. After that I moved to Orlando for awhile.
The fact that I'd lived so long in bilingual communities without learning Spanish was starting to make me feel lazy. All those resources and I had never made the effort? Come on, me, suck it up!
I am learning Spanish because I can start using it now (I am serving with many hispanics) and when I get home I can use it even more. Everyday!
I reside in an urban area saturated by Spanish-speaking people. Personally, I would like to be able to communicate with my friends better. Besides that, approximately half of my patients are Spanish speaking. I feel as though I would be much better at my job if I can communicate with my patients! We would not have to request a translator every time & they would be much more at ease.
Life would be better!
