Spanish: How useful and difficult is it?

[Starchild]

I've got that itch again to pick up another language aside from my own uniquely accented English dialect. New Years self-improvement resolutions and all that jazz.

Spanish has taken my interest recently as, conviently(!) it's offered as course I can do in addition to my degree at university next year. So I have no excuse not to continue with it. The only other language they offered that piqued my interest was Russian (and mandarin, french, swahili, arabic.....).

How useful is Spanish in an international and European context? I know it would fulfill the requirement of a second EU working language allowing me to, well, work for the EU...and Spain is very nice these days I hear ( ).

For an English speaker, how difficult is Spanish to pick up? I used to live in America and I kinda miss the dubbed Spanish chat shows.

[GePap]

Well, in Europe I only see 30 million Spaniards that count- though if you follow the British tradition of vacations in sunny Spain, it would help.

World wide, I believe it is in the top 5 spoken languages in the world, ad unlike Mandarin, that does mean several countries.

As for how easy- as long as you come to accept masculine/femenine for nouns and a few other idosyncracies, it is not very hard0 things are spelled as they are pronounced, for one. And not many difficult new sounds, and worlds are not long collections of consonants.

[Monk]

I know a guy who used to work in diplomatic circles around the world and taught himself six or seven languages. He said Spanish was the easiest and Danish by far the most annoying. If you want to work for the EU though, you should consider French and especially German. As relatively few people are fluent and comfortable with both German and English, that might be a niche for you... and if you get really skilled, you'll be able to understand the Austrians, too

[Bosh]

I had a vastly easier time with Spanish than with French, Arabic or Korean (none of which I can hold a conversation in, unlike Spanish were I'm pretty functional). Like Monk says the spelling and pronounciation are very easy and the gramatical structure doesn't have anywhere near as many exceptions as English. For me the only hard parts tackling verb conjugatin (there's a lot of tenses and the stuff with the different forms of haber drove me nuts) and having different direct object and indirect object pronouns threw me a bit. Definately the most useful second language for an American, not so much for a Brit/Canuck.

[Starchild]

I like German-accented English but actual German? My throat would collapse.

I like the feeling of speaking Spanish. And I want to be able to say "I apologise for my drunken friends" when vacationing in Spain. :-)

[Al B. Sure!]

No es mas dificil a aprendes espanol si tu eres inteligente pero no pienso tu eres bastante inteligente para esto.

gracias

[Nubclear]

While GePap is right, China (and India for that matter ) are becoming more and more important. Perhaps it would be best to invest in the future?

[Al B. Sure!]

what are you speaking of Tassadar? Don't you know that there are only two languages in the universe: English and that language our servants speak, spanish?

[Al B. Sure!]

¿Que tu esta hablando, Tassadar? Tu sabes que el mundo tiene solamente dos idiomas: ingles e la idioma de los esclavos: espanol.

[Monk]

Originally posted by Starchild
I like German-accented English but actual German? My throat would collapse.

Wih ask ze qvestions hir!

[Starchild]

Do it again Monk. Talk all....German to me!

[Thorgal]

Tu español hiede, Albert Speer.

[Al B. Sure!]

hiede? No se esta palabra.

[Chris Wilkinson]

Es una pena que no puedo estudiar español por el momento.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
what are you speaking of Tassadar? Don't you know that there are only two languages in the universe: English and that language our servants speak, spanish?