Spanish

Course summary

Competence in a foreign language is a useful social skill and learning a language is an end in itself; it can help you to understand your own language and it offers the possibility to learn more than one foreign language with ease. To take advantage of the opportunities in today’s global job market, young people need to wake up to the need for language skills. Languages are of clear commercial benefit. They enhance other skills in the field of communication; they are of huge cultural importance and create opportunities for individuals who speak them. Around 400 million speakers use Spanish as their first language. It’s the third most commonly spoken language in the world (after Mandarin and English) and, according to some counts, has more native speakers than English does; in the USA around 34 million speak Spanish as their first language. It is an official language on four continents and is of historical importance elsewhere.