Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures

Why Study Spanish?

Spanish Statistics

Spanish is the world's third most spoken language, after Mandarin Chinese and English, and ranks second in terms of native speakers.
At the end of the 19th century, 60 million people spoke Spanish. Today, almost 500 million people worldwide speak Spanish!
Spanish is the mother tongue of approximately 350 million people in 21 countries (Mexico: 98 million, Spain: 39 million, USA: 39 million, Argentina: 35 million, Colombia: 36 million, Venezuela: 22 million, Peru: 20 million…) It is also widely spoken in many more where it is not an official language.
Hispanic consumers are the fastest-growing market segment in North America. Their population in the USA has grown by 60% in just one decade and their buying power is expected to exceed $926 million by 2007.
Spanish is the second most used language in international communication, and an official language of the UN and its organisations.

Economic Indicators

29 million US residents above the age of 5 speak Spanish at home. That's approximately 1 of every 10 US residents, an enormous consumer and business-to-business market.
"The world is rapidly becoming multilingual and Arabic and Spanish are both key languages of the future" said language researcher David Graddol, commenting on a recent report presented to the British Council.
No one aware of the changing tides of business could fail to notice that we increasingly operate in global markets. Foreign language fluency is a significant asset for job seekers, as more and more companies trade internationally.
The US Census Bureau reports that the nation's Hispanic population is expected to jump to 49.3 million from 38.2 million by 2015. The 39 million Hispanics currently living in the USA make up 12.5% of the total population. This population growth has increased demand for Spanish language media: radio, television, newspapers, magazines...
Latin American countries are experiencing strong economic growth and becoming important global commercial partners. Newly created MERCOSUR and the existing free trade agreements between Hispanic countries and North America (ALADI, the Andean Community, CACM, NAFTA, G3), are expected to bring further growth to Latin American economies.

(Source: http://www.donquijote.org/english/whyspanish.asp)

Careers in Foreign Languages

COMMUNICATIONS:

international telephone operators;
foreign news correspondents;
foreign news photographers;
translators of books, articles, and reviews;
advertising for ethnic or foreign markets;
film production and entertainment media;
simultaneous interpreters;
editors for university and other presses

BUSINESS:

Receptionists, secretaries, and sales personnel;
personnel managers;
public relations experts;
textbook representatives and salespeople;
business executives;
U.S. representatives for global companies;
international banking and finance;
international engineers;
international lawyers and patent attorneys;
income tax consultants and accountants in ethnic communities;
specialists for import/export firms

GOVERNMENT SERVICES:

Peace Corps workers, VISTA volunteers;
diplomatic corps;
court interpreters, U.S. translators and interpreters;
bilingual staff in Federal Agencies (e.g. Social Security, Red Cross, etc.);
U.S. Postal Service;
U.S. Customs agents;
U.S. Naturalization Service agents

SOCIAL SERVICES:

nursing in ethnic communities;
law enforcement officers;
public assistance interviewers;
health services;
fire fighters;
multilingual defense attorneys

(Source: http://liberalarts.iupui.edu/wlac/careers.htm)