Spanish

May 9, 2022

Why study Spanish?

Spanish is the third most widely spoken language in the world after Mandarin and English, with approximately 380 million speakers. It is the official language of 20 countries.

It is spoken by almost 20 million people in the United States and used daily in the Philippines, Australia, Morocco, Western Sahara and Belize. Learning Spanish then facilitates access to these communities and allows one to tap into their culturally diverse reservoirs including their colourful music, flavourful cuisine, passionate literature and festive traditions.

In Trinidad and Tobago, learning Spanish is especially vital due to our geographical location: we are surrounded by Spanish-speaking countries with which we have many economic, political and social interests.

Moreover, Spanish is our country’s First Foreign Language; a fact we are reminded of by the bilingual signs along the highways and on the streets of Port of Spain. Finally, Trinidad and Tobago’s own culture and history has been greatly influenced by Spanish-speakers as evidenced in our Parang singing at Christmas time and place names such as Las Cuevas, Sangre Grande, Sangre Chiquito, etc.,