If you’ve never been embroiled in a heated debate about whether it’s better to learn Chinese or Spanish, you’re too late to the party. It’s hard to read a book on parenting these days without addressing the subject, yet many adults have yet to take a leap of faith in either direction.
Why not though? It’s hard to deny in this Internet age that the global marketplace is more accessible than ever and that a second (or third) language is a must to thrive. So what is it that keeps so many of us in perpetual wavering? Maybe we think we’re too old, too busy, or maybe we’re just lazy. But maybe we are just wondering: Chinese or Spanish?
The answer doesn’t seem easy, and those of us who live in the United States have had too many years of selfish comfort in knowing that English is the most widely spoken language in the world. While that may not change in this life or the next, if you don’t think you already live in a country where Spanish should be a mandatory language, you’re kidding yourself.
Base stats are easy to cover. Spanish is by far the second most spoken language in our country, with more than twelve percent of the people who live here speaking it as their first language. His first language. Chinese-speaking people, by comparison, make up less than 1% of the population. Let’s put this in perspective. If the Spanish-speaking population stopped growing entirely, it would take about sixty years for the Chinese-speaking population to reach its current growth rate. By then, many of us would already be a long way from this world, second language or not.
You may be thinking: “But China has a population of over a billion, the largest in the world.” It is true that the world’s Spanish-speaking population of only four hundred-something million pales in magnitude when compared to the gigantic citizenship of China. But Spanish is the official language of twenty countries, while Mandarin Chinese, the most widely spoken Chinese dialect, is only one official language of three. Even when we leave the comfort of our largely Spanish-speaking homeland, the chances are much higher that we’ll end up in a country where Spanish is important than one where Chinese is.
So you can say, “But China has an incredibly rosy economy and is home to the world’s largest bank.” It would be hard to argue with that, but it may help to know that Banco Santander of Spain has more than seven hundred branches in the United States, while the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has around one hundred branches worldwide outside of China. Only thirteen of them are in the US, and only two states, New York and California, have coverage.
While it’s undisputed that business in China is growing at a more impressive rate than any other Spanish-speaking country, here in the US, Hispanic-owned businesses account for the largest number of minority-owned businesses. And while Spanish-speaking countries may not have the highest business returns in the world, that doesn’t stop them from helping millions of Americans enjoy some of our favorite pastimes. In fact, the next time you’re enjoying an Entenmann cookie or tossing around a Rawlings baseball, you might want to say, “Thank you.”
Today, Spanish is the most studied language in the US, with more than fifteen times as many people studying Spanish as Chinese. You may have finished high school, but it’s not too late to join the popular crowd. Save the debate for your children, put this article down and go take Spanish classes. It would be un-American not to.
