Introduction
Welcome
Welcome to Spanish I, First Semester.
Why should you learn to speak Spanish? Well, why should you speak English? Chinese? Korean? Russian? Hungarian? There are lots of reasons. And all of them are up to you.
It could be to talk to people in a Spanish-speaking country that you visit, work in, or live in. It could be to talk to your relatives that speak Spanish, or your friends, or your friends’ relatives, or with people that you don’t even know because they only speak Spanish. It could be for a job, maybe in the field of medicine, maybe on the Internet, maybe at a restaurant, maybe at school, or at a party. Maybe you want to learn the migratory habits of llamas in Perú, and you have to read scientific articles in Spanish. Maybe you want to watch stars in an observatory in Chile. Maybe you’re interested in hairless dogs in México. Maybe you just want to speak Spanish better than your brother, who really can’t speak it very well, but likes to show off. Maybe your next best-selling novel will only be published in Spanish, and you need to learn it before you start writing.
You may not find too many Spanish speakers if you live in China, but for those of us that live in the USA, Spanish is all around us, and it’s spoken in many countries that aren’t too far away from us.
Speaking another language will always enrich your life and others’ lives. Languages are for finding out about other people, and letting them learn about you, and you can use that in as many ways as you like.
Why learn Spanish? You can use Spanish at home, work, play, travel, business, and maybe even for your research paper on hairless dogs in México.
