This posts answers the question how many Spanish speakers there are in the United States.  I was curious myself about this question. All I hear on the news is about the growing Hispanic population and how I should study this language.  Actually learning it, to some level, is on my list of things I would like to do.

Spanish language and influence is all over the USA

According to the 2000 census there was about 38 million people who used the Spanish language as their first language.  By the 2010 census it is estimated that there will be about 50 million native Spanish speakers in the US. The demographic trend is pretty strong as Hispanics tend to have more children and at a younger age than the average in the USA.

I knew a Spanish psychologist who use to work with youths to help slow this trend. She said it will be very hard in the near future and the trend will continue, because its culture and economics both that perpetuate teens to have children.   I think by about 2060 Spanish speakers will be the majority in the USA.

The following is a list of states which have the highest percentage of Spanish speakers:

Puerto Rico     3,900,128     95.21% – I have been here, it is beautiful and thought of living here. I live in Cold wintry Krakow, Poland now.

New Mexico     823,352       43.27% – Never been but a very exotic spiritual state.
California      12,442,626     34.72% – Nice state but very pricey.
Texas                7,781,211     34.63% – Too flat for me.
Arizona           1,608,698     28.03% – I am not a desert person.
Nevada                445,622     19.27% – Same as above
Florida            3,304,832     19.01% – I would consider living in Fl.

I guess my point is the warmest states in the USA  and this is a good reason why to  learn Spanish.

Future of Spanish in the United States

In the US it is the most commonly studied language in school of course. 53% of the people in the US study Spanish as their target foreign language, compared to the next biggest language French at about 15%.

There is no official language in the USA.  You can read my thoughts about this.

California is the only state that has official bill of rights for this language, while most states offer bilingual services. I think the US will without a doubt be a bilingual country. The reason is that generation after generation of Spanish people in the USA have limited English proficiency. I think the statistic is over 50% of the Spanish people living in the US including third generation people, do not speak English well at all and can barely read or write in English wow that surprised me.  But I live in Poland and meet many Americans in Europe who never ever will learn the language of the country they live in.  So I understand this.  Economic pursuit comes first, as it is often a matter of practicality.

There is a movement in the US for English as the official language, but this will not work as the Spanish population is reaching 20% in the US.  Therefore, politicians do not want to alienated this large minority. Like with all large demographic trends in the world there is no way you can get excited either way about it as they are such large scale changes in society that laws and politics will do nothing.  Rather, the best thing to do is just be an observer or arm chair philosopher.

Some people say that the south western region of the USA will break away someday. The rational is demographics and history. It use to be part of New Spain of course.  This is not true, there will be no civil war.  Hispanics in the USA are generally peaceful people with no great ambition for such things.  Rather they are more economically focused.  With free movement of labor and capital then there is not need to revolution.  The Americas will be like the EU.  Like the EU there will be a few languages represented in the USA.  It works in Europe and it will work in the USA.  That is the future of Spanish in the USA.

More pages which answer the question: How many Spanish speakers in the USA

“Spanish in the USA” -ericdigests.org/pre-9221/spanish.htm -Spanish language speakers in the USA

Spanish in the US -PBS is a little partial but a good article.

In the States its very trendy to accumulate more degrees and initials behind your name. It is education inflation.  Our fathers need a colleage degree now we need a masters and really some extra designations beyond that. Although it looks good on your CV, rarely will you use what you learn in ‘B’ school in real life, other than having an abstract conceptual model of the way markets work.  However, if you would rather focus on something that will pay and be useful in ways you will never expect, learn a language.
I do not have the statistics at my finger tips, however, in my opinion learning a language like Spanish is worth more than any MBA.  I am not impressed if someone tells me they are an MBA or a PhD, however, if they can speak Russian for example, then I am impressed. Schools are a business and turn out diplomas like a factory produces widgets. I know, because I have spent a fortune on education. However, my energies would have been better spend learning languages. Languages you can use your who life. The latest theories on derivatives models and inverse floaters (Wall street speak) you will not use when you are 84 years old. But you could use Spanish or Russian. With Russian you could become the entrepreneur that the business schools write about.

If you want to have a richer life, focus on language learning. Learning Polish changed my life more than any of my top University degrees.

Last night I went to ‘Havana Blues’ at the movies. I watched it in Spanish with Polish subtitles. The film was about two musicians in Havana.  A large part of the movie was music and singing in Spanish.  By the end of the movie I was able to learn a few spanish words, not as much from listening to Spanish, but by hearing the Spanish music lyrics, during the movie. If you have never tried to learn a language with music, you should. It is really one of the few magic bullets for learning a language.

Spanish characters

I was watching the film ‘Disturbia’ the other day, a pretty good film, low budget thriller.  Not only did the film start with a Spanish class scene but, they had noticeably Spanish actors as secondary characters.  I am not living in the states right now but the media, films and programs I watch here from America, I noticed an increase in Spanish language and culture scenes.

Proportional Spanish

I think at this juncture, however, Spanish culture is still disproportion ally under represented in American films, I think if anything there is a greater representation of Asian culture, for their demographics, perhaps because of the whole karate thing. I do not think there should be a conscious effort to change things, it’s just the movies, it is fun for all, but it’s just an observation.

Learn Spanish

One of the reasons I like to learn Love phrases in other languages is, you will use it. Guaranteed if you learn an another language you will use love phrases or at least the words associated with love phrases.

Love phrases in several languages

Most of the most famous love phrases can be translated to any language and used. For example if you learn Love phrases in French or Love phrases in Spanish you will be able to use them in English in translation.

And the converse is true, if you learn love phrases in English if you know a little Italian or French you can use those love phrases in these languages.

Love phrases in French, Love phrases in Spanish and more.

Learn Love phrases with my page or an with my language learning program, the easy way.

Easiest language

English- no cases, no gender, no word agreement, arguably no grammar. The language is everywhere and can be heard, absorbed and used anywhere.  Short words, verbs change only in the third person. Native speakers are very forgiving of mistakes as so many people speak it as a second language. This makes English the easiest foreign language to learn.

Easy to learn

Italian-No cases, easy clear pronunciation, vocabulary of derivative of Latin, therefore the vocabulary has congruencies through out the Indo-European Latin influenced world.

Spanish – similar to Italian in that the grammar and pronunciation is easy, also ubiquitous, everywhere, but Spanish people talk fast and you can get lost when trying to understand.

German- logical grammar but does have cases and long words as word building is important.

French – sixteen tenses and some grammar twist and a specific pronunciation that makes it a little harder the Spanish.

Esperanto – Although I respect the people who created this, I do not consider this a living language and should not be considered when ranking the Easiest language to learn.

This is in contrast to the hardest language to learn

Learn Spanish music lyrics

The reason music is so effective as a way to learn is simple, it is the rhythm.  When listening to music the rhythm somehow imprints the tones and words in your memory.  You can not listen to any music, the words need to match the rhythm in a specific way, and you will not only enjoy it but they will get stuck in your head. If you have a song with good Spanish music lyrics with rhythm it will help you learn Spanish

Spanish music lyrics program

I am writing a program that uses music and my own Spanish music lyrics to learn Spanish. It combines music and brainwaves.  Music is perhaps on the few magic bullets for learning a language. 

Spanish music lyrics and songs

Spanish music lyrics and songs can be found on the web.  One of the issues if you want to Learn Spanish and use lyrics and songs that already  exists is they are heavy on instrumentals and light on lyrics. Or the Spanish music lyrics are sometimes strange and not used in normal conversation.  In my program I tried to create songs that would be useful in normal conversation. Heavy on Spanish music lyrics and light on instrumental.  Further, the lyrics need to blend rhythm into the learning process, because a song is effective if the rhythm is part of the word so you brain recalls it.

You need to like the Spanish music lyrics

When you’re looking for Spanish lyrics make sure you like them.  Because if you are trying to learn Spanish with Spanish music lyrics, you need to listen to them over and over and you will only do that if you like the rhythm and the sound of the Spanish music lyrics.

Living in another country has made me aware a small annoyance.   I noticed when I go to rent a DVD at the local video store, I often give people the English Title translated into Polish for example (I live in Krakow).   The movie in English will be something like “What about Mary?”  I will translate this to Polish:  “A co z Marysią?”  However, the video store clerk will look at me like; I have no idea what movie you are talking about.  Finally we will find the Polish title.   In this case it was “Sposób na blondynkę” or in English, “How to win a blond” (literally translated “Way on blond”). 

It seems that at least in Polish, I do not know about other foreign languages the people who translate the movies rarely if ever give an exact translation on the English title.  Rather what they do is try to think what the movie is about and give a few word captions about the content of the movie instead of the original title.  The reason I do not like this is not only is it harder to find the movie, but there is a reason the movie has the title. It is usually metaphoric or abstract, rather than so concrete.  I am curious if this is the case in other languages, like Spanish or French.

The Mayans were the only perhaps the only indigenous peoples of the Americas that had a written language. And what it revealed was a powerful civilization marked my rituals and blood.

The Language

Mayan languages were written in the Maya hieroglyphic script. Some of the script were sounds and others words. The surviving body of written language consists of over 10,000 known individual Maya inscriptions. In addition there was a post colonial language written in the Latin alphabet and even a surviving Spanish Mayan dictionary. Therefore we have a rich understanding of the Mayan civilization through their written language.

What the Mayan language tells us

“Modern specialists have also been able to declassify Mayan calendars, as well astronomical data and the system of calculation – scientists were amazed to see how precise they were. One of the ancient calendars counted 18 months, 20 days each, 360 days in total, which were followed with five “unlucky” days. Specialists presumed that the Maya were a peace-loving nation that was spending the majority of their time looking up at the sky and watching stars. ”
I believe as we learn more about the Mayans though their language they will continue to fascinate us.

Trends in business and demographics is like global warming, often there is little that can be done to reverse these trends. So is the case with the English language. “English has already invaded the languages of Moliere, Cervantes and Goethe, dominating the fields of technology and business and even taking some native tongues hostage.But purists are fighting back as hybrids such as “surfen” and “downloaden” on the Internet, “emailear” and style terms “looke” or “gestyled” show the creeping advance of English.Spanglish, Franglais or even Denglish, a mix of Deutsch (German) and English, are prompting a backlash, with a call to arms in some European countries for protective measures or new policies.”

English the new world language

I do not think there can be anything we can do about such trends, its really not that English is taking over, rather I think eventually the world will speak one language, with other languages existing but most people speaking one for business and one at home, that language could be English or Spanish or Chinese, we do not know. Look at the USA, the same argument is being made but the language that is invading, for good or bad, is Spanish.