Advantages and Disadvantages of Learning Spanish in India 2022

Back in 2019, I wanted to get a greater perspective on the political world and sports (especially football), and no other language could help me better achieve it except Spanish. So, I decided to learn Spanish.

Before I actually started learning it, Just like you, even I had many doubts about the benefits and the disadvantages of investing so much of my time and effort into learning a language that is completely foreign to us Indians.

While learning Spanish as an Indian, I’ve also faced a set of challenges and learned from a few experiences along the way.

In this article, I have mentioned all of those advantages, disadvantages along with a few of my experiences.

So, if you are really serious about learning Spanish, read this article until the very end

¡vamonos!

10 Advantages of Learning Spanish in India

Learning a language that is identified by 20 countries and over 50 crore people as their official language obviously has a lot of advantages. Some of them include:

1. Career opportunities after learning the Spanish language in India

This is, by far, the biggest advantage that motivates a lot of Indians to learn Spanish. As I’ve already mentioned before, Spanish is a global language.

And there aren’t a lot of Indians who can speak Spanish, so there are a ton of career opportunities for the ones who do, due to the lack of competition in this field. I’ve mentioned some of the most popular ones with a brief explanation down below:

Read also: This guide can help you to standout at your new job.

#. Employment in BPO, KPO, IT, Call Centers & MNC:

Spanish is considered the second most important language in the BPO industry, after English, of course. Many of the big MNCs in India and abroad have a huge number of Spanish-speaking clients. And these are constantly on the lookout for Spanish experts who can professionally converse with their Spanish clients abroad.

And as I’ve already mentioned before, the competition in this space is a lot less fierce when compared to English.

#. Job as a Teacher, Trainer, and Lecturer

Just Like you, many other people want to learn Spanish in India and abroad. And that creates thousands of job opportunities for you as a teacher if you manage to reach an expert level in Spanish.

Not just that, many Spanish speakers around the globe are looking to learn English, and some of them are also looking to learn some of the Indian languages.

With the rise of platforms like zoom and Google meet over the past couple of years, this teaching option has become a lot more viable.

2. Better opportunities for higher education

Spanish can play a major role in your education as well, especially if you are planning to move to the US for higher studies. Spanish is the second most popular language in the US, with over 40 million native speakers and the majority of them residing in the south.

As a result, many of the southern universities there prefer admitting international students who can speak Spanish over those who don’t.

3. Spanish Openings in Foreign embassies

Foreign embassies in India hire local people who can speak Spanish. As I’ve already mentioned before, Spanish is the official language of more than 20 countries. If you are fluent in Spanish, you can basically apply for a job in 20+ embassies across India.

Not just that, Indian embassies abroad also hire only those people who can speak the local language. Apart from Spanish, if you have any other educational qualifications and skills like management, finance, IT, marketing, etc., there are only a few jobs in India that are more lucrative than this.

The ones mentioned above are just the most common career opportunities for Spanish speakers in India. In this age of increasing globalization, there are thousands of new jobs created every day.

4. Travel through foreign countries more easily

Spanish-speaking people populate some of the most fantastic destinations in the world. For example, Spain has the second most number of UNESCO world heritage sites; Columbia has some of the best beaches in the world; Panama has the Panama canal, and so on.

Although you can visit countries like Mexico, Spain, Puerto Rico, el Salvador where you can easily travel without knowing the local language, there are many other Spanish-speaking countries in South America like Chile, Argentina, where English is not at all spoken. You might face a lot of problems while trying to exchange even the most basic sentences.

And even if you hire a local guide/translator, knowing the local language helps you speak and meet with new people and makes the entire experience a lot better.

5. Very easy to learn for English speakers:

For Indian English speakers like us, Spanish is one of the easiest foreign languages to learn, if not THE easiest. Unlike Chinese, Japanese or Russian, it doesn’t have a different alphabet. Unlike French or German, it doesn’t involve incredibly tricky spellings and pronunciations.

Spanish is a completely phonetic language. You can tell exactly how the words are pronounced by just looking at their spellings. You might face a few difficulties with the grammar and syntax of a lot of sentences, as they’re a bit different from English, but with a little extra effort, it will not take you more than a week to master it.

6. It makes it easier for you to learn other European Languages:

Spanish is one of the five “Romance” languages. The other four languages are French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. All of these five languages have originated from Latin that was once spoken in ancient Rome. These languages are deeply connected and are VERY similar to each other.

If you already speak any one of these romance languages, learning any one of the other four is going to be a piece of cake. And Spanish, as I’ve already said, is by far the easiest of these and the best one to start with.

Suppose you want to gain a deeper understanding of learning foreign languages. Make sure to read our article about the advantages and disadvantages of learning a foreign language.

7. It gives you access to amazing Latino songs and movies 

If you are into watching web series, movies, or listening to songs, then you probably must have heard about shows like money heist, narcos, and el Chapo and Latino songs like Balando and Despacito.

And if you have ever watched a dubbed/ subbed version of a movie/ TV show of a language that you already know, you’d realize that it’s nowhere near the same as watching the original version of the movie while understanding its native language.

In fact, listening to Latino music is the primary reason among a lot of foreigners to start learning Spanish.

Disadvantages of Learning Spanish in India

Learning Spanish also has a set of disadvantages.

In the next part of the article, along with the disadvantages, we’ve also mentioned a few practices that helped me minimize these disadvantages. You can also enhance your learning experience and increase your learning speed by incorporating these practices into your learning process.

1. No People to practice with

This disadvantage specifically applies to us Indians and other people who live in the sub-continent. Irrespective of how easy or difficult a particular language is, it cannot be spoken fluently without constant practice with native or bilingual speakers.

And just like every other person who has ever attempted to learn a foreign language in India, I have also discovered that it was impossible to find someone around me with whom I can converse and implement what I’ve learned so far. And this problem completely halted my progress.

You can solve this by watching a lot of Spanish movies and TV shows, listening to podcasts/watching live streams, and trying to meet some native speakers on gaming servers like discord.

There are also multiple sites clic.com that will allow you to hire an online teacher who will converse with you and rectify your mistakes along the way. This will exponentially increase your language learning process.

And if you cannot afford to hire an online teacher, you can use free apps like hello talk that will help you meet and connect you with many other Spanish learners who are looking to improve their skills, just like you.

2. Learning Spanish could be expensive.

The best way to learn a language is to hire a professional teacher who is also a native speaker. But it’s also very expensive.

A large majority of Indian students who are still in school/college cannot afford a foreign teacher. And it’s one of the biggest downsides of learning any European language in India.

But this isn’t much of a problem to worry about as there are many free apps like duo lingo, and there are many free courses available on YouTube that will help you learn almost all languages.

But these learning methods aren’t as closely as effective and efficient as personally learning from a professional.

Conclusion

Spanish is one of the most beautiful languages in the world with a millions of speakers and a ton of advantages and a few disadvantages. It is easy to learn and can offer you the best entry point into learning other foreign languages. Although it might get a bit challenging in the beginning, it is definitely worth the pain.

Adios Amigos!

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