Exploding Hispanic Population Creates Record Sales Of Spanish Courses.
October 16, 2004
Spanish CD and book courses are selling like hotcakes at the nation’s bookstores and on the Internet and there’s no sign that demand will be slowing down anytime soon. Why the sudden love affair with Espanol? According to language expert Mark Frobose, best-selling author of “Behind the Wheel Spanish,” this buying passion can be traced to one major source: the exploding Hispanic population in the U.S.
“Hispanics now constitute our nation’s largest and fastest growing minority,” said Frobose in a recent interview with Carlota Bradley of AP Network News in Washington D.C. “Hispanics turned out in record numbers in the recent presidential election and are now influencing our music, our cuisine, our economy, our politics, and even our language. Translation: Learning Spanish has never been more important for the average American.”
And what about learning English? Frobose states that Spanish-speaking immigrants are indeed learning English but that their numbers are so great that not even our large society can assimilate them quickly enough to avoid a linguistic traffic jam. “This huge and mostly Spanish-speaking community presents an enormous challenge and opportunity to the individual who is fluent in both Spanish and English,” adds Frobose, author of Amazon.com’s best-selling “Behind the Wheel Spanish,” “Conversational Spanish in Nothing Flat,” and “Speed Spanish.”
Translation companies are reporting a record demand for their services and most privately owned businesses and even government agencies admit to giving preference to applicants who can speak both Spanish and English. Business owners, supervisors, and employees from all walks of life complain that knowing how to speak at least some Spanish would help them enormously in both their careers and their leisure time.