Here's another example:

You work at a company who gets its manufacturing/customer service/etc unit outsourced to Mexico or Colombia for cheaper labor. If all of their labor now comes from Spanish-speaking countries, guess which executives they keep?? Wow, the ones who speak Spanish.

Or, their managers can speak Spanish, and they report to the executives who don't.

I hate you Pedro

Don't Vote for Pedro;)

If those people spoke English, then you wouldn't need to learn Spanish. :)

And I have an ingenious plan. The government provides funding to General Motors and Ford to build transport vehicles and rounds up as many illegals as it can find and dumps them in Alaska. Those hombres will be so confused at what just happened and will learn their lesson. It's not like just sending them back home because that's nothing. Or we could transport them to fight in Iraq. Imagine that - we get more troops to fight in Iraq instead of Americans, solve the illegal immigrant issue and also help some American companies in the process.

-Rudey

As Kathy posted, reading, writing, and speaking Spanish can really help a career in NYC and possibly many metropolitan areas. I know so many people who are bilingual or multilingual, and it certainly hasn't hurt their careers. I think that it's great that you plan to teach your children Spanish. I wish that I could speak Spanish especially since so many people in NY do.

I wish I could learn to communicate with rats and roaches because there are so many in NYC. What's wrong with that?

-Rudey
--I'm normal damn it!

Hmmm....compulsory military service for all illegals, upon completion they could be given green cards to be legal. It's a good idea, but ........

You guys are all fools for wanting to learn Spanish. Wake up to the world people, Chinese is the way to go! A lot more jobs are going over to Asia than to Spanish speaking countries anyway. So if your "reason" for learning Spanish is based on the world economy, I suggest looking into Mandarin Chinese.

I myself would like to learn, but I have really bad script and fear that I would crash and burn if I took a course.

Rudey, you're not normal damn it, but you are pretty funny. ;)

You should rent the movie Ben which is a movie about rats, or you can sing that Michael Jackson song Ben now. :)

I'm not talking about speaking the language of our economic peers. I'm talking about many major US companies having large business units in Spanish speaking countries. I'm talking about business opportunities here in the US where Spanish would be extremely beneficial. Or, if you take a job overseas with a US company, the life of an expat is generally pretty nice! :cool:

And, PNC, you had me cracking up at my desk about the song!!! :D

IIRC, this is exactly how it worked at Ellis Island for quite a while - 1 in every x off the boat were shipped to fight.

Also - it's completely tautological to say "Learning a second language can help your career" - that's essentially saying "Additional skills make you employable." This does not, in any way, add to any argument on this point (or any point relating to immigration, for that matter) - for every example relating to Spanish, we could switch it to any other language and it would still be correct.

I think that if you work in a customer-oriented business in certain metropolitan areas that it's a big plus to know Spanish. However, it's an even bigger plus to know English. I live in a very Hispanic neighborhood where many people first settle to after they come here from Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic. Since a lot of people in the neighborhood speak Spanish, a few business owners will hire immigrants to get them their first jobs and help them out. The supermarket by my house is one such place. I don't speak Spanish. One day I went there to buy some random groceries. The checkout girl says the total to me in Spanish. I tell her "no comprende Espanol" which is some of the few Spanish that I know. She couldn't even say it in English. I had to go in that little booth thing and see how much it was for myself. I'm sorry but if you work in an area where you're constantly dealing with clients, you should have to be required to speak English.

And many major US companies have large business units in China, Japan, Germany,........

I have not had one job interview where my knowledge of French had any influence on whether or not I got the job - there is no French market in Charlotte, NC. I have had at least 4 job interviews that my Spanish skills pushed me over the top and I got the job. Not all languages are equally "employable" in the job market.