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Spanish as the 'Second most studied foreign language after English'

Some of your references state the contrary : "Los más estudiados hoy, por este orden, son el inglés, el francés, el español y el alemán." And that is an extract of a report from the Cervantes Institute, which promotes Spanish internationally (as you may guess, it is not biased in favor of French language).

French keeps being the second most studied foreign language in the world nowadays (see for instance). Please correct that factual error. Thank you.

--193.51.4.219 (talk) 15:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

French keeps being the second most studied foreign language in the world nowadays, French second language in international communication, after English, in the world! Counny (talk) 15:16, 14 June 2012 (CEST)

The cited references clearly support Spanish as being second most. If you wish to label it as third, then you would need to do more research with reliable references to support your claim. Otherwise, reverting is improper behavior. Whatever the reliable references support is what the article should reflect, not what you or I wish it to say. That's how we approach WP:NPOV. See also WP:V. - Taxman 16:04, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

It is lived as a tragedy by many Frech people the fact that English surpassed French as the international language during the 20th century and now Spanish is doing the same. It is a shame, maybe. I myself speak French and find it a beautiful language. The US is a dramatic example of the switch from Studying French to Spanish in the latest decades. John. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.32.244.73 (talk) 17:31, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

People consult an encyclopedia for facts, not opinions. In the statement about the ranking of Spanish among world languages, the word "arguably" is a signal that the statement is not firmly supported by facts. Another signal is that 3 of the 4 cited sources are boosters with a vested interest in promoting Spanish:

• A university language department promoting its product. No basis given for the statement. Delete.
• Also a boosterist source, but at least it cites a speech by director of Instituto Cervantes.
• Also a booster, but, even better, names the source person, "la directora del Instituto Cervantes, Carmen Caffarel".
• A newspaper, the only ostensibly neutral source of the four, but no basis given for the statement.

If someone could at least find and cite the original report by Caffarel, that would be an improvement. An even greater improvement would be to cite an _disinterested_ source.

Please, either back the statement with unbiased data (and delete "arguably"), or delete the statement.

This question in particular needs better support, since it is obviously an emotional issue. Kotabatubara (talk) 19:58, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

French is just too hard to learn by average people (I became furious with my father when he chose it instead of English as his third language – what kind of Brazilian doesn't speak Spanish in an at least intermediate level? LOL – in 2009, oh that old anti-American commie). West Iberian languages are just a bit more complicated than English. Furthermore, there is way more Spanish-speaking people in the world. Outside West Africa and a part of Western Europe, French won't help you in countries highly visible in the tourism industry and/or with big, emerging economies that also happen to be mostly populated by individuals not very good with English (everyday I remember unadvised English-speaking people raging in Rio de Janeiro because of our general lack of anything other than portunhol and bad pidgin... And we're in the top 5 of Latin American global cities as well #1 tourist destination).

Nowadays, French is useful if you intend to immigrate, more like an Italian that had success in expanding itself to a place other than Europe, apart of its large cultural heritage due to its dominance for such a long time... and just it. Not even for tourism it is necessary, as you can well survive two or three months in France with English plus portuñol.

I know I am naturally biased, but Portuguese would be an actual awesome choice. If you speak Portuguese, you naturally has knowledge in Spanish, though the reverse is everything but true. Also, nothing against the hermanos or their language, but most people like more the flavor of ours... their biggest novelist and poet said it was the sweet one. Just kidding! Lguipontes (talk) 22:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Lguipontes, you are right. I live close to the Portuguese border in Spain and virtually all Portuguese people understand and speak Spanish relatively well. In fact, we all know that both languages are extremely similar (in fact I doubt that there are other two languages in the world that are more similar) but the sound system of Portuguese somehow makes it easier for Portuguese speaking people to understand Spanish than vice-versa. I often point out this interesting fact but a lot of ignorant people try often to downplay this fact. Why? Probably because Portuguese is Spoken by more than 200 million people and adding it up to Spanish results in a linguistic community of mor than 600 million speakers. You and millions of Portuguese speaking people know that this is a fact. I, who also speak Portuguese, know that this is a fact. Who else knows or ignores it? You can actually either learn Portuguese or Spanish and you will have access to a huge pan-Iberian linguistic community of more than 600 million people over huge territories, but it is true that it will be easier if you learn Portuguese first. Pipo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.203.72 (talk) 03:52, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

in fact I doubt that there are other two languages in the world that are more similar Heh. How about Russian and Ukrainian, for instance? Or, to remain in the region, Portuguese and Asturian/Leonese (to say nothing of Portuguese and Galician, though this case is questionable as Galician is closer to Northern Portuguese than Standard Portuguese is). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Galician and Portuguese are virtually the same language. About Russian and Ukranian I do not know, but if they are so similar as Spanish and Portuguese or more, then they are very similar indeed! Pipo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.97.65 (talk) 02:01, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

New interesting book that maybe useful for artile.

New interesting book on Spanish.

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Spanish-Jean-Benoit-Nadeau/dp/0312656025/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370131820&sr=1-1&keywords=the+story+of+spanish

Cut and pasted from introduction:

Just how did a dialect spoken by a handful of shepherds in Northern Spain become the world’s second most spoken language, the official language of twenty-one countries on two continents, and the unofficial second language of the United States? Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, the husband-and-wife team who chronicled the history of the French language in The Story of French, now look at the roots and spread of modern Spanish. Full of surprises and honed in Nadeau and Barlow’s trademark style, combining personal anecdote, reflections, and deep research, The Story of Spanish is the first full biography of a language that shaped the world we know, and the only global language with two names—Spanish and Castilian.

The story starts when the ancient Phoenicians set their sights on “The Land of the Rabbits,” Spain’s original name, which the Romans pronounced as Hispania. The Spanish language would pick up bits of Germanic culture, a lot of Arabic, and even some French on its way to taking modern form just as it was about to colonize a New World. Through characters like Queen Isabella, Christopher Columbus, Cervantes, and Goya, The Story of Spanish shows how Spain’s Golden Age, the Mexican Miracle, and the Latin American Boom helped shape the destiny of the language. Other, more somber episodes, also contributed, like the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion of Spain’s Jews, the destruction of native cultures, the political instability in Latin America, and the dictatorship of Franco.

The Story of Spanish shows there is much more to Spanish than tacos, flamenco, and bullfighting. It explains how the United States developed its Hispanic personality from the time of the Spanish conquistadors to Latin American immigration and telenovelas. It also makes clear how fundamentally Spanish many American cultural artifacts and customs actually are, including the dollar sign, barbecues, ranching, and cowboy culture. The authors give us a passionate and intriguing chronicle of a vibrant language that thrived through conquests and setbacks to become the tongue of Pedro Almodóvar and Gabriel García Márquez, of tango and ballroom dancing, of millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.97.65 (talk) 00:17, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure there's a lot of good stuff in this book, but no way for the naive reader to distinguish the good stuff from the erroneous stuff. I read it to about p. 24 and gave up in disgust. For a nitpicking reader like me, there were too many wrong statements about phonetics, mixups of Spanish words with Latin ones, etc. Even the chemistry is sloppy: on page 12 it refers to the Río Tinto in Spain as having "a very high pH level". I got suspicious and looked up Río Tinto in Misplaced Pages. Sure enough, it remarks on the acidity (pH 2) of the river (high acidity = low pH). I wrote a letter to St. Martin's Press, urging them to edit more carefully. Any information you get from this book, I urge you to verify in sources written by experts, not by popularizers. Kotabatubara (talk) 01:54, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

.

How can be spanish de jure in spain?????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.182.141.243 (talk) 15:03, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

De jure means that it is has legal status as official language established in the constitution. However it is not the only official language as regional languages (basque, catalan, galician. asturian, leonese etc.) have coofficial status in their regions. Indeed in some regions administration is carried out mostly in regional languages. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:17, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Rampant OR

The table in section 5.5 "Spanish speakers by country" contains some of the worst OR violations I've ever seen in an article of this kind. The table seems fine for the countries where Spanish is an official language, as everything is sourced. For most of the countries, the table is a complete mess. There are many countries for which no source at all is given for the number of supposed Spanish speakers. Even for the countries with some source or another, there is never any source for the percentage. Apparently someone took a population figure from one source, then a number for Spanish speakers from a different source and proceeded to calculate the percentage themselves, apparently not aware that that is a clear breach of OR. I have removed the countries for which not all data can be sourced. Massive OR violations of this kind is usually only found in minor articles that few people read, I was amazed to find them here.Jeppiz (talk) 21:09, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not questioning your action on the table, but, um, could you say what "OR" is, for a few of us who don't know? Kotabatubara (talk) 01:44, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

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