The Lure Guide Center

It’s quiet in the house as I sit down to an early breakfast watching the TV news, a favorite book readied by me side for the commercials. A faint noise from above and a slithery sound on the stairs sibnals the premature arrival of my spouse, ready to do battle. ‘Good mornings’ are followed by a crashing a cacophony from the direction of the dishwasher which is being emptied. Then sink sounds plow through the air to my sensitive ears, completely covering the breaking news. the message in this performance is that there is a lot of work to do today and I had beter help her do it. I counter by mentioning al the things I had already performed to no avail. I suggest that she make out a list of projects waiting to be done but get only a long harangue on how the last list she made twenty years ago was half crossed off and the other half ignored. What a memory!

I have become adept at pattering on conversationally to a stony face and buttoned lips. The meaning contained in this feminine language translates that I have said or done something completely unsympathetic or have not done something supportive to her cause. I usually try to jump over this lack of communication by announcing the start of a new project dear to her heart, hoping that the real cause of her silence will reveal itself.

An offer to go shopping with her brings on a instant happy response, in spite of the knowledge of my notoriously short attention span toward women’s clothes and household knickknacks. She drags me through the stores looking for bargains, exchanging the items she bought last week for new ones. She asks my opinion on wall sconces, sweater sets, cooking pots, flower arrangements and glassware. My priorities are strictly based on function and quality. Her priorities are exact matching shades of color, how it will fit in with the other ten thousand knickknacks, and whether the store will take it back.

Soon I find myself three steps behind, finding places to sit down, getting into conversations with the sales people and mimicking E.T. saying “Home”. A remark that she never goes shopping with me to Sears Hardware or Crazy Max’s Electronic Wonderland is met with a blank stare, a half smile, and a look that means an out-of-hand dismissal of the idea. The only saving of the day is a nice coffee and yogurt break in the middle.

Through all the variations of meaningful looks, reminders of past mistakes and silent treatments, the expression I see on her face of pure happiness when presented with an unexpected bouquet of flowers or a needed chore done while she was last minute food shopping for guests makes her secret language all worth while.

Next year we’ll be married for 40 years. I’ve been in love with the same woman all that time. No, not great - if my wife finds out, she’ll kill me. Just kidding. LOL

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Today I would like to write about a recurrent question I get in my website from many different users worldwide. They hear time and again of the importance of speaking Spanish fluently to be prepared. What they should they be prepared for? Many already know the answer to this, namely businessmen, men of vision and professionals in specific fields. However, some users still do not see why they should learn to speak Spanish.

And it may be true. Some people may not think of this language as so important to their immediate reality right now. After all, they get by using their native language or maybe a second language and they are quite successful in their lives and careers even without knowing how to say “hello” in Spanish. I fully understand their feeling. When I was a child, back home in Argentina, for many people, learning English was regarded as something “important” for the future, but not “essential” or requiring immediate attention.

Around 30 years ago, many of my friends’s parents had that idea and decided not to send their young children to learn the language. After all, they would say, “everyone speaks Spanish here. And English, well, it’s okay if you are planning to travel but that is not in our minds for a long, long time. It may never happen.”

And they were right at that moment, they did NOT need it for their immediate communicative purposes. However, in less than 3 decades the global picture has changed dramatically. Globalization has become parts of our lives; English has become the lingua-franca of the moment, followed closely by Spanish.

Most of my childhood friends graduated from pretigious universities, got very good jobs and have been quite successful so far. However, the fact that many of them did not have a good command of English has closed many doors right in front of their faces, caused lots of frustration to them and prevented them from reaching hierarchical positions within their companies for a very long time_many still haven’t and have had to put up with seeing some peers as qualified as they are rise faster in the company just for having an outstanding command of the English language Some of them could not progress professionally until they decided to take the bull by its horns and start to study the language.

Nowadays it is impossible to imagine worldwide communications and business transactions without English, just as it was over 30 years ago (in Argentina and many other countries) for many people to envision a world in which English would be not a commodity but a necessity. The mere idea of it would seem ludicrous.

At present, again, we are surrounded by world facts and trends that are just screaming in front of our faces, just as it was the case with my friends’s parents over 30 years ago. The cold facts clearly show that English as a language for international communications is followed closely by Spanish, and choosing not to consider this fact could be something we may regret in the not so distant future.

“When there is smoke, there is fire,” they say. Let’s see some facts that will hopefully show you why learning Spanish is important for you TODAY.

* Over 500 million people speak Spanish - How many doors could this fact alone open to you? How many more employment options?

* At the end of the 19th century, 60 million people were Spanish speakers. Today, nearly 500 million people across the world speak Spanish!

* Spanish is the second most used language in international communication.

* The Hispanic population in the USA has grown by 60% in just one decade.

* Latin American countries are showing strong economic growth,making them potentially major commercial partners.

* Estimates indicate that by the year 2015 the United States of America will be the largest Spanish speaking country in the world!

* The 39 million Hispanics currently living in the USA represent 12.5% of the total population. Estimates also indicate that by the year 2010 the hispanic population in the US will be the largest minority group.

As we have seen, Spanish is not only an interesting and culturally rich language to learn, it is THE language to learn.
It is always wise to plan ahead in order not to miss or see how opportunities pass by without being able to do anything about it.
“When there is smoke, there is fire.” Will you be ready to tackle the fire when it reaches your area? The answer is up to you!

Julio Foppoli is a teacher of English as a Second Language, teacher of Spanish as a Second Language. He is also the creator and owner of http://www.esaudio.net/Spanish, an online educational website with a technological edge, specialized in the teaching of Spanish as second language via audio-conference to native speakers of English from all over the world.

The website offers free listening comprehension activities with Spanish from all of the Spanish speaking world.

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