As Bad Bunny showed at the Super Bowl, español is the coming thing. No wonder it’s now the top GCSE language choice
“N
ow, Gary, repeat after me: Quiero una margarita, por favor,” my Spanish tutor instructs. I cringe at the butchered Spanglish my estuary accent produces. Like Del Boy Trotter ordering a cocktail: “Key – yeah – row oon margari’a, pour far four.”
It’s 2023, I’m 41, living in Argentina and battling the frustration and disempowerment of learning a new language at this age, longing for my elastic 11-year-old brain over this husked-out mush. I’m also wishing, for the umpteenth time, that I was taught Spanish instead of French at school.
Not to throw shade on French: it’s a beautiful language, and I studied it until my first year at university. I even worked in Nice for three summers. But Spanish would have really set me up for life – and that is even more true for today’s students. Yet we are still teaching far more of our youngest students French than Spanish. It’s outdated. Partly, it’s a simple numbers game. Spanish is the world’s second-most-spoken first language – 484 million speakers. French is 22nd, with just 74 million native speakers. Spanish wipes the floor with French for overall speakers, too.
