Can you believe I’ve been studying Spanish off and on since high school and still can’t hold my own in conversation? Pathetic, I know. I decided this would be the year I get serious; this will be the year I travel to a country with even more Spanish speakers than the United States (which, according to the 2000 Census has approximately 28 million people who speak the language). In high school I studied a bit French, last year I took a few weeks of German, and for brief moment in time I was even a linguistics major. As this is the year I’ll become at least conversational in Spanish, I wanted to see how many of you I could persuade to join me in my endeavor to learn a second- or even third-language. Studies have shown that having a work-out partner helps people to work out consistently; using my powers of extrapolation, I’ve deduced that learning a language with someone will also help you to stay motivated.

The following are my top 6 reasons you should start learning another language this year:

1. Knowing a language other than English will give you added credibility with employers who are seeking truly global candidates for their top jobs. If an employer is looking to promote someone into a new position in another country, it’s likely that they’ll pick a current employee who speaks the language of that company to be a part of the initial group that moves overseas. Shouldn’t that pick be you?

2. You will be able to communicate with billions more people all across the planet. Sure, English is one of the top 5 languages spoken around the world. But there are 3 times as many people who speak Mandarin Chines as the number who speak English. There are over a hundred million people who speak Spanish, Portuguese and Russian. If you are even traveling in a place where a common language besides English is spoken, don’t you think it would be nice to chat it up with the locals?

3. People who who are multilingual are perceived as being more intelligent than those who only speak one language. I don’t know about you, but I want to look like a cultured, smarty-pants.

4. There are men all over the world who would happily date, mate and relate to beautiful, black woman such as yourself. Oneika, of Oneika the Traveller blog fame, has said,–and I quote–” you know foreign rainbeaus love us sistas”. Oneika has been all over the world and has a hot boyfriend, therefore you can trust that she speaks truth.

5. You can move to a country with millions of Spanish speaking men and meet up with one of those Antonio’s that Christelyn keeps featuring as a Hottie of the Week.

For those of you who already speak more than one language, what languages do you speak? When did you start learning your second (or third, or fourth) language? Any tips for us new-language newbies on picking up a language fast and easy?