Fenix Language Institute Zacatecas
Articles
Learn Mexican Spanish?
That Mexico and the United States share such a long border as neighboring countries has clearly created a need for many Mexicans to learn American English, and equally for large numbers of American citizens to learn Mexican Spanish. In his book “Distant Neighbors,”
Alan Riding, New York Times correspondent in Mexico for many years, notes: “Probably nowhere in the world do two countries as different as Mexico and the United States live side by side.”
This situation has almost inevitably led to very substantial migration from Mexico to the U.S., resulting in significant linguistic impacts both of English on Spanish and, in turn, Spanish on English in the respective countries. We should therefore consider the following factors which further intensify these mutual effects.
At present Hispanics are the largest minority in the United States, and the Mexican U.S. population constitutes a majority of that minority. While this fact in and of itself suggests the importance of Mexican Spanish within the U.S. context, its relevance becomes even more important when we consider that the two countries share a border of over 3,000 kilometers, a fact which has produced, historically, a grand social, economic, political and communications dynamic which continues today. Mexican imports from and exports to the United States have historically represented approximately 80% of Mexico´s foreign trade, meaning that the U.S. is by far Mexico´s largest trading partner in the world. And further, U.S. investment activity in Mexico has always been very high, again because of the geographic proximity of the two countries.
Finally, regardless of the degree to which the Latin American countries vary among themselves, Mexico is highly representative of Latin America overall, and in many cases it is the port of entry for the supply of goods and services from other countries in the Americas to the United States.
So—learn Spanish in Latin America because it is the Spanish of this continent. And learn Mexican Spanish because it is the Spanish closest to you geographically, and most intertwined in the shared life of our two countries.
Learn Spanish: Regular program or Virtual Classroom?
To learn more about Alan Riding:
http://andtheshowwenton.com/alan_riding.html
To learn more about the relations between Mexico and the United States:
http://usforeignpolicy.about.com/od/countryprof4/p/usmexico.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_relations
