#multingualism
Our language affects what we see and how we process that information. The grammar and vocabulary of each language instills in its speakers a particular way of looking at the world. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis, proposes that the particular language one speaks influences the way one thinks about reality. How does that influence work?
If we consider the number of speakers, English is today the most spoken language in the world, with 1.5 billion people who speak it natively or as a second language. In this list, Spanish appears as fourth, with 548.3 million speakers. Likewise, the language of Cervantes is the second most common language in the United States, with more than 40 million speakers.
In the last decade, the number of Spanish speakers worldwide has increased by 30%, while the number of students studying Spanish as a second language has grown by 60%. Is Spanish a difficult language to learn?