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My cofounder thinks we need to speak fluent Spanish. I'm not so sure. Thoughts?
My best friend and I were lucky enough to have met a business owner during our past work experience, who resides in a Latin-American country, that one day decided he would like to start a software company in his industry. So we packed our bags and relocated down south to join him. This gentleman happens to speak perfect English and the majority of his staff speaks English as well. Our company has also grown to 5 full-time employees and we all speak English. Not to mention all of our client contacts speak English and maybe a few of their employees. Even though we occasionally have to do business in Spanish (contracts, training, etc.), we have specialized contractors that perform those tasks for us or our on-staff language specialist performs the translations.
Now my cofounder thinks that we should focus our energy learning to speak fluent Spanish because "we made the choice to do business in Latin-America and no business owner who cares about their company would choose to ignore the dominant language." I make the point that the time would be better spent on improving our products and advancing our own knowledge in the areas we operate. Not that I'm advocating to ignore the dominant language as we should learn enough Spanish to get around and we have at this point. But I mean we're barely getting started, have more interest than we can manage and features that will take us years to build out. Am I way off base in my thoughts here?
- pseingatl 13y agoYou can purchase the Michel Thomas cd's and go from there. An hour per day, even a half hour while communicating will yield good results. The journey to fluency is a long one. But if you stay in Latin America there will be great rewards from being at least conversationally fluent, which is a matter of say, 2000 words. The grammar is not that difficult and there are many cognates. Spanish starts out relatively easy compared to non-European languages but it has extraordinary subtleties. It would be ridiculous not to at least try.
- erdaypixelin 13y agoThanks for bringing Michel Thomas to my attention. I had never heard of him before but a quick Google search has got me interested. I actually picked up Rosetta Stone and use it regularly. Although, I'm learning more from just attempting to have conversation. We make out pretty well but definitely can't say anything outside the present tense. And that's where my buddy is going with all this.
- emilga 13y agoYou might also want to check out the FSI Language Courses [0]. The "Basic" course is probably the one you want. Good luck! [0] http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Spanish http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Spanish
- erdaypixelin 13y agoThank you :) This is a great resource.
- andymoe 13y agoI think you are both right. Learning spanish will be good for business but at the same time will take a long time and could be a distraction. Perhaps don't make it a requirement but offer to pay for spanish lessons for yourself and staff to encourage this. My father had a friend from college who moved to Spain in the early 80's and married. I went to visit him a few years ago when I made a trip to Madrid and I ask how he learned the language since I never successfully did. His response was basically that he had no choice if he did not want to get screwed in business and he did much better after becoming fluent.
- erdaypixelin 13y agoThere's a great deal of insight there. We have definitely run into trouble because we lacked understanding of the language but, more importantly, we lacked understanding of the laws and regulations involved in operating a business here as well. We're definitely learning the hard way but I believe that we need these experiences to improve the way we operate. Especially since we plan to grow into new markets. Even those outside Latin-America. I can only imagine how many languages I will need to learn fluently to be considered a serious business owner then. :(
- sheepdestroyer 13y agoHow many languages do you speak? If just one, isn't that a bit limited? Anyway learning languages, moreover if it can be useful in your business, should be a no-brainer. Even only for your personal bettering would be worth it.
- erdaypixelin 13y agoAt this point I'm only fluent in 1 language; English. I would say I'm conversational in Spanish and introductory in German and Italian. It's actually easier for me to write than it is to speak new languages, oddly enough.
- lauradhamilton 13y agoI would take a Spanish class on the side and focus your hiring efforts on bilingual people. I certainly don't think that learning Spanish is your #1 priority.