SPANISH is one of the official languages of the United Nations because it is the official language of 25 countries which are members of the United Nations. Both its spoken and written forms are used by 400 million people all over the globe. Its written form follows the Roman alphabet, Roman being the antique parent language of the Spanish vernacular. That’s because Spain is largely influenced by Rome during the medieval times of the Crusades. Spanish is the official language of such countries as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, Venezuela, Andorra, Belize and Gibraltar.
Hispanics make up the most of the minority in the United States and because of this; Fortune 500 companies have adopted Spanish-speaking programs in their respective corporate environments. More than 3/4s of Hispanics in this country speak both English and Spanish. Some are native Americans, others come from Puerto Rico, others come from Mexico with Ciudad Juarez a stone’s throw away from El Paso and others come from Cuba. The Cuban Americans are a curious pack because they cross here illegally and have ultimately embraced the American culture.

With their immense numbers, Spanish speaking people translate into large numbers. It is at this reason that these helpful and practical tips in communicating to a Spanish speaking person both in writing and in talking can best be used. It is suggested that Fortune 500 companies should invest heavily in training their non-Spanish staff to be fluent in the language. This is especially true for those companies which are heavily relying on customers to retain their business. Among these businesses are Sprint, T Mobile, Palm, Sony, Microsoft, EarthLink, Direct TV, SBC, Yahoo!, Dell, Hewlett Packard and everything else in between. Their customer service people must know how to be bilingual just in case someone on the line calls their toll-free number for English-speaking people. They usually call this number because they know perfect English but when they switch to Spanish because of poor performance of the company’s products and services. By this time, the customer service staff on the other end is at a loss if he or she has not received prior training in the Spanish language. This training is ideal for people who are at the front lines in entertaining customers both handling sales, technical support and billing.

In fact, communications provider Qwest has embarked on an outreach Spanish program called Motivate.Educate.Elevate. There are three components of the program and all of these are geared to the Hispanic minority. One of the three components entitles Qwest to provide millions of endowments to public elementary and high schools across the country which has a heavy Hispanic population. The second component is geared to finance missing Hispanic persons which are registered under the national missing persons program of the federal government. The last part of the budget of “Motivate.Educate.Elevate” is to finance programs aimed at preventing or minimizing identity theft victimizing Hispanic victims.