From all accounts, Spanish is a truly powerful language. You see and listen to Spanish-language newscasts, television shows, music, and movies, in addition to the Spanish-language newspapers and books (particularly those by Paulo Coelho and Gabriel Garcia Marquez) you read. The numbers, Spanish being the second most widely-spoken language in the world with more than 350 million speakers, must give you an inkling of just how alive and vibrant this Romance language is.

Spanish Number Booboos

Unfortunately, some people have taken it upon themselves to desecrate the language. It is a common sight to observe men displaying wrong interpretation of Spanish numbers. Spanish, and any language for that matter, certainly deserve a better treatment.

The National Football Leagues's Chad Johnson is a classic example for this. Written above the number 85 of his jersey is “Ocho Cinco.” If he displays more respect for Spanish, he'll realize that the proper interpretation of 85 is “ochenta y cinco.”

Another common error of people who attempt to use the Spanish language is in writing dates. Unlike US dates that are written as month-date-year, Spanish dates use this format: date-month-year. If Spanish dates are spelled out using months and numbers, they should appear as follows: 14 de augusto 2008. One significant thing to remember is that in Spanish, the first letters of the months are not capitalized.

Avoiding Number Blunders

Taking up Spanish classes will certainly help you avoid these blunders as you'll be practiced in calling out the numbers in the correct order. And when you do memorize these numbers, you can take full advantage of the Spanish numerical system!

Benefits of Knowing

If you work in large corporations, you will encounter shipping documents that have both English and Spanish information. Also, you can't help but make orders by phone and e-mail, during which communication gaps may happen. Therefore, it is to your advantage if you know the correct numbers as Spanish has an almost completely dissimilar number system from English.

If you are into Mexican food, there is more than enough reason for you to familiarize yourself with Spanish numbers. This is because most diners that cater to Mexican food are very poor in the English language. To avoid miscommunication, raised voices and paying for more than what you've prepared for, why not learn the basics in Spanish numbers.

Hispanic communities are rampant in certain states like Los Angeles and Miami. Since the citizens speak little English or are more at ease using their mother tongue, it might be better for you to learn Spanish. Surely, misunderstandings can be avoided.

And the greatest benefit of knowing your numbers in Spanish is that you can learn the language faster. Do you know that Spanish numbers can be used as pronouns, too? But this is only true with cardinal and ordinal numbers that stand for a number and a noun that's omitted or implied. It sounds unclear but when you take Spanish lessons, it'll make perfect sense.

Así pues, ahora comience sus lecciones españolas y aumente su número de amigos y de negocio.