The Spanish language is extremely functional in today's society. I read just the other day that it has now passed English as the second most spoken primary language (the first still being Mandarin Chinese, though I still believe English tops the list with most overall speakers, primary and secondary). Unfortunately, I must admit I find that Spanish sounds fast and ugly to my ear (especially when compared to the other romance languages such as French, Italian and Romanian), though this is obviously subjective. I also get irritated by the gendered nouns that are used in romance languages. Nevertheless, my next language to learn would be Spanish.
