People often ask me why I am bothering to learn Spanish whilst travelling in South America when so many people manage OK without it.

Well, for me I would find it hard to travel without learning it...

I like to use an analogy of driving. You can drive perfectly well without knowing anything about mechanics. You can admire the gleaming exterior of a car, and if you know what a steering wheel and an accelerator is, then you are pretty much away.

However, you don’t know why the car works or why it does what it does. You are just cruising along letting the mechanics do the work, and if anything goes wrong you are pretty much stuck.

Similarly, you can travel in South America fairly easily without speaking Spanish. You can admire its external beauty and can get around and survive without a problem.

Yet, if you don’t speak Spanish you have to rely on other people speaking your language or use guidebooks and travel literature. If anything goes wrong, you are generally pretty stranded.

But if, on the other hand, you are armed with the native tongue, you can fully understand how the culture works, and if things don’t work out to plan, you are fully equipped to deal with any problems that come your way.

One of the best advantages of this is that you can speak to anyone you want, not only the advantaged few who can speak English. You can converse with the street cleaners, the dentists, the librarians —the people who make up the buts and the bolts of a society.

You can find out why cities are built the way they are, what peoples’ aspirations are, who they idolise, why certain foods are made in certain ways. You can even talk about football if you are feeling brave!

Furthermore, by understanding the language you can understand the mindset. For example, I often think that the fact that Hispanic people have only one word for ‘hope’, ‘expect’, and ‘wait’ says a lot about their ideology.

In all learning Spanish allowed me to get under the hood of Argentina.

I may have got my hands dirty, but I have not only been able to appreciate its beautiful scenery and wonderful towns, bur its rich culture and society too.

And for me it was worth the effort.

Dan Selinger

Dan is a British journalist.

During his stay in Buenos Aires, he attended classes at Into Words.

Thanks for the article, Dan!