Taiwan's Spanish Celebration

Taiwan's Spanish Celebration 

 This past March, Taiwan celebrated it’s very first "Spanish Day" in Taipei honoring the world's second-most-spoken language and its cultural heritage, as well as raise interest among local high school students in learning Spanish.

Photo: CNA

Photo: CNA

Paraguay, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic round out the roster of the campaign initiated by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Taipei to instigate the day. The project to promote Spanish started six months ago, which also won support from representative offices from countries such as Chile, Peru, Mexico and the United States. According to the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, there are about 2,500 students with Spanish as their major in universities in Taiwan, with a further 2,000 students taking it as a second foreign language course.

Although interest in learning Spanish is growing in Taiwan's higher education system there remains a gap to fill among high school students. Considering that the world's Spanish-speaking population is nearly 548 million people, the popularity of the language has not yet received the desired amount of attention in Taiwan's high schools compared with European languages such as French and German.

The celebration hosted at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park offered an array of cultural events including a Spanish speaking contest, screenings of Spanish-language movies and performances of art and dance. 

We hope you've enjoyed learning about Taiwan's Spanish Celebration! What are your thoughts on the campaign to promote the Spanish language by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce? Join the conversation below! 

Spanish LanguageJonathan FreelandJP LinguisticsSpanish Language, spanish, taiwan, Taipei, paraguay, el salvador, guatemala, nicaragua, honduras, Dominican RepublicComment