While Spanish is the most common first language in the Americas, Spanish and English are in a virtual dead heat to be the second most spoken language in the world. The latest worldwide figures from Ethnologue have Spanish with 399 million speakers and English with 335 million, both considerably behind Chinese with over 1 billion. American Demographics ranks the United States with the fifth largest Hispanic population, and 86% of those say Spanish is their first language.
A recent study of 25 metro markets in the United States found that Spanish-language programming was the sixth most popular format. The latest estimates show Spanish is the No. 3 language in the Internet community, following English and Chinese.
There are differences in Spanish vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation from country to country but they are seemingly no more significant than the differences among American, British and Australian. It is important to field your survey in the primary language of your survey respondents so that survey questions are clear and respondents are be able to write their answers comfortably in their own language. SurveyRock gives you the ability to create online surveys in Spanish by supporting foreign characters, such as “ñ”, when you design your survey.
Needless to say, when the respondent can converse in the language they speak most you should see a much higher response rate. Removing the English/Spanish language barrier will help you gain important insights from Spanish-speaking respondents that might have otherwise been excluded, in spite of their everyday consumption of mainstream media and participation in mainstream consumerism.
In addition to Spanish, SurveyRock users can create and send surveys in whatever language you choose, providing you with a complete survey creation experience in your desired language.