Spanish 
Bienvenidos! "welcome"
Bienvenidos! "welcome"
Introduction|
Spaniards call their language español when contrasting it with other national
In the United States, Spanish is the most studied foreign language in schools and universities. Spanish has co-official status in the state of New Mexico, and in Puerto Rico. Click here on the MLA Interactive Language Map to find out where Spanish is spoken in the U.S. |
Spanish belongs to the 
peninsula that is now Spain, and was brought to the Americas, the Philippines, and parts of Oceania by the Spanish colonization in the 16th century. It is spoken as a first language by about 352 million people, or by 417 million including second-language speakers, the majority of whom live in Latin America and Spain (
languages. They refer to it as castellano (Castilian) when contrasting it with other regional languages of Spain, e.g., 
Spanish is the official language of 22 countries: Argentina, Bolivia (with 
Spanish is one of 
Dialects
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Since Spanish is spoken by so many people in so many countries it is not surprising that it has developed different dialects. The classic division is usually made between Spanish from Spain -- Castilian Spanish -- and Spanish from Latin America. Within each division there are variations involving pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and intonation. Below are two examples of such differences:
Despite many regional differences, speakers of Spanish from different countries can understand each other without much difficulty. Click here for descriptions of selected Spanish varieties. |
], as in thin, does not exist in Latin American Spanish where ciento "hundred" and siento "I am sorry" are both pronounced with an initial [s]. In most of Spain, however, ciento is pronounced with an initial [
Structure
Sound System
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The sound system of Spanish is relatively simple with 5 vowel phonemes and 19-20 consonant phonemes. Phonemes are sounds that make a difference in word meaning.
Stress |
/ occurs in words such as yo "I." In some dialects it sounds more like [zh] in pleasure. 
], e.g., cabo "cape" is pronounced as [ka
] (th as in those) between vowels, e.g., hablado "spoken" is pronounced as 
Click on the name of the country to watch short videos of Spanish as spoken in
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Grammar
Word order |
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Spanish vocabulary is Latin-based with a large number of borrowings from Arabic, and more recently from English. Spain's Arabic connection goes back a long way when Arabic-speaking Moors invaded Spain in 711 AD. For many people the local Spanish dialect and Arabic existed side by side until the Moors were expelled in the 15th century AD. By then thousands of Arabic words had become part of Spanish. Many Spanish place names can be traced to Arabic, e.g., Alhambra from Arabic al-hamrâ "the red (castle)." You will recognize some of them as very similar to English words (also of Arabic origin). Many of them start with al-, the definite article in Arabic. Below are a few examples of such words:
Latin American Spanish has also borrowed words from the Indian languages of Central and South America. English, in turn, borrowed these words from Spanish.
Anybody who has studied Spanish knows how frustrating it can be to discover that a word in a Spanish textbook may not be used in some Spanish-speaking countries at all, or have a different meaning. For instance, the word for "computer" is ordenadora in Spain, but computadora in Latin America. The word for "bus" is guagua in Puerto Rico but in Chile it means "baby". Below are some common words and phrases in Spanish.
Here are a the numerals 1-10 in Spanish.
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WritingWriting system Spanish is written with the Latin alphabet that includes one extra letter
Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Spanish.
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to mark stress when it does not follow the normal pattern, or to differentiate homophones. 
"What's up?" or 
"Don't tell me!"
Resources |
Click here to find out where Spanish is taught in the United States. Online resources for the study of Spanish language and culture |
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How difficult is it to learn Spanish? Spanish is considered to be a Category I language in terms of difficulty for speakers of English. |
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