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Spanish Language: A Brief Overview

Spanish or Castilian is of course, the national language of Spain. However it's not the only language spoken or recognized. About one quarter of the population in Spain speaks a language other than Spanish. Catalan is spoken in sections of Andorra and Sardinia, located in Italy and France. Some say the language is a cross between Italian and French. It is considered a major language on its own, and is thought to be more similar to Italian than it is to Spanish. About 4 million people speak Catalan as their native language.

Galician is very similar to Portuguese, in fact a native Galician can understand around 85% of someone speaking Portuguese. About 3 million people in Spain speak Galician and another 1 million outside of Spain.
Euskara, also known as Basque, is the language of an ethnic group that can be found in both France and Spain. It has a separate identity and intends to remain that way. Basque or Euskara is not legally recognized in France, while it is in Spain. Only about 600,000 speak Basque as their first language. Oddly Basque has no connection to the Romance languages or even the greater group known as the Indo-European languages.

Spanish is spoken outside of Spain in South America. The language traveled as a result of Spanish exploration and some would say exploitation, of the New World. These countries include in alphabetical order: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Other countries that have a substantial Spanish speaking population include: Andorra, Belize, Gibraltar, Philippines and the United States. In total about 400 to 500 million people around the world speak Spanish as their native language making it the fourth most common language in the world.
Mandarin Chinese is number one with nearly 900 million speakers, followed by Hindi, and in third place, English. Spanish is the most widely spread and spoken of the Romance languages as a first language.

Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. It is the second most widely spoken language in the United States and probably the most studied.

The author of this article Pablo Conway has been learning Spanish on and off for the past 3 years. He has used a mixture of private lessons and CD’s. He has also taken to reading the Spanish newspaper “El Pais” English translation is “The Country”. Why not start to learn this wonderful language today, with some F.ree lessons.
www.spanishbankaccount.com/spanishlesson