Spanish, or Castilian, is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a global language with about 486 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries.
How many languages are spoken in Spain? As a general rule, the peninsula is home to five different languages: Aranese, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Castilian.
The official language in Spain is Spanish or Castilian Spanish, which is spoken by all citizens. However, certain Autonomous Communities have their own official language in addition to Spanish. Catalan is spoken in Catalonia, Galician in Galicia, and Basque in the Basque Country and part of Navarre.
The languages spoken in Spain include: Spanish. Official throughout the country, it is spoken by the majority of the population. Catalan, co-official in Catalonia and in the Balearic Islands.
Did you know that there are four official languages spoken in Spain? While most people are familiar with Castilian Spanish, it may surprise you to learn that there are three other official languages spoken throughout the country - Catalan, Basque (Euskera), and Galician.
Do you need to learn Spanish before moving to Spain? or can people speak a good level of English in Spain? The short answer is yes, people do speak English in Spain. However, the English proficiency level, the number of people speaking in English, or the areas where you'll hear English on the streets are limited.
Catalan uses consonant clusters whereas Spanish requires a vowel sound between consonant sounds (most of the time). Catalan uses voiced and unvoiced vowels. Catalan shares the Portuguese L, Spanish does not.
While there are some differences between the two languages, most native Spanish and Portuguese speakers can understand each other if each party speaks clearly.
Based on lexical similarity, you will find that Portuguese is the closest to Spanish. Just remember that you will need to rethink the way the words are pronounced. You will also want to know which words are different between the languages. Following Portuguese is Italian as the second closest language to Spanish.
A person who is from Spain or has origins from Spain is Spanish.
Tied with Mexico for the purest Spanish in Latin America, Colombia is an obvious choice for the best Spanish speaking country for language study. Plus, it's home to Shakira and her hips don't lie.
Adoption of the euro
Euro banknotes and coins were introduced in Spain on 1 January 2002, after a transitional period of three years when the euro was the official currency but only existed as 'book money'.
95% of Spaniards are Catholic and the remaining 5% follow Islam. Catholicism is everywhere and its influence can be seen in churches and museums, of course, but also in everyday life, with religious holidays and festivals. Each city, town and village in Spain has its own patron saint.
The Catholic branch of Christianity is the most widely professed religion in Spain, with high levels of secularization as of 2022.
Besides being world famous for its football, Spain is also known because of its culinary art, bullfights, architecture, beaches, etc. If you are planning to visit here, you must carry some cash in their official currency, which is Euro.
1. Chinese — 1.3 Billion Native Speakers. Numbers vary widely — Ethnologue puts the number of native speakers at 1.3 billion native speakers, roughly 900 million of whom speak Mandarin — but there's no doubt it's the most spoken language in the world.
Spanish and Italian are the languages m in the world with the strongest relationship. It is difficult to find other tongues so similar. In my experience, as Italian native speaker, I was able to understand 70%-80% of a Spanish conversation, although I had never studied this language.
The Portuguese language has been more influenced by French, whereas the influences of Ancient Arabic can be discerned in Spanish. In terms of pronunciation, many Portuguese words reflect the French accent and intonation, while Spanish words often incorporate an Italian style of pronunciation.
The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it's only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.
Portuguese. In the north-western part of Spain, Galicia is the mother-land of the Portuguese mother tongue. It's widely considered the closest language to Spanish – the lexical similarity is approximated at 89%.
The good news? Spanish is reputed to be one of the easiest languages for native English speakers to learn, and with over 500 million fluent speakers (50 million of whom live in the US), you'd have to be living in a cave to not bump into one of them fairly often.
Most of the people who live in Barcelona are bilingual and speak Catalan and Spanish, which is also an official language. Street names and most road and transport signs are in Catalan.. Many restaurants, especially those in the city centre, have menus in several languages.
Merci (mehr-see) / Thank you
The official Catalan word for 'thank you' is graciès (grah-see-ahs), but here in Barcelona, you'll also hear people saying merci.
Good Morning – Bon dia. 2. Good Afternoon – Bon Tarda.