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Also known as Castilian, due to its origins in the Castile region of Spain, Spanish is the official language of Spain. It's also spoken across Central and South American countries which were former Spanish colonies, and more recently in the USA due to migration from its southern neighbours

In Africa, Spanish is spoken in Equatorial Guinea and the disputed territory of Western Sahara. In Asia, there are still remnants of the language in the Philippines

Because English and Spanish share many words of Latin origin, you will already be able to recognise more than 3,000 Spanish words!

For example, most English words ending in -tion end in -肠颈贸苍, e.g.
听atenci贸n, publicaci贸n, liberaci贸n

There are also loan words in English of Spanish origin, including tornado, bonanza or patio. In addition, you鈥檒l find many familiar American place names, dating back to the times of the Conquistadors: Los 脕ngeles, city of angels, Las Vegas, the dales, Nevada, snowy land, Florida, flowery and, yes, Amarillo, the Spanish for yellow

Spanish is generally thought of as one of the easier languages to learn. It鈥檚 a phonetic language, meaning the way it鈥檚 written is the way it's pronounced

The biggest differences in grammar include the use of gender, agreements and a more extensive verb conjugation with six different endings for each tense

The variations between the Spanish spoken in Spain and Latin American Spanish mainly lie in pronunciation and intonation but they won鈥檛 hamper communication!

It鈥檚 probably the rolled r sound such as in 听ferrocarril, railway, carretera, road or dr as in 听cocodrilo, crocodile that make the language seem tricky at first, but it can be great fun trying to pronounce them!

A word which contains all the five Spanish vowels is 听尘耻谤肠颈茅濒补驳辞, meaning bat (the one that flies, not of the ball-hitting variety!)

Try these two tongue twisters:
听Como poco coco como, poco coco compro.
Since I don't eat much coconut, I don't buy many coconuts

听El perro de San Roque no tiene rabo, porque Ram贸n Ram铆rez se lo ha robado
Saint Roch's dog has no tail, because Ram贸n Ram铆rez has stolen it

There are plenty of jokes or chistes in Spanish covering politics, doctors, the police forces, the military or other nationalities. And when telling jokes, political correctness is generally less observed than in English.

So here are two 鈥榮afe鈥� examples:
听- Doctor, doctor, no puedo recordar nada
- Vaya, y desde cu谩ndo tiene usted este problema?
- 驴Qu茅 problema?
- Doctor, doctor, I can't remember anything
- Oh well, and how long have you had this problem?
- What problem?

听- Doctor, 驴usted cree que podr茅 vivir 40 a帽os m谩s?
- Depende. 驴Usted parrandea con sus amigos?
- No, doctor
- 驴Bebe?
- No, doctor
- 驴Fuma?
- No, doctor
- 驴Tiene pareja?
- No, doctor
- 驴Y para qu茅 diablos quiere usted vivir 40 a帽os m谩s?
- Doctor, do you think I could live 40 years longer?
- Depends. Do you party hard with your friends?
- No, doctor
- Do you drink?
- No, doctor
- Do you smoke?
- No, doctor
- Do you have a partner?
- No, doctor
- So why on earth do you want to live 40 years longer?

Spanish is a Romance language, ie of Latin origin. Romance languages share a similar grammatical structure and there are often similarities in vocabulary

If you learn Spanish, you'll have a head start in learning other languages such as French, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan or Romanian

False friends, falsos amigos, are words which look or sound similar in two different languages but actually mean something else

For example, if you鈥檙e embarrassed, you may feel tempted to say
听estoy embarazado (for a man) or 听embarazada (for a woman). That actually means I鈥檓 pregnant, which in the case of a man especially would make you an instant scientific wonder! The right phrase to say is 听me da verg眉enza

听La diligencia es madre de la buenaventura
Diligence is the mother of good fortune
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616)
Cervantes is world renowned as the writer of Don Quijote (1605), often considered the first modern novel and a Western literature classic

Dating back to 964, las Glosas Emilianenses, Glosses of Saint Emilianus, is the first-known document, consisting of notes in both Spanish and Basque in the margins of a religious manuscript in Latin

Founded in 1713 by royal charter, la Real Academia Espa帽ola, the Royal Spanish Academy, started life as the regulator of the language. Nowadays, keeping up with the times, its rules are drawn from examples of current use across the Spanish-speaking world

Like other Romance languages, there are different ways of saying 鈥榶ou鈥�:
听迟煤, for people you can be on first-name terms with, and
听usted, in other cases.
The plural is, respectively, 听vosotros and 听ustedes

When greeting, men usually shake hands. In informal situations, women meeting men or other women will give a kiss on each cheek

Some English subtleties are not as widely used in Spanish and may make the language sound brash at first.
For example, in a bar you might be asked: 听驴Qu茅 quiere? Although it literally means What do you want? it lacks the brashness of its direct English translation and to Spanish ears it sounds as polite as What would you like?

You may also notice that 听por favor isn鈥檛 as widely used as please in English. Again, it鈥檚 down to subtlety and an economy of words.
For example, instead of adding extra words, you can just turn a request into a question and ask nicely:
听驴Abres la ventana?听(Can) you (please) open the window?
听驴Abro la ventana?听(Would you like me to) open the window?