Spanish language statistics: The U.S. Has The Second-Largest Population Of Spanish Speakers—How To Equip Your Brand To Serve Them

Fast Facts About Spanish: 12 Things You Didn’t Know About Español

By samanphyli
Last updated:

December 1, 2022

You may think you know everything there is to know about the Spanish language—after all, Spanish is all around us.

Spanish is a language that’s on the rise.

It’s a beautiful language with a wide global influence on business and culture.

It’s spoken in many diverse areas of the world, so Spanish speakers benefit from being able to communicate with all kinds of people in all types of situations in Spanish-speaking countries and beyond.

However, despite its ubiquity, you might still be surprised by some cool details about the Spanish language.

Here are some interesting facts about the Spanish language that will arouse your curiosity.

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1. Over 400 million people speak Spanish

Spanish is the mother tongue of an estimated 400-450 million people, making it the world’s second most spoken language.

Spanish only falls in second place behind Chinese, which is spoken by over a billion people and far outranks any other language.

Spanish surpasses English in its number of speakers, as English comes in third place with 335 million native speakers around the world.

2. There are 21 countries that have Spanish as the official language

Spanish enjoys official language status in 21 countries across Europe, Africa, Central, South and North America, making it a very important global language.

Not only is it the main language for these 21 sovereign states, it also serves as a key language in a handful of dependent territories.

For many people in these places, it’s the only way to communicate and all official correspondence and documents are in Spanish. Spanish is also used in schools to teach the curricula.

Since English is spoken in 112 countries, the English language is the most widespread in terms of the number of countries that speak it. French is second with 60 countries speaking the language and Arabic is third, with 57 countries who communicate in Arabic.

Sure, Spanish only comes in fourth place in this aspect, but that still results in making it one of the most significant languages in the world. Many international companies and organizations, including the United Nations, have adopted Spanish as one of their official languages.

3. Spanish is a Romance language

Spanish belongs to the Indo-European languages, which include French, English, Russian, German, the Slavic and Scandinavian languages as well as various languages in India. Indo-European languages initially spread across Europe and many areas of South Asia before reaching other parts of the world through colonization.

The name “Indo-European” has a geographical meaning relating to the languages’ most easterly reaches in the Indian subcontinent and their most westerly reaches throughout Europe.

Spanish is further classified as a Romance language, along with Catalan, Italian, French, Portuguese and Romanian.

You probably already knew about Spanish being a Romance language on some level, but the importance of this goes deeper than you might expect. All these intercontinental connections give Spanish a distinct advantage. Knowing its roots in and relationships with other languages can help you better understand Spanish linguistically, historically and culturally.

4. Spanish has Latin origins

The Spanish language derives from a particular type of spoken Latin. This dialect developed in the central-northern region of the Iberian Peninsula following the 5th-century demise of the Western Roman Empire.

From the 13th to the 16th centuries, Toledo developed a written language standard and Madrid followed suit through the 1500s. During the last 1,000 years, the language has become more widespread, moving south towards the Mediterranean.

It was subsequently adopted by the Spanish Empire and, just as importantly, in the Spanish colonies established on the American continents.

5. Spanish has two names:

Castellano and Español

Spanish speakers often refer to their language as español as well as castellano, which is the Spanish word for “Castilian.”

The terms applied can differ from region to region, and they can also reflect political and social views. In English, the term “Castilian Spanish” can be used to refer to individual dialects of Spanish spoken in the northern and central parts of Spain. Occasionally, the term is used more loosely to refer to the Spanish spoken in Spain, as opposed to Latin American Spanish.

6. Spanish is a phonetic language

Most people know a few words of Spanish, such as tapas, siesta, cava and tortilla. Spanish has also borrowed a few words from English, such as los jeans (jeans) and el hotel (hotel).

There are, however, some big differences between English and Spanish. For instance, there’s the fact that Spanish is a phonetic language. This means that you pronounce letters consistently and each letter represents a certain sound. This also means that Spanish is a fairly simple language for novices to learn, especially when it comes to spelling and speaking.

The links between sounds and letters mean that there usually aren’t any spelling surprises.

Of course, you won’t get off that easy. There are a few other tricks for native English speakers to master.

As Spanish originates from Latin, it has gendered language—masculine and feminine words and articles. The genders of adjectives must agree with their accompanying nouns, as well as the articles of those nouns.

Spanish enjoys more tenses and a greater variation in verb parts compared to English. It also has three ways to address people: tú being the informal “you,” usted being the formal “you,” and vosotros being the informal, plural version of tú (much like “you all” or “y’all”) in Spain. These all have an effect on verb forms, possessives and pronouns.

7. The Royal Spanish Academy is “in charge” of the language

The Royal Spanish Academy is officially responsible for being the custodian of the Spanish language. It has its home in Madrid and operates numerous language academies through the Association of Spanish Language Academies in the 21 other countries that speak Spanish.

The Academy began its life in the 18th century and since then has published dictionaries and grammar rule books, which have been officially adopted in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries.

The Academy prides itself on inventing the use of the inverted question and exclamation marks, which are unique to the Spanish language. Another unique feature it’s responsible for is the letter ñ, which was introduced to the alphabet during the 18th century.

8. There are many regional nuances of Spanish

We know that Spanish descended from Latin and spread from the Iberian Peninsula to Latin America through colonization.

It’s fascinating to know that there are more than a few discrepancies between the Spanish of Spain and that of Latin America. There are also countless differences in the Spanish language within Latin America itself!

That being said, the relatively minor vocabulary, grammar and punctuation differences aren’t terribly extreme, and communication is still very easy. You should be able to travel the Spanish-speaking world with “neutral” Spanish and manage communication with nearly anybody.

The differences originally arose because the colonies developed somewhat independently from one another, and even from Spain itself.

Since communication was limited, with no telephones, airplanes, emails, WhatsApp or Skype, some elements of older Spanish were retained and others abandoned. Plus, you’ll find that many regions have invented their own unique vocabulary, slang, accents and language usage quirks over time.

A good example is the way vos is used in Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. This is used in the Spanish from Spain, and so it was transferred to the Americas. As alluded to before, vosotros means “you” or “you all,” and thus is the second-person plural in Spain, as it was originally intended to be used. However, vos is now used as a polite, second-person singular pronoun in the above three countries.

Spain has long since stopped using it in this way, but if you visit Buenos Aires you’re quite likely to be asked “¿de dónde sos?” (where are you from?) as opposed to “¿de dónde eres?”.

9. Arabic influenced Spanish

Arab armies started to conquer the Iberian Peninsula in 711, bringing Arabic art, architecture and language to the region. Arabic gradually mixed with old Spanish to become the language spoken today.

When Spain expelled the Arabs in 1492, the language retained some 8,000 Arabic words. Apart from Latin, Arabic is the largest contributor to Spanish. Many words that you already know in Spanish come from Arabic, such as el alfombra (carpet), la almendra (almond) and la almohada (pillow).

When you travel through Spain, you’ll come across many place, region and historic site names that come from Arabic, such as La Alhambra.

10. The earliest Spanish texts were written over 1000 years ago!

Las Glosas Emilianenses (Glosses of Saint Emilianus), written in 964, were long thought to be the first written Spanish texts that survive today. They consist of Spanish and Basque notes made on a religious Latin manuscript.

The unknown author is thought to have been a monk at the Suso monastery. In 2010, however, the Real Academia Española announced that the first examples of written Spanish exist in 9th-century medieval documents known as the “Cartularies of Valpuesta,” from the Burgos province.

11. Spanish is poetic and has long sentences

When you translate from English to Spanish, your text is likely to expand by 15-25%. This isn’t because Spanish words are longer than English words (and they’re definitely not as long as German words can be).

The reason for this expansion lies in the fact that Spanish is more detailed, poetic and expressive. It thus uses more words to describe something that English would probably sum up in just one word.

For example, the phrase en el sentido de las agujas del reloj literally means “in the direction of the needles of the clock,” but in English we would simply say “clockwise.” Spanish doesn’t have a word for “clockwise” and has to use the aforementioned phrase!

12. The demand of learning Spanish is increasing

Spain has always been a popular travel and foreign study destination. Studying Spanish in schools and universities has also grown in popularity. These days the language is becoming very popular in Asia, signifying its importance in global economic markets.

The use of Spanish online has risen by an incredible 800% in recent years and this means it’s the third most popular language on the Internet, not far behind Mandarin and English.

An estimated 18 million students are currently studying Spanish as a foreign language. Forecasts indicate that, in a few generations from now, 10% of the world’s population will understand Spanish—whereas the number is currently 6%. That’s a big leap coming!

These fascinating facts about the Spanish language reveal the language’s long heritage as well as its importance and growth in the world today.

Hopefully this will be a good incentive to people of all ages and from all kinds of backgrounds to learn Spanish, and to enjoy the many benefits that speaking Spanish can bring!

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71 Interesting Facts About Spanish that You May not Know

Whether you’re researching, teaching, or learning Spanish, you may be interested in learning some cool facts about the Spanish language. For this reason, I’ve compiled a list of data and statistics that will give you some interesting insights into this language. 

The information you’ll find throughout this article includes:

• Most Popular Languages in the World 
• Spanish-Speaking Countries
• Spanish Dialects
• Hardest Part of Spanish
  • Biggest challenges of learning Spanish
  • Most difficult accents
• Number of Words in the Spanish Language
• Most Common Types of Verbs
• Most Frequently Used Words
• Learning Spanish Online
• Miscellaneous Facts About Spanish
  • Origins of Spanish

What Are the Most Popular Languages Spoken in the World?

According to Ethnologue, the most widely spoken language in the world are: 

1. English – 1,452,000,000
2. Mandarin Chinese – 1,118,000,00
3. Hindi – 602,000,000
4. Spanish – 548,000,000
5. French – 274,000,000
6. Arabic – 273,900,000
7. Bengali – 272,000,000
8. Russian – 250,000,000
9. Portuguese – 257,600,000
10. Urdu – 231,000,000

Based on the data provided by Ethnologue, we found that:

• Spanish is in the top 5 spoken languages, ranked #4 with 548 million speakers.
• Globally, there is 1 Spanish speaker for every 2.65 English speakers. In other words there are 165% more English speakers than Spanish speakers. It’s estimated that the Spanish speaking population will reach 111 million by 2060.
• With 1.118 billion speakers, Mandarin Chinese is the second most spoken language, which means that this language has 104.01% more speakers than Spanish.
• Hindi has 19% more speakers than Spanish. 
• As the fourth most spoken language, Spanish has 100% more speakers than French and 100.07% more than Arabic speakers. 

English and Mandarin Chinese are the two most spoken languages in the world. However, when it comes to native speakers, the numbers are quite different. In order to show this, we took into account the 4 biggest languages. 

Source: Ethnologue. For Spanish, we took into account the data gathered by El Instituto Cervantes

After analyzing this data, we realized that:

• Out of the 591 million Spanish speakers worldwide, 83.42% are native Spanish speakers. 
• Based on the number of native speakers, Spanish is the second biggest language.  
• So out of the total 591 million Spanish speakers, 16.58% is formed by people who are learning Spanish or have a limited command of the language. 
• English has the biggest percentage of second language speakers: 74.31%. 
• But with almost 26% native speakers, English is smaller than Spanish and Mandarin Chinese based on the number of native speakers. 
• This means that there are 3.48 times more people with English as a second language (or learning it) than Spanish.   

How Many Spanish-Speaking Countries Are There?

• Out of the 35 countries in the Americas, 21 of them have Spanish as their official language.
• This means that 57.14% of countries in America speak Spanish.
• 27.9% of speakers are from Mexico. As a result, Mexico is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world.  
• Colombia is the second-largest Spanish-speaking country. 
• Mexico has close to 170% more Spanish speakers than Spain, 180% more than Argentina, and 152% more than Colombia.

Source: El Instituto Cervantes

Where is Spanish a Second Language?

Even though most of the Spanish-speaking population is concentrated in Latin America, there are other countries that have Spanish speakers.

According to this Wiki data, here are some interesting facts about Spanish across the world:

• 40. 30% of countries in the world have an observable population of Spanish speakers. 
• This means that out of 194 countries in the world, 84 have Spanish speakers. 
• Mexico represents 25.29% of the Spanish speakers in the world. 
• Even though it’s not their official language, with 10.33%, the United States is ranked #2 in terms of total Spanish speakers.
• The United States has 22% more Spanish speakers than Spain and 12% more than Colombia. 
• Mexico has 1.27x more Spanish speakers than the United States.

How Many Different Types of Spanish Are There?

Determining the specific number of Spanish variations is challenging since each country will present differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. As a result, each country has its own particular way of using Spanish. However, due to their geographical location and their similarities, we could classify them in:

Take Note: Mexican Spanish has the largest number of speakers. As a result, it may be convenient for you to learn this dialect.

What’s the Hardest Part of Spanish

We gathered the answers of over 500 people that participated in online community polls related to the challenges they face when learning Spanish. In order to make these stats clearer, we classified their responses in:

• Grammar topics
• General challenges or problems when learning Spanish

Take Note: In these surveys, a respondent may have provided more than one answer.  

So when it comes to Spanish grammar topics, we found the following trends. 

• Respondents said that the most difficult Spanish topics are:
  • Subjunctive 
  • Ser vs. Estar
  • Past Tenses 
  • Por vs. Para 
  • Indirect Pronouns 
  • Masculine vs. Feminine 
  • Pronoun Se  
• 27.2 % of people said that subjunctive is by far the most difficult topic for Spanish learners.  
• With 15.7%, the second most difficult topic for Spanish learners is using Spanish Pronouns (Se, Direct & Indirect Pronouns).
• Even though ‘ser’ and ‘estar’ is widely known for being a complicated topic,  3.76x of Spanish learners considered subjunctive to be more complicated.

Biggest Challenges When Learning in Spanish

• 25.67% of people said that listening and understanding what native speakers say is the most challenging thing in Spanish. According to this study, Spanish speakers are in second place for producing more syllables per second. So perhaps this is why people learning Spanish struggle when listening to native speakers.  
• 21.64% of Spanish learners said that dealing with verb conjugation is the hardest aspect of learning Spanish. 
• Speaking and pronouncing was very difficult for over 13% of the respondents.  
• When it comes to grammar, only 11.04 % of Spanish students considered it a big challenge. 
• Building sentences and following a correct phrase structure was a problem for 10% of Spanish students. 
• Only 8.66% of respondents said that vocabulary (not knowing a word and its multiple meanings) was difficult for them. 

What’s the Most Difficult Accent in Spanish

In the previous table, Spanish learners mentioned that the different Spanish accents present a significant challenge for them. So we asked ourselves which of the different accents is considered the most difficult. We gathered responses from over  200 Spanish learners and native speakers, and this is what we found out: 

• 30.42% of people said that the Chilean Spanish accent is the most difficult accent to understand. 
• For 12.50% of respondents, Andalusian and Castilian Spanish are very difficult.  
• 12.92% of people found the Dominican Republic accent the second most difficult one to understand. 

How Many Words Are There in the Spanish Language?

One of the most difficult aspects to tackle when learning Spanish is vocabulary: Spanish learners struggle because each Spanish speaking country has its own vocabulary. Here are some stats and data points about Spanish words: 

• The Diccionario de Americanismos gathered 70,000 words that are common in Latin American countries, but not in Spain. 
• El diccionario de la lengua española created by the Royal Spanish Academy has 93,111 individual terms. These words belong to standard Spanish. 
• On average, 1 standard Spanish word has 2.1 meanings, while each informal term in Latin America has 1.71 definitions. 
• Despite the difference in informal vocabulary, according to the newspaper El país, Spanish speakers share 90% of the vocabulary we know as standard Spanish. Standard Spanish consists of removing dialectal and informal expressions from the speech. As a result, Spanish speakers from different countries can understand each other. 

Take Note: 1) El Diccionario de la Lengua Española contains standard Spanish words and some informal words (dialects) that have been accepted. Since they try to protect the language, not all words are accepted. 2) Diccionario de Americanismos contains words used in Latin American countries. The Royal Spanish Academy does not regulate these words, but they are accepted as part of informal speech in Latin American countries.  

What Are The Most Common Verbs in Spanish?

According to the study performed by Jaime Suances Torres, there are 2252 standard and common verbs in Spanish. These verbs are classified as:

• Level 1: Verbs used by all speakers. It’s the most basic Spanish vocabulary. 
• Level 1. 5: Intermediate verbs that are between the thresholds of Levels 1 and 2. 
• Level 2: Verbs used by people with average educational levels. They are still common  but not as common as Level 1 and 1.5.  

Based on this data, we found that:

• 377 verbs are part of the group classified as Level 1, which according to the Instituto de Verbología, are the most basic and common verbs among Spanish speakers 
• 29.45% of these verbs are pronominal or reflexive verbs, meaning they need to work with a reflexive pronoun. In some instances, the presence of the reflexive will affect the meaning of this verb.  
• Of these 2,252 verbs, 82.95% are verbs with –AR ending. 8.79% have -ER ending, and the last 8.26% have -IR ending.

What Are the Most Common Words in Spanish?

Based on 68 million samples (books, magazines, newspapers, and transcriptions based on radio and tv shows), the Royal Spanish Academy created a corpus with the 10,000 most common words in Spanish. 

After reviewing the data, we discovered some interesting findings regarding the usage of these words:

• The top 2,000 (20%) of the 10,000 most common words have a usage frequency of just over 83.4%, meaning the other 8,000 words were used less than 16.6% of the time.
• The top 5,000 (50%) of the 10,000 most common words have a usage frequency of just over 93.3%, meaning the bottom 5,000 words were used less than 6.7% of the time.

• In the top 2,000, we found that 52.95% of the words were nouns. In other words, out of those 2,000 words, 1,059 corresponds to nouns. 
• Based on the same data, adjectives were used 12.65% of the time, and adverbs only 4.40%. 

• Out of the 10,000 most common Spanish words, 2,621 were verbs. And when measured in terms of frequency of use, it was found that they represent 19.70% of the frequency of usage. 
• Based on the corpus, the following are the top 10 conjugated verbs most frequently used:
  • Ha – Haber
  • Son – Ser
  • Fue – Ir
  • Había – Haber
  • Era – Ser
  • Han – Haber
  • Hay – Haber
  • Puede – Poder
  • Tiene – Tener
  • Hace – Hacer

• Funnily enough, these top 10 verbs are also part of the verbs of Level 1 (the most basic Spanish verbs) from El Instituto de Verbología, which supports the findings that they are the most frequently used verbs.  

Conjugating verbs was one of the most challenging topics for Spanish students. As a result, we wanted to know which tenses and moods were more frequently used in this corpus. The trends show that:

• With 59.1% of frequency, indicative is the most common Spanish mood. 
• When it comes to tenses and verbal forms, infinitive verbs represented 22.2% of the verbs collected by the Royal Spanish Academy. 

The corpus registered that 5.2% of the most common verbs were used in the subjunctive form. 

What are the most common pronouns used in Spanish?

• In the 10,000 most common words collected by the Royal Spanish Academy, we found 95 pronouns. 
• The top 10 pronouns were used 63% of the time. 
• According to the data compiled in this corpus, with 26.28% of frequency, ‘se’ is the most common pronoun in Spanish.  
• Unlike English, in Spanish, we don’t need to use personal pronouns all the time. To prove it, we found that yo and él (both personal pronouns) have a frequency of 2.22% and 1.84%, respectively. 

Learning Spanish Online

Spanish speakers, teachers, and learners alike may find it interesting to know which verb conjugations are most commonly searched for online. We collected data that showed the most searched queries and phrases following the format of “[verb] conjugation” for both searches occurring monthly in the U.S. and worldwide.

Data collected from Ahrefs.com as of July 2020. 

• The highest search of this type was “ser conjugation” with an estimated 60,000 monthly searches globally and 52,000 in the U.S.
• The 10th most popular was “saber conjugation” with 18,000 and 17,000 monthly searches globally and in the U. S., respectively.
• The combined estimated monthly search volume for these top 10 was 329,000 and 284,000 globally and in the U.S. respectively.
• Interestingly, all 10 of these verbs that are most commonly searched for are not only among the most popular and frequently used but also irregular.

We collected data that showed the most searched search phrases for “____ in spanish” for searches performed monthly in the U.S.

Data collected from Ahrefs.com as of July 2020.

• The most widely searched query was “happy birthday in spanish” with approximately 52,000 monthly searches.
• “Good morning in spanish” ranked #2 with 41,000 monthly searches.
•  #10, with 24,000 monthly searches, was “how are you in spanish“.
• These top 10 combined make up over an estimated 350,000 monthly searches and 4. 2 million searches annually.
• Fun fact, only 1 curse word made it into the top 15.

Miscellaneous Facts About Spanish

• The Royal Spanish Academy gathers 17 Spanish tenses. However, Spanish speakers only use 14 tenses to communicate in their daily life situations. 
• Español is the word that we use to refer to the Spanish language. On the other hand, Castellano refers to the Spanish dialect spoken in Spain. 
• The Royal Spanish Academy establishes that the current Spanish alphabet has 27 letters. However, before 1994 our alphabet used to have 29 letters. This is because the phonemes ch and ll were considered letters back then.
• ‘Electroencefalografista’ is the longest word registered in a Spanish dictionary. 
• The New American Economy found that jobs listing Spanish as a desired skill increased 150%.  

Origins of Spanish

• Arabic has contributed more than 1043 words to the Spanish language. Some examples of common Arabic words adopted into Spanish include, but are not limited to:

• Many Spanish words that start with ‘al’ have Arabic origin. 
• The first Spanish Grammar was published in 1492 by Antonio de Nebrija. In fact, this was the first printed book that studied a romance language.
• Mexican Spanish is highly influenced by Nahuatl, the most important Mexican native language. In fact, experts estimate that Mexican Spanish is formed of 4000 Nahuatl words. 

Wrapping Up

On top of giving you a break from grammar and vocabulary, the purpose of these Spanish facts and statistics was to show the Spanish language in numbers; whether you’re a student, a native speaker, or researching the language. Additionally, this information will help you identify the topics and elements Spanish learners and students need to pay more attention to. As you may have noticed, if you’re struggling with something in Spanish, you’re not alone 🙂

ABC (Spain): Spanish on the Path to Conquering the World

InoSMI materials contain only foreign media assessments and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff

Spanish is the fourth most spoken language on the planet, but it still has room to grow, says in the latest yearbook published by the Instituto Cervantes. In some countries, despite the decline in interest in languages, learning Spanish has become fashionable. Correspondents of “ABS” tried to tell how the Spanish language is treated in different countries of the world. nine0003

The latest yearbook issued by the Instituto Cervantes states that the number of Spanish speakers worldwide has risen to 577 million. The same report claims that Spanish is the fourth most spoken language on the planet, but it still has room to grow. We turned to our correspondents with a request to highlight the situation of the Spanish language in different countries of the world.

1. China. Growing Opportunities

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Spain this week, the ABS published an article in which the president highlighted the unprecedented success of the Spanish language in China. On the same day, the Instituto Cervantes yearbook again shows the spread of the Spanish language around the world, which is already spoken by 577 million people. At the same time, for 480 million of them it is their native language. nine0003

The latest country to adopt Spanish was China, where it was included in the secondary education curriculum in January of this year. There are 36,000 students studying Spanish in Chinese universities, and even more in private schools. With growing trade ties with the Spanish-speaking world where China sells its goods and where it finds its raw materials, more and more Chinese youth are choosing Spanish over other foreign languages, such as Japanese, Korean or Russian, which have hitherto been considered more useful. nine0003

“The decisive factor in making Spanish the second language studied after English was China’s interest in Latin America,” Inma González Puy, director of the Cervantes Institute in Beijing, explains to the ABS newspaper. 4,200 people enrolled in the courses in 2017-2018, and the center in Beijing ranked third (after New Delhi and Manila) in terms of the number of students. In China, 7,200 people applied for the Spanish as a Foreign Language (DELE) examination, second only to Italy. According to González Puy, “Already a few years ago, Spanish textbooks were selling 100,000 copies a year.” The updated data is yet to be confirmed, but this figure should increase due to the growing interest in the Spanish language. nine0003

Pablo M. Díez, Asia Correspondent.

2. UK. The boom continues

Cervantes’ language is growing in popularity in British schools. It is fashionable in the UK to learn Spanish, and this fashion will not pass soon. The British Council reflects this trend in its reports. He now assures that in the coming years, Spanish will defeat French in the struggle for the place of the main foreign language in British schools.

The latest British Council survey found that, amid a general decline in interest in languages, Spanish is the only language that breaks this trend. nine0003

According to the British Council, by 2020 Spanish will overtake French as the most widely spoken foreign language in England among secondary school students, and by 2025 among students as well.

© AP Photo / Caleb Jones Oxford English Dictionary

© AP Photo / Caleb Jones

In the case of Spanish-learning schools (about 7,600 students), there are already twice as many German learners, and at the school stage of education, Spanish is the only language which is gaining popularity: from 87 519people in 2015 to 90,544 last year.

Vicki Gow, an advisor to the British Council, discusses the reasons for this growth: “There is a perception that Spanish is easier to learn than other languages, which may partly explain its popularity. And also the fact that Spain is the most popular holiday destination for the British.”

However, for British youth, Spanish is more of a professional language. In this regard, she believes that learning Spanish is more useful than other European languages, because it will be useful, in addition to Spain, in Latin America, which is gaining more and more weight in the world. nine0003

If you look at the statistics, in the last 12 years, French has lost almost a third of its students at the secondary level. But the situation is really worrisome for German, whose popularity has fallen by 37%. A quarter of the public schools that offered German to students three years ago have now abandoned it.

That’s why the data on Spanish published by the British Council is encouraging. It is taught in 77% of public high schools and 98% of private ones. In addition, it is extremely popular among the adult population in the UK. nine0003

Ivan Alonso, Correspondent in London.

3. Russia. The fourth most popular language

The current popularity of Spanish in Russia is impressive. Indeed, for historical reasons, since the 19th century, German and French have been much more in demand in Russian society. In addition, in the 20th century, the role of the most studied foreign language in the Soviet Union was assigned to English.

Love for the Spanish language arose in Soviet times. First during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) when Stalin decided to support the Republicans, and then after the Cuban Revolution (1953-1959). The Soviet Union also provided assistance and funding to Salvador Allende in Chile and the Sandinista movement in Nicaragua. The Spanish language became truly in demand in the USSR in the following decades, when it began to be taught en masse in schools and universities.

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, interest in Spanish dropped to some extent, but the seed had already been planted. According to a study by the Russian Ministry of Education, in 2002 there were 112,000 people in the country who could speak Spanish. This figure was nothing compared to 7 million English speakers, 3 million German learners and about 700,000 French learners. nine0003

At present, according to Jose Aurelio Llanes, Education Attaché at the Spanish Embassy in Moscow, “Spanish is the fourth most popular foreign language in Russia.” English, German and French are still ahead of it, but Spanish is steadily gaining ground. The director of the Instituto Cervantes in Moscow, Abel Murcia, confirms this and says that “while Russians’ desire for other languages ​​is generally not increasing, it is only in the case of Spanish that there is an upward trend.” nine0003

There are four bilingual Russian-Spanish secondary schools in Moscow: Cervantes, Rosalia de Castro, Miguel Hernandez and Pablo Neruda. They get into the lists of the best schools in the capital and overtake even English and French special schools. There are four more Spanish schools in St. Petersburg, and there are dozens of them all over the country.

Jose Aurelio Llanes says that he has just returned from a trip to Pyatigorsk, where there is a network of a dozen schools teaching Spanish, and on December 11 he will go to Novosibirsk to sign a joint plan with the city council to strengthen the role of the Spanish language in the Russian education system. nine0003

Educational Attaché of the Spanish Embassy, ​​citing information provided by the Russian Ministry of Education, states that “in Moscow universities, Spanish is already the second language in demand after English.” This is due to the fact that the demand for specialists with knowledge of Spanish is growing due to Russia’s intentions to expand its presence in Latin American countries. That is why the Russian international TV channel RT launched broadcasting in Spanish, and the Sputnik agency did the same. nine0003

Abel Murcia says that “Instituto Cervantes in Moscow, opened in 2002 by the then Prince of Asturias Philippe de Bourbon in 2010, ranked first in teaching activity among all centers. In 2014, he still held this leading position, but after the crisis that shook Russia after the annexation of Crimea, the war in eastern Ukraine and sanctions, he began to lose ground. However, the Cervantes Institute in Moscow is still among the top five centers with the largest number of students. In 2016, it ranked fourth behind New Delhi, Manila and Beijing. In 2017 Algeria ranked fourth and Moscow fifth. In 2018, it does not retreat, only Manchester has replaced Algeria in fourth place. The Cervantes Institute in Moscow has an average of 5,000 students per year. nine0003

Its director says that the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which took place in Russia from June 14 to July 15 this year, significantly strengthened the position of the Spanish language. “Each of the eight groups had a team from a Spanish-speaking country,” he says. Groups A to H were Uruguay, Spain, Peru, Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, and Colombia. “Our students came to Nikolskaya Street – the meeting place for all fans – and practiced Spanish, because there were a lot of Spanish-speaking fans.” nine0003

Rafael M. Mañueco, Correspondent in Moscow.

4. United States. Expansion becomes more restrained

The United States has long been considered a country with endless possibilities for spreading the Spanish language. The rapidly growing economic and political power of the Hispanic community made it possible to see the future of the Spanish language in the United States. In the middle of the century, the number of Hispanic population of the United States was second only to Mexico. There have even been speculations about the coming of a Hispanic president, which would be the apotheosis of the political and cultural ascension of the Hispanic community. There are 58 million Spanish speakers in the United States, and this number will continue to grow throughout the next century. However, the big predictions of the past years are beginning to correct: the growth in the popularity of the Spanish language will not be as impressive as it was initially thought, and will slow down over time. nine0003

“Spanish’s rise in popularity may be halting,” warns Ignacio Olmos, director of the Cervantes Institute in New York. Olmos believes that the growth in demand for Spanish in the United States was due not only to an increase in the Hispanic population, but also to “the desire of American educational authorities to go beyond language isolation.” As a result, the teaching of foreign languages ​​spread (and Spanish was the main character among them), and many bilingual schools were created. nine0003

In recent years, the growth of the Spanish language in the United States has been stifled for several reasons. Immigration, especially from Mexico, has declined since the 2008 crisis and economic growth in Mexico. The birth rate in the Hispanic community, which is beginning to adapt to new social conditions, has decreased. Finally, the Hispanic community continues to grow relative to the rest of the country’s population, but the number of those who speak Spanish is falling. For example, between 2006 and 2015, the number of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home increased from 31 million to 37 million. During the same period, the percentage of the total Hispanic population dropped from 78% to 73%.
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This is just one of the proofs that Spanish may not be an exception to the US cultural melting pot, which in the past has swallowed up very powerful languages ​​such as German, Swedish or Polish. The situation is becoming more and more typical when a grandfather speaks to his grandson in Spanish, and he answers him in English. According to a study by Reuben Rumbaut of the University of California, only 5% of fourth-generation Mexican Americans speak Spanish fluently. nine0003

Over the past three years, this factor has been disrupted by the new political atmosphere created since Donald Trump came to power. The President of the United States, who refused to use Spanish in his election campaign, based part of his discourse on hatred of Hispanic immigrants. According to Olmos, “Trumpism” has led to the “criminalization of the Spanish language” as a language that threatens the country’s identity, and has imposed on some segments of the population “a feeling that Spanish is spoken too often.” The corollary to this is that Trump has had a major impact on the Spanish language in everything from cutting subsidies for language education programs to cases of insults in the street for using Spanish. nine0003

Javier Ansorena, New York correspondent.

5. Portugal. After English and French

According to the latest data from the Portuguese Ministry of Education, Spanish is the third most common foreign language in Portugal (14.8%). It is overtaken by English (59.6%) and French (21.5%).

In fact, the Cervantes Institute of Lisbon has about 80,000 students a year. In addition, Portuguese educational institutions offer Spanish from the seventh year of study. nine0003

Also, don’t forget that foreign TV shows and films are not dubbed in Portugal, because dubbing schools simply do not exist, and films are shown in their original language with subtitles. The popularity of the Spanish language is also being promoted by series such as “Tell Me”, which are very popular in Portugal.

Francisco Chacón, Correspondent in Lisbon.

6. Germany, Norway, Finland and Denmark. Spanish in honor

According to the Federal Statistical Office, in the last year alone, the total number of Spanish learners at various stages of education in Germany has increased by more than 20,000 people. If in the 2006-2007 academic year there were 259,301 people (2.8% of all registered in the German education system), then in the 2016-2017 academic year their number reached 425,066 people (5.1%). The vast majority of them – 422,160 people – study in schools where they have the opportunity to learn a second foreign language. nine0003

This number of Spanish learners has quadrupled in the last decade, when the Educational Council of the Spanish Embassy in Berlin has actively collaborated with the educational authorities in Germany and the German Association of Teachers of Spanish (DSV). In several states, such as Bremen or Hamburg, Spanish has ceased to be even the third most popular foreign language. It can be chosen as a second foreign language from the sixth or seventh year. In a number of states, Spanish is already offered in public elementary schools. Spanish philology is losing ground only at the university: in 2014-2015, it was studied by 976 students, and in 2017-2018 this figure dropped to 884 people.

In Norway, after an uninterrupted increase since 2010 in the number of learners of Spanish as a second foreign language in primary school in 2015-2016, there is a first decline: from 60,970 last year to 58,715 now. Spanish still ranks first, ahead of German (51,546 learners) and French (22,684 learners). In high school, the trends are similar. The largest number of Spanish learners are in grades over 8th. As a percentage, there are about 33% of them, and in some regions of the country – almost 50%. In Denmark and Finland, Spanish, like Russian, has gained the most positions over the past decade. nine0003

Rosalía Sánchez, Correspondent in Berlin.

7. Israel and Palestine. Official figures do not reflect real interest

Julio Martinez, director of the Cervantes Institute in Tel Aviv, says the official figures for the number of Spanish learners in Israel “do not reflect real interest in the language.” According to statistics, French and English overtake Spanish in secondary education. But let’s not forget that Israel is “a fertile land because of the large number of Jews of Argentinean, Uruguayan or Sephardic origin.” They do not forget about their Spanish roots. “High interest in Spanish culture” noticed by Julio Martinez will be rewarded in July 2019year by holding a congress of the International Association of Hispanists in Jerusalem.

According to the Consulate General of Jerusalem, the situation is the same in the occupied territories. In the west of the country, for example in Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron, there is a “growing demand”. Those responsible for cultural affairs want to make the most of the growing demand and open Instituto Cervantes centers in these cities. Among the long-term plans is the opening of the Cervantes Institute center in Jerusalem.

Mikel Ayestaran, Correspondent in Jerusalem.

8. Brazil. Spanish is no longer compulsory

Brazil insists on remaining a separate linguistic island despite borders with seven Spanish-speaking countries. Since 1942, when one of the first reforms in secondary education was carried out, the study of Spanish in Brazil has seen ups and downs, but has always remained optional.

In the 1960s, when educational agreements were signed with the United States, Spanish moved out of schools, and with the strengthening of Mercosur, since 2005, it has become a compulsory subject. Progress was also due to the efforts of the Spanish government, which supported the initiative of the then President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and sponsored the training of teachers. nine0003

But neither Mercosur trade nor Spanish investment was sufficient to comply with the “Spanish language law” that was repealed last year by current President Michel Temer. The reason that only English is now compulsory in public schools was the demand for this language and its prevalence in the world.

These changes caused protests, especially among Spanish teachers, who found themselves out of work after the innovations. Some states, such as Rondonia and Rio Grande do Sul, have organized movements to reopen their schools, taking advantage of the law leaving the final decision to local authorities. nine0003

A group of educators from the Federal University of Rio Grande del Sur (UFRGS) has created a movement to make language compulsory in secondary schools. The state, which was founded by Spanish missionaries, shares a common border and gaucho culture with Argentina and Uruguay.

With the support of other universities, the movement took to social media under the hashtag #FicaEspanhol (Stay Spanish) and won the bill at the local level.

One of the problems associated with the termination of the law at the federal level was the difficulty of meeting the demand for teachers. nine0003

The latest news came at the beginning of November, when Brazil and Spain signed an agreement to open public schools in Portuguese and Spanish in the border regions, which will teach languages ​​from the primary grades, because the younger the child, the higher his ability to learn.

The initiative of the Organization of Ibero-American States was supported by Portugal. The Secretary General of the Organization, Mariano Jabonero, visited Brazil to sign an agreement with the Brazilian Ministry of Education. The idea of ​​the project, which will be implemented from 2019year, is to support bilingual schools and the connection of cultures in the border states.

“This program will promote intercultural dialogue in the most widely spoken languages ​​in these countries, Portuguese and Spanish,” said Mariano Jabonero during his visit.

Verónica Goyzueta Correspondent in Rio de Janeiro

ESPAÑOL – News – Windows of Growth – National Research University Higher School of Economics

This issue is about the Spanish language, its features, learning experiences, communication with foreign colleagues, writing scientific articles, translation practices are told by Aleksey Rutkevich and Alina Shcherbakova. nine0003

No estudiamos para la escuela, sino para la vida.

Aleksey Rutkevich, scientific director of the Faculty of Humanities

How did it happen that your choice fell on Spanish? And what were your first steps in learning Spanish?

At the university I wrote term papers at the intersection of social philosophy and theoretical sociology. At the end of the 4th course, I came across the texts of José Ortega y Gasset and became interested. I read a couple of books in English and one book in French – I already knew these languages ​​quite well then. This philosopher interested me, and I decided: why not, after all, learn the language? That is, in my case, interest in the Spanish language is associated with interest in a certain direction of philosophy. nine0003

At that time I studied exclusively on my own, studying a textbook and reading works in Spanish. I didn’t read much, but since I continued to write my Ph.D. thesis in Spanish philosophy in graduate school, it was more like a course. After a year and a half, I quit, because learning the language was reduced mainly to doing exercises that I hated. In general, the Soviet educational system was arranged in such a way that living languages ​​were taught in the same way as dead ones – Latin, Ancient Greek, that is, languages ​​that no one speaks anymore. I understand that English, which businessmen all over the world at the very least speak, using a dictionary of one and a half thousand words, is not the language of Shakespeare. Nevertheless, if it is a living language, one must be able to listen to the radio in it, be able to read a modern newspaper. It cannot be taught in the same way that Latin is taught to read Cicero. nine0003

I wrote my thesis on Ortega’s philosophy. And then I read a lot, studying the social philosophy of the so-called Madrid school, which, in addition to Ortega, includes a whole number of philosophers, some of whom in themselves deserved a separate dissertation.

So textbook and text reading became the core of language learning?

No, the textbook in this case is like the image of a ladder from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: you have to climb the ladder and then throw it away. A textbook is a necessary minimum for understanding the language. In general, the grammar of Spanish and other Romance languages ​​- French, Italian – is approximately the same; differences are negligible. Having an understanding of French grammar, I learned Spanish easily. But there are basic skills that need to be worked out from the tutorial, from the textbook, before moving on to reading. And I passed this stage in good faith. But in the future, having defended my dissertation and remaining in a teaching job, I had to move from reading books in the language to lecturing. nine0003

My graduation from graduate school coincided with the year when groups of students from Cuba began to be sent to the Soviet Union. Those who have already studied two years of philosophy in Cuba and in Russian language courses. They spoke and understood Russian very badly. And I found myself in a situation where you have 15-20 people in front of you, of which only two perceive the Russian language normally, and the rest need to be dictated slowly. At first, I just made digressions in Spanish, explaining how and what. And then I was given the opportunity to lecture in Spanish. Of course, I had to intensively prepare for these lectures. nine0003

This went on for eight or nine years. Then I was invited a couple of times by the IPK (Institute for Advanced Studies) of Moscow State University to give lectures to teachers from Cuba on the history of philosophy and modern Western philosophy. So Spanish passed into my spoken language. True, extremely professional. Of course, I have read other books, but still my knowledge of Spanish is connected primarily with the reading of philosophers. Another thing is that the Spanish philosophers, and in this they are similar to the Russian philosophers of the Silver Age, are either writers and poets, like Miguel de Unamuno, or brilliant stylists and publicists, like Ortega y Gasset. I also had to read the Spanish classics – Lope de Vega and Cervantes, as well as talk with the Spaniards. Nevertheless, the Spanish language is quite difficult, and I cannot say that I have mastered it perfectly. nine0003

You mentioned the story of lecturing Cubans. How did you train your pronunciation in conditions of isolation, when a foreign language was studied mainly by reading books?

I never had a complex about this. I thought and still think that a very small number of professionals need to master phonetics perfectly. The main thing is that my pronunciation is understandable to others. And although I do not have any superpowers for learning languages ​​and the ear of a good musician, my pronunciation is quite adequate. In addition, I communicated mainly with such native speakers, whose pronunciation, to put it mildly, was worse than mine. So even if I initially spoke the standard Castigliano, then, lecturing to Cubans, I would still unlearn how to pronounce some sounds correctly. For example, Spanish has a lot of interdental sounds. But if a large part of the Spaniards themselves do not really pronounce them, then why should I suffer? In addition to the Spaniards, Spanish is spoken by a huge part of Latin America. And Latin American dialect differs from Spanish in pronunciation; in addition, there are quite a few words in it that have acquired yet another meaning. However, the base is the same. Whether it’s communist Cuba or monarchist Spain, in schools both of them still pass Cervantes and read the 15th-century poet Jorge Manrique. nine0003

What opportunities did you have to improve your pronunciation?

I won’t go into detail now about how languages ​​were taught in the Soviet Union – that would take us far. Sufficient knowledge of a foreign language at that time was considered to be the ability to “read and translate with a dictionary,” as it was formulated in the questionnaires. Everything was limited to this skill for most people who received higher education. Therefore, the problems of phonetics that you are talking about existed for a relatively small number of professionals who received linguistic – philological or pedagogical – education. And Spanish, moreover, was one of the rather rare languages: there were practically no schools with Spanish in the Union. nine0003

Can you tell us about your experience with native Spanish speakers?

The first serious experience dates back to 1991. I was then in Germany and met a professor there, an ethnic Spaniard who spoke German disgustingly. I must say that the Spaniards generally experience difficulties with the development of foreign languages. They often have poor pronunciation. Of course, there are exceptions, but on average they do worse than the Italians, for example. And this German professor of Spanish origin invited me to the International Ortega Foundation in Madrid for ten days. And there I really talked quite a lot with real Spaniards. Then I already knew Spanish very well. Difficulties could arise somewhere in a restaurant with the names of Spanish dishes, especially since Spanish cuisine is very peculiar and unfamiliar to us. In general, I did not have any special problems in communicating with the Spaniards. nine0003

In addition, the Spaniards do not have such a problem as, for example, the French have: to a modern Frenchman, the old French Francois Villon or even Michel Montaigne is no longer very clear. Whereas the modern Spanish language in the XV-XVI centuries has already been formed. Therefore, the bookish language of the Spanish classics, on the whole, differs little from modern colloquial Spanish.

What are the features of the translation from Spanish into Russian? What specific problems arise here? nine0010

No specific problems. I translated quite a lot from Spanish. The problems are all the same. For some reason, we believe that the main problem in translation is knowledge of a foreign language. In fact, most often it is a problem of mastery of the native language. Of course, you need to know a foreign language and know the problems of the text that you undertake to translate. Anyone who studies cosmology needs, generally speaking, to know cosmology. Or if you are translating an economist, so be kind, do not get confused in terminology. But there are still stylistic nuances, especially for those thinkers whose texts merge with literature. I understand these problems very well, because I translated Albert Camus, a serious French writer, and from Spanish I translated Ortega, a brilliant stylist. And I know people who translated it worse than me, but I also know those who translated it better. Because this is his literary wealth, this constant game of metaphor, I was by no means always able to reproduce congenially, since I do not know the art of writing to the same extent as he does. nine0003

But this is generally a problem. People who think that it is possible to take and make a machine translation of any text in the foreseeable future are greatly mistaken. Maybe certain articles where words are just links between formulas, and it can be translated that way. But imagine a machine translation of some good poet – what will come of it? And philosophy is at the junction with literature.

In the case of Spanish philosophy, this connection with literature is especially close. Although today, by the way, this is no longer the case. Modern Spanish philosophy is developing under the influence, on the one hand, of analytical philosophy, and on the other hand, of continental philosophy – first of all, these are different variants of neo-Marxism. Therefore, in what language a person writes – German, Italian or Spanish – it is no longer so important: the problem is general. nine0003

When did this transition take place?

This transition began in the mid-1950s, with the so-called generation of 56, when the first student uprisings against Francoism began. At this time, young minds educated in the United States, Germany and France began to return to the country. And in Spain during these years, the official philosophy at the universities is scholasticism, against which even the neo-Thomist Jacques Maritain is considered a heretic. And just a colossal discontent of smart young people began. This coincided in time with the rapid flourishing of the economy and the demand for the development of science. It became clear that lectures on philosophy should not be read by those who believe that Thomas Aquinas is a philosopher for all time, and Galileo is a heretic. There was a social order for a different philosophy. There are people who refer to the philosophy of David Hume, Karl Marx … At least since the sixties, philosophy in Spanish books has become different, by the beginning of the seventies it begins to supplant scholasticism. To date, the latter has been completely relegated to the field of theology, and thank God. nine0003

It must be understood: there was a great age of Spain, a golden age of Spanish culture and literature – from the end of the 15th to the beginning of the 17th century. The subsequent history of Spain is a history of increasing economic and cultural decline. Spain of the 19th century, from the point of view of philosophy and science, is a desert. Of course, there have been glimpses, including in philosophy, but on a global scale, all this is secondary. The next era of serious philosophy and significant literature, which they like to refer to in Spain, is associated with the generation of 1898 years old In some ways, it intersects with our Silver Age. At this time, wonderful literature arises, a whole generation of talented writers and poets like Antonio Machado and Miguel de Unamuno. And at the same time, an original, proper Spanish philosophy arises, to which Ortega and the same Unamuno belong.

Each foreign language is like a window into another world. Not even the language itself, but the history of the culture of a particular people imprinted in this language, or, as in the case of Spanish, several peoples (not only Spaniards, but also Venezuelans, Argentines, Mexicans). Learning foreign languages ​​helps to go beyond their provinciality. A provincial is not someone who lives in a province. Every capital city is full of provincials. And somewhere very far away, in some village, people live who are just not provincials. Provincialism is a narrow point of view, when a person clings to what is accepted “in our circle.” And this “our circle” is office plankton all over the world, boasting of such an advanced liberal socialist ideology. These people are provincial in their capitals and in their offices. Provincialism is a failure to understand that the world is diverse; that different points of view are possible; that, generally speaking, they can look at us from the outside. Knowledge of any foreign language, any culture opens up this way beyond one’s provincialism. nine0003

Alina Shcherbakova, Associate Professor of the Department of World Economy, Head of the Iberoamerican Sector of the Central University of Economics, Higher School of Economics

It so happened that for 14 years my life has been inextricably linked with the Faculty of World Economy and World Politics: I am its graduate and after graduation I stayed here in graduate school and began teaching. As you know, our faculty offers a choice of region of specialization and, accordingly, the language that students will learn from scratch. Entering this faculty, I was sure that I would choose another language, the study of which I had dreamed of since childhood (I will not say what kind of language it is, so as not to offend its fans). And when the results of the entrance examinations were already known, my parents, as a gift for a gold medal and admission to the HSE budget, organized a trip for me to the then country of my dreams. And it turned out that for all the attractiveness of the culture and history of this country, its inhabitants sometimes seem fixated on themselves and even partly snobs. Associating a professional career with this country seemed to me wrong and unpromising. It was then that the question arose of changing specialization and, as a result, the language. After careful thought, I came to the conclusion that only Spanish will give me unlimited opportunities for my future career, because 33 countries in the world speak it. It’s scary for me now to think what would have happened if on that landmark trip I hadn’t realized that I needed to radically change my priorities. nine0003

Spanish is my favorite foreign language, no other can compare with its beauty of sound. When you speak Spanish, the sounds seem to come straight from your chest, it is so deep and musical, mesmerizing and temperamental. Sometimes it seems that any Spanish phrase can be sung, because it is very melodic. No wonder, probably, the inhabitants of Spanish-speaking countries dance so well: they have harmony in their blood, laid down by the beauty of the language.

Of course, at first it was very difficult. I remember that the schedule always included two classes of Spanish, and then a couple of English. And at first, we came to English with such relief, where everything was so familiar and understandable, because we all learned this language from the first grade of school. The Spanish succumbed and did not open right away. But somewhere in the middle of the first course, it became clear to me that this language is with me forever, that I have a soul, a mindset, and a character for it. Of course, for instilling love for the Spanish language, I really want to say thanks to my teachers – L.Yu. Balashov, N.E. Denisova, L.V. Kovalenko, A.A. Sinyavsky. Now, when talking to me, none of the native speakers believe that I learned Spanish at a Moscow university with Russian teachers. And I think that this is really a sign of the quality of the excellent level of teaching Spanish, which was at our faculty during my student days. nine0003

Unfortunately, I have not been able to visit all the Spanish-speaking countries yet, so I am intimately familiar with only two – Spain and Argentina. But, of course, I have met representatives of other Latin American nations at various conferences and other scientific events. We can say with confidence that a distinctive feature of all Spanish speakers is their amazing openness and goodwill. Of course, this is partly the merit of the Spanish language, which spread Spanish culture to the New World. nine0003

I can talk endlessly about Spain and its people. I don’t know any other such nation that would be so decent, positive and hospitable. Rest assured, the Spaniards will never deceive you, even if you are a tourist who does not speak any foreign language. Spanish history and culture is so rich that you will never get tired of visiting this country. You can visit there twenty, thirty, a hundred times – and still continue to discover something new. Madrid remains my favorite city, which is very close to me in spirit, I always feel at home there. And every time I visit (and I have been to Madrid more than 15 times), I definitely go to the Prado Museum – a storehouse of Spanish and world art. nine0003

I happened to live in Argentina for three months while I was writing my thesis. The faculty then awarded me and my classmate with an internship at the University of Entrepreneurship and Social Sciences (UCES) for the first dozens in the history of our faculty at the State Educational Standards in Spanish, which we passed in the 4th year. Buenos Aires is an amazing city filled to the brim with a mix of different architectural styles. Here you will see colonial houses, and block high-rise buildings, and skyscrapers similar to New York ones, and the world-famous multi-colored houses of the La Boca quarter, where the first port of Buenos Aires was located, and much more. It is very interesting that the inhabitants of the capital of Argentina speak their own version of Spanish, which is different from the language of other regions of the country. This is the so-called porteño, that is, “port”. At the very beginning of my internship, I could not get used to this variant of Spanish, but now I find it especially chic to switch to porteño when communicating with colleagues from Buenos Aires. nine0003

The rhythm of Buenos Aires is crazy, similar to Moscow, so a resident of any big city will feel comfortable there. And yes, a number of stereotypes about Argentina are true: tango is really danced on the streets in the evenings and on weekends, and the whole nation, without exception, is obsessed with football.

If we talk about Spanish as a language of communication in the academic environment, then at conferences or negotiations attended by foreigners, residents of absolutely all Spanish-speaking countries use the traditional version of the Spanish language – Castilian (castellano). Everyone speaks it, regardless of the dialect prevailing in their home region. Even the Catalans, who, as we know, are prone to separatism, speak the Castilian dialect with foreigners without any manifestation of discontent. Thus, the Castilian dialect can be compared with the Russian language of the Soviet Union – everyone in the Spanish-speaking world speaks it. nine0003

The Spanish language opens up almost limitless possibilities when writing scientific papers, because it is very important, when studying a particular region, to know the language in which documents, scientific papers, statistics, media reports and other materials that are important for a scientist are published.