Thursday, October 22, 2015

Challenge 52 in 52: Castilian

Spanish is the world's second biggest native language and #4 in most spoken languages. There's almost half a billion people who speak Spanish as their native language.

Spanish is a Romance language. Its closest (bigger) relatives are Portuguese and Italian. It's relatively possible for a Spanish speaker to understand some Portuguese and Italian, at least in written form.
French is also a Romance language, but it's very different from Spanish. Interestingly enough it's easier for French speakers to understand Spanish than for Spanish speakers to understand French.
The relation is a bit like with Danish and Swedish. Danes and Norwegians understand both, but Swedish people find it hard to understand Danish.

As with Portuguese, I want to learn the European version of this language. Now, my Spanish speaking friend speaks Chilean Spanish, but the language itself is the same. Sort of. It's like with any language that has a European and an American version.
Also, as with Portuguese, the European version is a bit hard to find. There's a lot of information about Spanish, but most of it is in American Spanish. After all, some 80% of Spanish speakers live in Americas. :-D

There are some slight differences in the alphabet. I think the European Spanish is softer and just nicer. If I have understood it correctly, the rest of the world think it's too soft.

Here's the numbers

It's really easy to find the frequency lists, Spanish radio and music, Spanish tv shows and movies, and Spanish texts of all kinds online, so the world is your oyster there.

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