Spanish (“Castellano” or “Español”), also known in English as “Castilian”, is the principle language of Spain. Because of Spain’s colonial history, the language is also widely spoken outside of the country, including in many South and Central American countries, and in Spain’s former African colony of Equitorial Guinea. In fact, today there are perhaps as many as 400 million people who speak Spanish as their first language, making it the language with the second largest number of native speakers. Additionally, Spanish is perhaps the first most popular language on the Internet (after English and Chinese), and one of six official languages used by the United Nations.
Although Spanish is the official language throughout Spain, it should be noted that it is not the only language. Spain is also home to a number of other languages, some of which have co-official status in the particular territories; Aranese (Aranés) in Catalonia, Basque (Euskera) in the Basque Country and Navarre, Catalan (Català) in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and in the Valencian Community (in the latter, the language is known as “Valencian”), and Galician (Galego) in Galicia.
No doubt you are aware of the benefits of learning Spanish. Whether you visit Spanish (or another Spanish-speaking country) on vacation, or you plan to do business with Spanish speakers, knowing the language can make your life a lot simpler! You might also be surprised how much easier it is to learn a language than it used to be in the past – today, as well as books and audio courses, there is some excellent software available for teaching Spanish (including the very popular Rosetta Stone Spanish software), and indeed many excellent web sites that can be really useful too.
