With about 480 million native speakers Spanish or Castilian (Castellano in Spanish) is the world’s second most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated that more than 570 million people in total speak Spanish either as a first or second language. It’s an official language in 21 countries.
Around 75% of the language has its roots in Latin. Part of it is also traceable to Arabic (due to the Arab occupation of most of the Iberian Peninsula between the 8th and 15th Century) and Ancient Greek (through Latin). Due to the Latin roots Spanish vocabulary has many similarities with Italian, French and Portuguese. When speaking one of these languages, it will be much easier to learn Spanish too and the other way around.
Spanish colonialism has spread the language across the Atlantic to Middle and South America. Besides Spain it’s also an official language in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Cuba, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Paraguay, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Panama, Uruguay and on the African continent in Equatorial Guinea.
Personally I started learning Spanish at age sixteen in College for Tourism and perfected it when I was living in Spain for three years. Soon you can read the full story about my own experiences with Spanish in a blog post.
If you want to learn Spanish on your own way in your own pace, you’ve come to the right place. On this page I will provide you with tips and tools to get started or you can find ideas on how to improve your Spanish if you’ve already learned it in the past.