What is the most important thing to do when learning Spanish?
Spanish, Español, is a Romance language (Indo-European family) is a Romance language with approximately 470 million speakers, 410 of whom speak it as a first language, while the remainder speaks it as a second language.
A significant number of people also speak Spanish as a foreign language. The language is known today as Spanish is derived from a dialect of spoken Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War, beginning in 218 BC, and which evolved in central parts of the Iberian Peninsula after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century. A written standard was developed in the cities of Toledo (13th to 16th centuries) and Madrid (from the 1560s). Over the past 1,000 years, the language expanded south to the Mediterranean Sea and was later transferred through the Spanish colonial empire, most notably to the Americas. Today it is the official language of 20 countries, as well as an official language of numerous international organizations, including the United Nations.
Spanish is spoken in Spain and 22 other countries including Andorra, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, the USA and Venezuela. In the early Estimated Spanish speakers in 21st century (both using as a first language and as a second language) are as follows, in order of numerical importance: Mexico, 110 million; Colombia, 41 million; Argentina, about 40 million; Spain, more than 38 million; Venezuela, some 27 million; Peru, 26 million; Chile, more than 16 million; Ecuador, more than 14 million; Cuba, some 11 million; Guatemala, almost 10 million; Bolivia, more than 8 million; the Dominican Republic, more than 8 million; El Salvador, some 6 million; Honduras, 6 million; Nicaragua, almost 6 million; Paraguay, more than 4 million; Costa Rica, about 4 million; Puerto Rico, more than 3 million; Uruguay, more than 3 million; Panama, 3 million; Equatorial Guinea, 627,000 (mostly second language). There are 100,000 to 200,000 speakers of Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), mostly in Israel.
In Spain, this language is generally called Español (Spanish) when addressing the modern form of the language or when contrasting it with languages of other countries, such as French and English, although the Castilian dialect is conventionally considered in Spain to be the same as standard Spanish, when contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain, such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan, it is called Castellano (Castilian, the language of the Castile region). The language is spoken in Castile during the Middle Ages, or the subdialect of Spanish spoken in northern parts of modern day Castile is also addressed as Castilian. The name Castellano is widely used for the language in Latin America. Some Spanish speakers consider Castellano a generic term with no political or ideological links, much as “Spanish” in English. The dialect arose in Cantabria in the 9th century around the town of Burgos in north-central Spain (Old Castile) and, as Spain was reconquered from the Moors, spread southward to central Spain (New Castile) around Madrid and Toledo by the 11th century. In the late 15th century, the kingdoms of Castile and Leon merged with that of Aragon, and Castilian became the official language of all of Spain. The regional dialects of Aragon, Navarra, Leon, Asturias, and Santander were crowded out gradually and today survive only in secluded rural areas. Galician (a language with many similarities to Portuguese), spoken in northwestern Spain, and Catalan, spoken in eastern and northeastern Spain, were also much reduced but began a resurgence in the late 20th century.
The “first written Spanish” was traditionally considered to have appeared in the Glosas Emilianenses located in San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja from the 11th century and by the 12th century, law codes (Fueros) were being translated into Spanish. Spanish prose flowered during the reign of King Alfonso X the Wise of Castile (1252-84), who in addition to being the king and a poet, also found time to write an encyclopaedia in Spanish called Las Partidas, which contains laws, chronicles, recipes, and rules for hunting, chess and card games. The first Spanish grammar, by Antonio de Nebrija, and the first dictionaries were published during the 15th and 16th centuries.
