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Spanish
Spanish
Spanish is a global language with over 500 million native speakers. It is spoken mainly in the Americas and Spain; speakers inch towards 600 million, when including those who speak it as a second language. As the official language of 20 countries, as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations, Spanish is the world’s second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese.
As a Romance language, Spanish is closely related to Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian.
Cultures of Spanish speakers vary, but most Spanish speaking countries are majority Christian or Catholic.
Reading and Writing: Spanish is written with the same alphabet as English, with an additional symbol ‘ñ’ which represents a palatalized nasal stop, similar to ‘ny’. Spanish is generally very easy to learn to read, as it is 99% phonetic; letter sounds follow predictable patterns, unlike in English.
Gender: Spanish has gendered nouns and adjectives, with masculine and feminine endings.
Word Order: In Spanish, adjectives come after nouns. So instead of ‘blue butterfly’, you would say ‘butterfly blue (mariposa azul)
Sounds and Writing: Some letters are pronounced differently in the Spanish orthography:
J is pronounced as an English ‘h’
LL is pronounced as an English ‘y’
Z is usually pronounced as an English ‘s’
Useful Phrases
Useful Phrases
Welcome: Bienvenido
Hello: Hola
Goodbye: Adios
How are you? Como estas?
Very good: Muy Bien
Thank you: Gracias
Sit down, please: Sientate, por favor
Do you need help? Necessitas ayuda?
My name is . . . Me llamo . . .
I am happy that you are in my class: Estoy triste que estas en mi clase.
Resources
Resources
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