Although Spanish is a romance language, very different from English, it's a very easy language to learn. In the United States Spanish is spoken fluently or pseudo-fluently by a vast population (over 20 million people). .
There are some
facts about the Spanish language that deserve some attention:
* Many Americans wrongly believe that Castillian is the language spoken in Spain, while Spanish is spoken in the Americas. This is not the case. Castillian and Spanish is the same language. The fact that the Spanish as spoken in many regions of Spain differs from the one spoken in America, does not mean that there are 2 different languages. Many of the charactersitcs of the Latinamerican Spanish are directly taken from Andalusia, (the southern region of Spain). As it happened, lots of Andalusians were pioneers in establishing the colonies in the Americas. For this reason the Latinamerican Spanish have many of the characteristics of the Spanish spoken in Andalusia. One specific and main difference of the language spoken in Spain, is the pronounciation of the soft "c" and "z" consonants. In the Castillian region and north parts of Spain, these consonants are pronounced as "th" (as "th" in the word "think"), while in Latinamerica and some southern parts of Spain they are pronounced as an "s". This linguistic characteristics is known as "seseo" (pronounced: seh-seh-o and it's accepted as a regional feature of the language.
* Castillian is the name of the Spanish language. It is called Castillian or "Castellano" because it was originated in Castilla, the Central Region of Spain. While the various kingdoms in Spain were united, a central language was necessary for the easy communication between the different regions. As Spain discoverd the new World for Europe, it was necessary to establish one and only one language to be the official language in every corner of the World where Spain was present. Castilla is located in the Central Region of the Iberian Peninsula, and at that time its language was mature in terms of literarature and grammar. Therefore castellano, (the language spoken and written in Castilla) had the honor to be the official language of the Spanish Empire. The words "español" and "castellano" can be used indistinctively in referring to the Spanish language. As a matter of fact, referring to the Spanish language, technically the name "castellano" is more correct that "español". Drawing an analogy to this, no one calls the English language, "British", although it was the official language of the United Kingdom during the time of the British World expansion.
* There are different accents of the Spanish Language. But no matter how many different accents, the spoken and written words are the same, and the people of different Spanish-speaking countries communicate in their language with no major problem. There are regional words, that in some countries are not used the same, or have a different meaning. The reason for this, is the large distance that separates Spanish-speaking countries, and their isolation. It's easier to travel through Europe among countries of different languages, that it is to travel through Spanish America from one country to another. Fortunately this is changing, as the advancement in communications is making the World smaller.
