Spain has a huge variety of different aspects on offer, apart from a place to spend your holidays on the beach and retire. Spain is sun, but also grey skies. Spain is beach, but also mountains and rivers. Spain is sea, is party, but also green and culture. Spain is different, people in Spain are different and cultures in Spain are different.
United Kingdom is composed by England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Spain, in the same way, came from the union of five main medieval kingdoms: Castile, León, Aragón, Navarre and Grenada. All of them are included in the Spanish coat of arms and can be seen in all the red and yellow Spanish flags. But these kingdoms were also complex and composed by several peoples with their own cultures and languages.
The origin of the Spanish language can be found, also, in the middle Ages. When Latin evolved in the Iberian Peninsula it originated languages like Galician, Leonese, Castilian, Aragonese and Catalan, at the same time that French was born in France or Italian in Italy.
The origin of the Spanish language can be found, also, in the middle Ages. When Latin evolved in the Iberian Peninsula it originated languages like Galician, Leonese, Castilian, Aragonese and Catalan, at the same time that French was born in France or Italian in Italy.
Arabian and Latin dialects were spoken in the South of Spain, and Basque, a non-Latin language, remained in the West Pyrenees. Nowadays in Spain, we can say that all those languages have more or less survived. Castilian, through the times, evolved into what we call today Spanish, also called Castilian by several people. With the unity of Spain, Castilian was spread through all the territory and mixed with regional languages.
Madrid is the capital city of Spain, in the middle of Castile and is probably the best place to learn Spanish in Spain. The Spanish spoken is clear and easy to understand. The rest of Spain, especially in the South, Spanish is spoken with dialects that can difficult to understand. Even Spanish people can find it difficult to understand some of those dialects in Andalusia.
Northwest Iberia has a complex language history, were Galician, Asturian and Leoneses are living. These peoples came from Celtic ancestors mixed with local inhabitants, and their cultures are more similar to those in Scotland or Ireland than the ones in other territories in Spain. They speak Galician in Galicia and Leonese in León and Asturias. Basque, one of the oldest languages in Europe, is official in the Basque land and Navarre, and it can be heard in the deep valleys from the north.
When they speak Spanish they even express themselves differently. This is also the case in Aragón with Aragonese or Catalonia, Valencia and Balearic Islands with Catalan.
When people learning Spanish visit Barcelona, they are shocked to see that most people in Barcelona don’t speak Spanish as their first language. This defeats the object of learning Spanish in Spain. Barcelona is a great city to visit, but it is not to be recommended as a place to learn Spanish.
So, if you are thinking about learning Spanish in Spain, Madrid is your place: a big vibrant city, where there is ample opportunity to practice your Spanish with friendly and hospitable Madrilenians.
