The Spanish language History of the Spanish Language and Free Spanish Lessons

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In the United States, Spanish is the second most spoken language, with about 45 million who speak Spanish as their first or second language and about six million students are learning Spanish in U.S. schools. Spanish communities are present in almost all of the 50 states in the U.S. and have large concentrations in California, Florida, Texas, Nevada, Washington, D.C. and other neighboring states. Spanish is also the world’s second most spoken language, making translation services from English to Spanish and Spanish to English in such high demand in the global business community. Thus, Your Spanish Translation provides a dedicated team of Spanish translators, ready to serve you anytime you need Spanish to English translation of any type of document.

Your Spanish Translation is backed by a team of dynamic, highly-skilled and professional native speakers and trained Spanish to English or English to Spanish translators. We make sure that everything we translate is of the highest quality and accuracy and delivered right on time. Being native speakers, our Spanish translators know the differences in Spanish dialects, the local idioms and jargons, the subtle nuances of the language and the Spanish culture and traditions. We see to it that the preferences of the target audience are considered and the requirements of the clients are followed to the letter.

You can chat with our customer agent anytime, as we are open 24 hours a day, any day of the week. It does not matter to us whether your Spanish to English or English to Spanish translation requirement is large or small. We treat every project with the same amount of dedication and professionalism. Moreover, we are happy to serve you wherever you are as our Spanish translators are located in many parts of the world. We make it easy for you to contact us. You may simply fill up the request form for an instant quote, which you can receive within ten minutes. All our Spanish translation services are guaranteed and every project remains private. You have come to the right place to have your documents translated from English to Spanish or Spanish to English.

Origin and History of the Language

The Spanish language is large and pervasive because there are around 406 million speakers in the world who consider Spanish their mother tongue. This makes Spanish the second language with the highest number of native speakers.

Spanish is also known as Castilian as a consequence of its origins: the language was originally born in the Castile region of Spain, where Spanish is one of the country’s official languages. Spanish is the official language of several other countries in Central and South America, a direct result of the colonisation period.
In more recent years, Spanish has been increasingly spoken in the United States as a consequence of migration and the country’s growing Hispanic-American population. Today, Spanish is the most spoken non-English language in the country, with 37.6 billion people speaking it at home. Of these, 2.8 million are of a non-Hispanic origin, which makes Spanish the most spoken language (apart from English) by non-Hispanics.

There are around 60 million people who speak Spanish as a second language in the world, making it one of the most important languages in international communication. As such, it is one of the official languages of the United Nations, the European Union and Mercosur. It also helps that most of the Western Hemisphere regards Spanish as their mother tongue. Spanish speakers can also be found in the African continent where it is spoken by individuals in Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara. There are even some Spanish speakers in Asia, mainly concentrated in the Philippines.

Spanish is a Romance language, which means that it has a Latin origin like other languages such as French, Portuguese or Italian. This makes Spanish easier to learn if you are a native speaker of another Romance language or if you have already acquired one of these languages before. One of the advantages that Spanish offers to learners is that words are written in the same way they are pronounced. You should not worry about which variety you learn, as the Spanish spoken in Spain or any other Latin American country is mutually intelligible.

The English language has various loan words from Spanish. Examples of this are “tornado” or “patio”. Various location names in the United States are Spanish in origin, especially in the south in areas closer to Spanish-speaking Mexico. These are remnants of colonial times, when Spain had conquered a large area of territories and named places such as Los Angeles (“the angels”), Nevada (“snowed”), Florida (“flowery”) or Amarillo (“yellow”).
Some of the linguistic properties that could make Spanish a little tricky to learn include the use of gender for commons nouns and the language’s extensive verb conjugation, which includes six different endings for each verb tense. It is also important to know that Spanish has different ways of addressing people depending on the degree of familiarity and deference you wish to confer when uttering a particular statement. In this sense, speakers can choose between “tú”, to address people in a familiar manner, and “usted”, to address older people, bosses, professors, or any other person who deserves a speaker’s respect.

Historically, the earliest documents written in Spanish date back to the year 964 and they are known as las Glosas Emilianenses (“Glosses of Saint Emilianus”). These documents are a series of notes written in Spanish and Basque in the margins of a manuscript written in Latin. Between 1803 and 2010, the Spanish alphabet, called “abecedario” due to the combination of the names of letter “A”, “B”, “C” and “D”, had 29 letters altogether. In 2010, though, the Spanish Language Academy decided that “CH” and “LL” should not stand as separate letters. The letter “Ñ” is still a separate letter and it has turned into an emblem of the Spanish language, as it appears in the name of the language itself: “Español”. This letter appeared during medieval times to reflect originally Latin words and it has consolidated into the language; today, “Ñ” has its own separate key in all Spanish keyboards.

The Spanish language is regulated by the Royal Spanish Academy (“Real Academia Española” in Spanish), which was created by royal charter in the year 1713. In current times, the institution has become more open and international, accepting different uses from all over Latin America.

At Your Spanish Translations we know a lot about both the Spanish language and the translation profession. We offer quality products realised by language professionals with years of experience in the field. Our excellent customer service ensures that every one of our customers gets exactly what they need; there is always a representative available to answer questions or provide extra information.

With Spanish being such a pervasive language, translations into and from it is a basic necessity. No matter where you are, Day Translations can help you. We have translators and offices all over the world! Contact us for a free quote!

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Learn Basic Spanish for FREE

 
Present Verbs

 
Past (preterite) Verbs

 
Future

 
Imperfect

 
Conditional

 
Irregular Verbs, 2 examples using the verb, to be

 
Present Subjunctive

 
Imperfect Subjunctive

 
Present Perfect Indicative, Haber + Past Participle

 
Past Perfect Indicative, Haber + Past Participle

 
Future Perfect Indicative, Future Form of Haber + Past Participle

 
Conditional Perfect

 
Present Perfect of Subjunctive

 
Past Perfect of Subjunctive

 
Imperative Commands

 
Possessive Adjectives

 
Possessive Pronouns = Mine, Yours, His, Her

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