Spanish Language Profile

In fact, Spanish is regarded as the second native language that is most spoken in Mandarin Chinese. In early 21st Century, Mexico had the greatest number of Spanish speakers with over 85 million, Columbia was the second with 40 million, Argentina the third with over 35 million, the U. S had more than 31 million, and Spain with over 30 million. The estimated number of Spanish America in South and Central America is as follows: • Mexico- 110 million • Colombia- 41 million • Argentina- 40 million • Spain- over 38 million • Venezuela- about 27 million • Peru- 26 million • Chile- over 16 million • Ecuador- over 14 million • Cuba- about 11 million • Guatemala- about 10 million • Bolivia- over 8 million • Dominican Republic- over 8 million • El Salvador- about 6 million • Honduras- 6 million • Nicaragua- around 6 million • Paraguay- over 4 million • Costa Rica- around 4 million • Puerto Rica- over 3 million • Uruguay- over 3 million • Panama- 3 million • Equatorial Guinea- 627,000 In Israel, there are about 100,000-200,000 Judeo-Spanish speakers.

In the United States, there were about 15 million Spanish native speakers in 2015, which is 155 of the total population. When the Moors conquered Spain by 11th Century, it spread southwards to areas around central Spain like Toledo and Madrid. The Leon and Castile kingdoms merged with Aragon in the late 15th Century, and this resulted in Castilian becoming the official language in Spain. Some of the dialects such as Asturias, Aragon, Santander, Navarra, and Leon gradually crowded out and survive today in secluded areas. Galician, which is similar to Portuguese and spoken in Catalan and other parts of northwestern Spain also reduced much, but in the late 20th Century, it began gaining resurgence (Pountain, 137). Geographical centers Role in society In the United States and other parts of the world, one of the fastest growing segment is the Spanish-speaking population.

Aspects of literacy There is a wide range of differences between Spanish and English language when it comes to aspects of literacy. Spanish vowels have an acute accent, use the Latin alphabet, and have additional letter ñ. Also, the Spanish phonological system has some significant differences as compared to English especially in the aspects of sentence stress and vowel sounds. Such differences hinder Spanish learners aspiring to acquire an accent similar to that of a native English speaker. In terms of grammar, Spanish is heavily inflected than English as most of the verbal grammar aspects are similar (Zagona, 23). The language is completely different from English and this is a great hindrance to effective communication between them. For teachers, teaching English in classroom is challenging since the needs of non-Spanish students differ from those of the Spanish ones.