“Words with flavor: Celebrating Spanish.” / "Palabras con sabor: Celebrando el español" / 5 minutes of Spanish/ English version + Podcast

 

Hello and welcome to the 5 minutes of Spanish!

 

A podcast for students of Spanish

 

Yesterday April 23rd was a very special day, as it was Spanish Language Day.

 Spanish version

The idea is to spread and raise awareness of the importance of the Spanish language. Why the date?

 

Well, it coincides with the death of Cervantes.

 

Oh! The author of Don Quixote de la Mancha is a symbol of this language that unites us and that we celebrate today.

 

Cheers!

 

That's why this 194th edition of the podcast is called: “Words with flavor: celebrating Spanish” First of all, Spanish has always been a mixed language with a mixture of many languages, it comes from Latin, but Arabic brings a lot to it, as well as Basque, Galician, French, Portuguese, Italian, English and German.

 

Idioma o lengua- language

Mezcla - mix

 

With the arrival of the Europeans in America, Spanish was enriched with all the contribution of the pre-Hispanic languages, which were many and varied.

 

And we must not forget the African contribution.

 

Yes, the Europeans had that terrible trade of African slaves, they arrived with their language and their culture.

 

This is a characteristic of Spanish as a living language, which changes and adapts to different situations. It is enriched by all the contributions it receives and continues to change.

 

Is it possible to speak of a correct and an incorrect Spanish, good or bad?

 

No, of course not, all the varieties of Spanish, in the 22 countries where it is spoken, enrich the language. The linguistic differences are few; the correction, perhaps, would be in the grammar.

 

In other words, a Spaniard from Andalusia can be understood by a person who speaks it in Chile, Mexico, Argentina or Equatorial Guinea.

 

That's right, and let's go to the numbers! There are 599 million people who speak Spanish, whether as a mother tongue, second language or foreign language, just like you, right?

 

There are 499 million people who have it as their mother tongue. It is the second mother tongue in the world (the first is Hindi) and the fourth in the world total of speakers, behind English, Mandarin Chinese and Hindi.

According to the Instituto Cervantes Yearbook, 7.5% of the world's population speaks Spanish.

 

A characteristic letter of Spanish?

 

The ñ, in:

mañana – morning or tomorrow

Niño- boy

Piñata- piñata

 

Let's go to the words, which are your favorites?

 

Sabor, comes from Latin - flavour

from Arabic?

Ojalá- I wish

 

From Basque?

Izquierda- left

 

From Nahuatl?

Tomato. You don't need a translation, do you?

 

From Zapotec?

Cacao, you don't need a translation either.

 

From Guarani?

Yerba Mate, I love it

 

From African?

Dengue,

Ouch! how ugly!

Also, cumbia,...rhythm, tastiness

You're not going to sing...

 

From English?

Ok, soccer

 

From Italian?

Piano

 

From French?

Canapé - chic, like me.

 

From Portuguese?

Buzo – diver

 

How about you? How are you going to celebrate Spanish?

 

What are your favorite words?

We invite you to give Spanish a hug and participate in our workshops.

 

Apapacho from Nahuatl, abrazo con el alma - a hug with the soul

 

We invite you to embrace this process, and to celebrate Spanish.

 

Thank you for joining us in this episode!

 

A hug

 

Bye-bye