6 Ways to Learn Spanish While Sitting At Home
Spanish is a Romance language that originated in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a global language with nearly 500 million native speakers, mainly in Spain and the Americas. It is the world’s second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese, and the world’s fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi.
Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages of the Indo-European language family, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo, a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile, in the 13th century. Modern Spanish was then taken to the viceroyalties of the Spanish Empire beginning in 1492, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa and the Philippines. As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin and has one of the smaller degrees of difference from it (about 20%) alongside Sardinian and Italian. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is derived from Latin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek.Its vocabulary has also been influenced by Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula, with around 8% of its vocabulary having Arabic lexical roots. It has also been influenced by Basque, Iberian, Celtiberian, Visigothic, and other neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. Additionally, it has absorbed vocabulary from other languages, particularly other Romance languages such as French, Italian, Mozarabic, Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, Occitan, and Sardinian, as well as from Quechua, Nahuatl, and other indigenous languages of the Americas.
Spanish is an extremely attractive language to learn. Therefore, many students these days aspire to achieve fluency in Spanish. But, with a global pandemic around, it is advisable to sit at home and learn the language instead. In order to learn the language at home, you are going to be in need of a few tips:
Listen to the radio in Spanish.
One of the best ways of grasping knowledge is through listening. Therefore, in order to grasp the vocabulary and the pronunciation of Spanish, you should listen to the radio in Spanish. You can listen to it at any given time of the day.
Spend an hour a day on grammar exercises from a textbook.
While expanding your vocabulary and learning how to pronounce words are both extremely important, you must not forget about the grammar of the language which requires equal, if not more, attention as it would help you form sentences and eventually speak Spanish yourself.
Keep a Spanish blog. Read, underline, look up new words and read again.
Arguably the best way of improving your writing skills in any language is to maintain a blog. Therefore, it is advisable to write blogs in Spanish. This would also help you to learn new and complicated words, understand phrases and idioms, etc.
Watch movies and TV shows with subtitles.
The worst-case scenario of learning any language is getting bored of it. Therefore, it is important you keep yourself entertained by watching movies and TV shows of different genres, dubbed in Spanish, with English subtitles.
Spend time in Spanish-speaking environments.
When you actively put yourself in an environment where you’re forced to use your Spanish language skills, you’re going to gradually improve them. The improvement could be slow, but it is one of the best ways of improving your language skills.
Take some online Spanish courses
Finally, enrol yourself into a certified Spanish course. Certified courses provide you with professionals who would guide you throughout the journey of achieving fluency of learning the language. In addition to that, a few courses also provide you with a course completion certificate.
Finally,
Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and it is also used as an official language by the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Union of South American Nations, the Community of Latin American and the Caribbean States, the African Union and many other international organizations. Alongside English and French, it is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world. Learning Spanish is going to be extremely beneficial for your future.
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