Spanish Castilian 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 America. 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 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.

Spanish is also a phonetic language which means it is exactly spoken as it is written, within the limits of a few simple rules, letters are pronounced consistently. This makes it a comparatively easy language to learn to speak. The regular sound-to-letter correlations also mean there are rarely any surprises in spelling. As Spanish (like French and Italian) derives from Latin, nouns are either masculine or feminine, and articles and adjectives have to agree with the nouns they accompany. Spanish has a greater range of tenses and more variation in verb parts than English, as well as two ways of addressing people (tú being informal and used the formal ‘you’ form), which affects pronouns, possessives, and verb forms

In the European Union today, 4 languages ​​are offered in the school: English, Spanish, German and French. Spanish is perhaps the most phonetic of them.

It is labeled “easy language” and students in France or Germany have a tendency to study Spanish as a second foreign language since most words sound as they are written. FSI estimates a learner to take 23-24 weeks (575-600 hours) to learn Spanish if they any of the other Romance Languages or know one of Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian and Swedish.

Spanish is one of the most important languages in the world. Quite popular in countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, etc.

Since it is a very popular language, it also follows CEFR rules. CEFR is nothing but the common European framework of reference. In short, CEFR means how good/how bad I am in a foreign language. Now, it does not mean that someone who is a beginner will be humiliated. No, it means I can officially validate my proficiency in foreign languages.

There are six levels in CEFR which are A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2.

A1 and A2 are basic levels, B1 and B2 are intermediate levels and C1 and C2 are advanced levels. It is up to you to decide which level you are very close to. The main objective of learning this language varies from person to person. For some, it may be due to job purpose, for some, it is their passion to learn new languages, etc. Whatever your reason for learning this new language, one thing is sure that you will enjoy it while learning this language.

However, before you decide it is also important to decide how much time I can devote every day to learn this language? Depending on your profession whether you are a student, retired personal, or working professional you can easily decide your time. For students, they can study for 2-3 hours, for working professionals, it can be 15-30 minutes or for retired persons, it can be 1-2 hours.

Here are some practical tips which I am sharing which you can use to learn Spanish very efficiently:

• Patience: Very often people give up because they cannot learn this language. Please do not let the problems which you are facing force you to give up learning this language. Huddles will come and go but you should not stop learning this language. Week by week check your progress and note it down in a diary. See where are you lacking and in which area you need to improve.
• Start with the basics: For those who are new to this language, they can start with the greetings for example happy birthday in Spanish means Feliz cumpleaños, etc. By using these greetings, they can start from scratch to learn this language.
• Using Translator: There are many online translators available on the internet which converts one language to another one. You can use these language translators to translate from English to Spanish, etc. By using these translators, you can easily find out the issues which you are facing and can also correct them.
• Watching movies, cartoons, and web series in Spanish: This sounds irritating but yes you can go for it. You can watch movies, cartoons, and web series in Spanish. By watching these, you can improve your listening skills.
• Reading books: Sounds irritating, yes by reading books in Spanish you can improve your reading skills. Well, it is possible to improve reading skills. Yes, of course when you practice more and more, you gain confidence.
• Make a 2-week plan: Make a 2-week plan. Yes, make a 2-week plan. Learn the things in the first and in the second week. In the third week, see where you are standing. Make it a daily practice to see where you are standing after every two weeks.

These are some of the practical tips which I have shared. There are others which you can also use like speaking to Spanish people, listening to audiobooks, podcasts, etc. Please note without practice you cannot achieve anything in your life. Similarly, in learning language keep practicing and one day you will be successful. Please share your experience which you have faced or are facing in the comment box while learning this language.