According to the Instituto Cervantes, Spanish is the mother tongue of about 500 million people and, counting those who speak it as a second language or are learning it, it exceeds 600 million speakers. It is the world's second language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese, and an official language of the United Nations and the European Union. Its spread is the result of the Spanish Empire, but today Spanish belongs above all to the Americas: only about one native speaker in ten lives in Spain.
Where it is spoken
Spanish is official in twenty countries: Spain, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Equatorial Guinea in Africa. It is also widely used in Puerto Rico, a US territory.
Mexico has the most Spanish speakers in the world, over 120 million. The United States is among the leading countries for Spanish speakers, counting native and bilingual speakers: over 40 million people use it at home. Other traces of the language survive in parts of the Philippines, Western Sahara and among the Sephardic communities descended from the Jews expelled in 1492, who speak Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino).
One Spanish, many accents
American and European Spanish are mutually intelligible without difficulty, but differ in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. In almost all of Latin America z is pronounced as s (seseo) and ustedes replaces vosotros; in Argentina, Uruguay and parts of Central America vos replaces tú. Many words change from country to country: a car is coche in Spain, carro in Mexico and auto in Argentina; a computer is ordenador in Spain and computadora in Latin America.
Learning Spanish
The Instituto Cervantes, founded in 1991, promotes Spanish language and culture worldwide. It runs the DELE exams (Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera), internationally recognised from level A1 to C2, and SIELE, an online exam. Spanish is one of the most studied foreign languages in Europe and the United States, and many students choose Spain for Erasmus. For anyone wanting to work with Latin America or in Spain it is a valuable skill (see working in Spain).
For the history of the language see the Spanish language.