You're moving to Spain and want to know more about how the heck you're going to communicate with the people. Spain has four major languages: Castellano (Spanish), Catalan, Gallego/Galician and Euskera (Basque). Depending on which part of Spain you're living in you may need to learn more than just one language, and that can get tricky. Here we present all we know about these languages and all our tips to help your communication skills develop as quickly and painlessly as possible.
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"Basque isn't a Romance language, so none of your Spanish cognates carry over, and fluency realistically takes years rather than months."
- The Best Ways to Learn Spain’s Other Languages
"Book the moment your DELE A2 convocatoria opens rather than waiting for a quieter week; there usually isn't one."
- Certifying Your Language Skills
"Distinción is a deliberate, rule-governed feature of the central-Spain accent, produced on purpose by fluent speakers to keep two different sounds apart."
- Castellano vs. Español
"None of them works for everybody, and the sooner you stop hunting for the one true system and start combining two or three, the sooner your Spanish actually moves."
- The Best Ways to Learn Spanish
"Guiri: a foreigner in Spain, especially an Anglo or Northern European one, affectionate or dismissive purely by tone."
- Spanish Slang
"That's a real, deliberate distinction between two different sounds rather than a speech impediment, and Spaniards in Madrid or Valladolid will tell you exactly that if you ever call it a lisp to their face."
- Important Lessons for Expats Learning Spanish
"When your foreign accent is too thick for people to understand you, that's when we should start paying attention to pronunciation."
- Mastering the Spanish Accent
"Basque, Catalan, Galician, Valencian, Aranese, Asturian: Spain runs on more than one tongue, and knowing which ones carry weight in which region changes where you might want to live, what your kids will study in, and whether a public-sector job is even on the table."
- The Languages of Spain: More Than Spanish
"For example, you might need a sworn translation of your birth certificate (or divorce certificate) if you plan to marry (or remarry) in Spain"
- Sworn Translations in Spain
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