Spain has a great deal to offer visitors: it’s a country rich in culture which has given the world many influential artists over the centuries including Velázquez, Goya and Picasso. It is, of course, strongly identified with music and dance. It is also famed for its diverse architecture, which ranges from Arabic to Gothic to Modernist, with Gaudi being perhaps the most famous in the latter category.

Spain, through its colonial past, has exported many parts of its culture to other parts of the world, particularly the Americas. Mexico, of course, boasts its own rich cultural heritage prior to Spanish influence, in the form of the ancient Olmec, Aztec and Mayan civilisations.

Today both countries enjoy huge popularity as tourist destinations, but they share something much more important, and that is, of course, the Spanish language. Indeed, the language is often said to be one of the main attractions of Spain and Mexico; it is as animated and expressive as the inhabitants of those countries. Any student of Spanish has much to gain by immersing themselves in Spanish or Mexican life, whether they are visiting for business or pleasure.

An intensive Spanish course can be the ideal preparation for anybody planning a trip to Spain, Mexico or any other Spanish-speaking country. It can enable you to quickly acquire the skills and confidence to converse with those you meet, either socially or for business purposes, when you arrive at your destination.

Of all the many countries in the world where Spanish is spoken as the main language, Colombia is considered to be the place where you will hear the clearest spoken version of the language. What people are really referring to is the standard dialect which is spoken in the capital, Bogotá, and on the country’s TV. It’s renowned for being so clear because the accent is quite neutral, making it easy for anyone with a reasonable grasp of Spanish to understand.

To put this into a context that English speakers can easily relate to, you might compare it to the English of the BBC. Although regional accents have become more of a feature in recent years on UK screens, the speakers are still clearly intelligible to anyone who speaks the language, unlike some of the very broad accents which are to be found up and down the country and which natives from other areas, let alone foreigners, can struggle to understand at times.

However, Colombia also has a variety of different dialects – something that you will quickly appreciate if you travel beyond the capital. Regional accents can differ just as much as those in the UK do, and the use of idiomatic language which is contrary to the Spanish meaning can be confusing. For example, in the Medellín area “¿Qué más?” is prevalent as a way of saying “How are you?” that is quite different to the literal translation of “What else?”

If you’re interested in finding out more, you could search online for Colombian video clips and see if you can appreciate the famed clarity of their speech. If you want to learn Spanish or improve your existing skills, check out our services.

The key to learning and retaining any language is, of course, constant practice. But if you’re learning Spanish in London or indeed anywhere in the UK, opportunities for Spanish conversation probably don’t present themselves every day. You don’t want to spend all your free time with your head in a text book or listening to an audio language course, so how can you practise your Spanish listening and comprehension when your classmates or tutor are not available?

Watching movies in Spanish is one way to do just that. Worried that your Spanish isn’t sufficiently advanced? Don’t be. Think about the different English movies you watched as you grew up; you probably weren’t viewing Citizen Kane aged 8, but Bambi was perfect. Similarly, there is a wide range of Spanish films available to suit all abilities. Start out with movies for younger viewers and progress to more “difficult” ones as your skills and vocabulary improve.

There are lots of different ways to introduce the Spanish language to your entertainment on a regular basis: Next time you’re watching a DVD, check whether it has an alternative audio track in Spanish. You can always keep the English subtitles on to give you a helping hand. If you’ve only got English audio, brush up your reading skills with Spanish subs. If you’ve nothing in your DVD library, there are many sites where you can watch Spanish movies online – it’s one of the great benefits of today’s digital world. As an accompaniment to lessons with your native tutor, watching movies is a great way to enrich your knowledge of Spanish – and, best of all, it’s a really enjoyable way to learn.

Our Spanish tutors always give to the students a big range of movies to practice what they have cover during the lessons.

Over the last twenty years, Spanish companies have made huge investments abroad, transforming the image of Spain from country which relies on tourism for its income to a serious player in the global economy. Walk through any major city centre and you’ll find a Spanish retailer: Zara, Mango, Pull & Bear. In the financial sectors, Spanish banking giant Santander is ranked as one of the best 5 banks in the world, and telecommunications company Telefónica is one of the most powerful companies of its kind in the world, and undisputed leader in Latin America.

These are just a few examples and it’s a success story that is being repeated the world over. In fact, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) places large Spanish firms among the most lucrative on the international stage, some way above Germany and Great Britain.

Being able to speak a second language is an undeniable asset in today’s globalised world. The rapid expansion of Spanish companies in the global market place, as well as the number of Spanish-speaking emerging economies which we examined in a previous blog, surely places Spanish at the top of the most desirable and useful languages one could choose to learn. If you would like to join the growing number of Spanish speakers in the world, choose from private Spanish lessons, group training or intensive Spanish courses available with our patient and experienced native tutors throughout the Greater London area.

Prospective students often ask whether Spanish is an easy language to learn. The good news is that it is one of the easiest major European languages for an English speaker to pick up. As both of our languages derive many words from Latin, a lot of them will be recognisable to you almost immediately.

Spanish is said to be the most phonetic of the main European languages and spelling in Spanish is actually more regular than English. This is due in part to the fact that the Royal Spanish Academy, whose role we looked at in a previous blog, has simplified and standardised it over time. Spanish is much more predictable as a result, so once you’ve grasped the basics it is relatively easy to apply those rules to new vocabulary when you come across it. Plurals in Spanish are formed in the same way as English by adding –s, which makes it very natural for English speakers. It’s true that you will need to get accustomed to genders and noun-adjective agreement, but this is true of most European languages and you will soon find it second nature.

Of course, though it is considered easy, learning Spanish still takes some effort, just as learning any language – even your own – does. This is where a native Spanish tutor is immensely beneficial, helping you to perfect your pronunciation as well as covering all the grammar you will need. Group lessons can be a really fun way to learn with friends or colleagues, or see just how much you can pick up in a short time with our intensive courses.

This year’s GCSE results showed a marked and very welcome increase in the take-up of modern foreign languages amongst school pupils. It’s the first time in over a decade that the number of students studying a language to this level has risen. Though French and German both registered an increase, at 15.5 per cent and 9.4 per cent respectively, and some other minority languages enjoyed something of a surge, Spanish outstripped all other languages with a huge rise of 25.8 per cent. It remains to be seen whether these same students will go on to complete A-levels in their chosen languages. For the moment though, the downward trend at that level continues with numbers of French and German students still in decline. Only Spanish is on the rise with an increase of 4.1 per cent at A-level this year.

This increase can probably be attributed to the introduction of the English Baccalaureate, which recognises pupils who attain a C grade or above in a core of subjects including a language. Though not a qualification in itself, those students who hold the core Baccalaureate qualifications are likely to be looked on more favourably when it comes to university admissions, which should in turn improve their career prospects.

All of which makes the increase in pupils completing foreign language exams really positive news for the future. With the help of a private Spanish tutor, students can greatly increase their knowledge and confidence in the language and could achieve better grades as a result. We’re delighted that more people than ever before are learning our language and are very happy to play a part in that education.

In a previous blog we looked at the indisputable importance of Spanish in the world. It’s relevance as a language becomes even greater, however, when we consider how many of the emerging economies are Spanish-speaking countries.

The International Monetary Fund lists several Spanish-speaking countries among those undergoing rapid growth or industrialisation.  Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela are the South American countries which make the list, and many large corporations in developed economies already do business in these countries. Growth in these nations is not limited to the industrial or manufacturing sectors; many large organisations also choose to operate some of their services from these locations because of the cost savings they are able to derive from doing so.

The phenomenon of globalisation as we understand it today has been gathering pace over the last decade or so, as technology and communications improve and allow more and more jobs to be carried out remotely. Most of us are aware that the Philippines are a popular location for many such offshore operations, but did you know that Spanish is also widely spoken there? Spanish was in fact the official language of the Philippines from the late 16^th century, and remained an official language until a constitutional change in 1973. Today, there are estimated to be in the region of three million Spanish speakers in the Philippines, and if groups campaigning for its re-introduction as a compulsory subject in school succeed, that number will certainly increase.

The ability to speak Spanish is a clear advantage for anyone wishing to do business in the emerging economies, so if you want to maximise your opportunities in these markets, why not consider our private Spanish lessons which can be provided at your workplace or home anywhere in London.

The Royal Spanish Academy is the official royal body responsible for regulating the Spanish language. It is usually abbreviated to RAE, an acronym for its Spanish title, Real Academia Española. The academy was founded in 1713 and is based in Madrid, but it also plays a role in governing the language spoken in twenty-one other countries through its affiliation with the Association of Spanish Language Academies (Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española), set up in Mexico in 1951 which is a union of all the separate language academies in the Spanish-speaking world.

The Academy is responsible for legislation to promote linguistic unity in the world’s many Spanish-speaking territories in an effort to ensure that local variations in the language should never deviate so far from standard Castilian as to cause Spanish speakers in different nations difficulties understanding one another.

In addition, its remit covers the Dictionary of the Spanish Language of the Royal Spanish Academy (Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española) and it operates strict regulations for the addition of new words to the dictionary in much the same way the Oxford English Dictionary does in the UK.

Lingua Clinic provides several teaching options for individuals or groups throughout the London area. Why not see which of our Spanish Languages services is best suited for you, and gain the ability and confidence to speak Spanish when visiting or doing business in the many Spanish-speaking nations in the world.

Studies of languages used on the internet^* show, unsurprisingly, that English is the most-used language online, with around 55% of websites using English as their content language. Spanish is among the group of next most highly-used languages along with German and Russian. What is significant though is that use of the Spanish language online increased dramatically in the ten years between 2001 and 2011, expanding at a rate of 743%, compared to 281% for English. This can perhaps be seen as confirmation of the growing importance of Spanish as a world language and the rapid expansion in the numbers of Spanish speakers in recent years, particularly in the US.

This is great news for Spanish students, as it means that there is a wealth of Spanish language content available online so you are sure to find material on a subject that’s of interest to you. Why not challenge yourself by switching your search engine to Spanish and finding pages related to your occupation or interests? Reading information on a subject close to your heart in a foreign language helps to sharpen your interest and make what you’re reading that much more memorable. It’s a great way to expand your vocabulary in subject areas which are relevant to you personally and makes a useful accompaniment to Spanish lessons. You may not understand everything you read at first, but you can make a note of anything which gave you difficulty and ask your native tutor to explain things for you. Your perseverance will soon be rewarded by a marked increase in your level of comprehension.

^* Source: W3Techs

The presence of Spanish influence and the Spanish language in the Americas goes all the way back to Christopher Columbus’ arrival there in 1492. Over the next four centuries the Spanish Empire expanded across Mexico, most of Central America, the western half of South America and the Caribbean. Its reach even extended to the northern states of Washington and Oregon. Spanish rule in many areas of the Americas endured right up until the revolutionary movements of the nineteenth century, at which point the colonies were lost, but the language remained.

Spanish continues to be spoken across those same areas of Central and South America, and though it now takes second place to English in North America, the number of Spanish speakers is increasing dramatically, more than doubling in the last two decades. Even though it doesn’t enjoy the status of an official language, it’s estimated that by the year 2050 there could be as many as 100 million Spanish speakers in the United States.

With Spanish being so widely spoken in one of the world’s leading economies, and given that several of the emerging economies are to be found in Spanish-speaking parts of South America, it seems certain that Spanish can only increase in importance in the world.

If you’d like to be part of the rapid growth of the Spanish language, you could try one of our intensive Spanish courses, delivered in your home or office at a time to suit your busy schedule.