Spanish companies may not be the first to spring to mind when you think of some of the world’s largest multinationals, but Spain is a major player in the global market thanks to huge overseas investments over the last couple of decades. You may not have realised it, but Spanish companies are behind some of the best known brands on your high street.

Brands like Zara, Zara Home and Pull and Bear are high street staples throughout the UK. Behind these and 5 other brands is one of the world’s largest fashion retailers, the Inditex group, which has its headquarters in Arteixo, Galicia. The company was founded by Amancio Ortega, the richest man in Spain and 4th on the Forbes ‘Richest People on the Planet’ list 2014. Inditex began in the textiles industry back in 1963 and moved into fashion retail with the opening of the first Zara store in La Coruña in 1975. Inditex is now a global presence with over 6,000 and 128,000 employees around the globe.

In other fields, Spanish companies are also strong. In telecommunications, Telefónica is one of the key players and it staked its claim in the UK market with the purchase of O2 in 2006. Already a strong presence in Europe, Central and South America, Telefónica moved into the rapidly-expanding and lucrative Chinese market when it entered into an alliance with China Unicom. In banking it’s a similar success story, with the Santander group acquiring Alliance and Leicester and Abbey National amongst others.

With Spanish firms among the most successful in the world, there could not be a better time to start Spanish tuition. Our native tutors provide Spanish language courses throughout the London area, whether you want to learn for business or pleasure.

Spain has been a popular destination for British tourists for decades, but since the 1990s the number of British people taking up residence in Spain has expanded rapidly. It’s known as a popular retirement destination for ex-pats but figures suggest that only around 21.5% of the British population in Spain are over 65, proving it is a popular destination for British emigrants of all ages. With an estimated total of more than 700,000, concentrated mostly in the Valencian and Andalusian regions along with the Balearic and Canary Islands, Spain is home to one of the largest British populations outside of the UK.

Adapting to life in a foreign country is made so much easier when you have a command, even if only a basic one, of the language. Children who emigrate with their families while they are still of school age are of necessity immersed in the language and usually become fluently relatively quickly, though even for them some prior Spanish tuition will certainly put them at an advantage. For adults thinking of making the move to Spain, taking a Spanish language course can both help them make up their minds about whether it’s the right decision, and give them a head start which will help them settle into their new life. Lingua Clinic provides Spanish courses with native tutors throughout the London area, so if you are planning a life in the sun in Spain, let us help you prepare for it.

You might be forgiven for wondering what US media has to do with Spanish courses in London, but the boom that Spanish media is enjoying in the US is a good indicator of just how prevalent the language is becoming across the globe. What’s more, the wide availability of Spanish media from the US offers a plethora of opportunities for learners everywhere wishing to broaden their knowledge of the language.

Spanish media in the USA has grown at an astounding rate in the last decade. Spanish language newspapers in the US enjoy a circulation comparable with their English counterparts; 2011 saw the launch of the first 24-hour Spanish news channel, and numerous popular TV series are being remade in Spanish, notably the hugely successful Breaking Bad, a Spanish remake of which was announced this year. These success stories are also being mirrored in radio and magazines. With a Latino population of more than 50 million at the last census, it’s perhaps not surprising that Spanish media in the USA is flourishing.

It’s well worthwhile checking out some of the Spanish newspapers and magazines that are published in digital format or taking a look at some of the huge output of the Spanish language channels from the US. It’s a great way to expand your vocabulary and hone your reading and listening skills, and the very success of the many Spanish media outlets in the USA just goes to show that there really couldn’t be a better time to enrol on a Spanish language course and further swell the ranks of the speakers of the fastest-growing language in the world today.

London is well known as a multicultural city. Indeed, it stands second only to New York in terms of the diversity of its population. Statistics show that around 40% of the UK’s Spanish population live in London and figures from the 2011 census shows that Spanish is the 9th mostly widely spoken language in the UK’s capital, with a total of 71,192 regular residents, that’s 0.9% of the population, speaking the language. This means that anyone taking Spanish tuition in London shouldn’t have to travel too far in order to practise their language skills. Testament to this fact is the number of Spanish ex-pat support and networking groups which operate in and around the city.

Whether you have Spanish relatives or friends, are looking to learn the language to help in your career, or are simply looking for a new and stimulating learning experience, our Spanish language courses in London are the ideal place to start your journey. With patient and experienced native tutors providing a variety of lesson formats to fit around your needs and schedule at your home or office, we will get you off to the best possible start as you take your first steps learning the fastest-growing language in the world today. Take a look at some of our Spanish language course reviews to see what students have to say about our services – perhaps they will convince you to try us for yourself.

Pedro Almodóvar, as any film lover will know, is an internationally acclaimed and Academy award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter. He was born in 1949 in Calzada de Calatrava, Spain. At eight years old he was sent to a religious boarding school in Cáceres where he had his first experience of the cinema, from which his own fascination and ambitions in that medium sprang. He’s quoted as saying of that time, “Cinema became my real education, much more than the one I received from the priest.”

Almodóvar’s movies, as he himself says, are very personal, drawing on his own experiences such as gay culture in Spain and the character of his mother. They frequently feature strong female central characters; they’re full of colour, passion and emotion; they’re irreverent, at times they’re downright outrageous and, despite the director’s protestations to the contrary, they have inevitably shaped the way their mass worldwide audience views Spain.

We’ve often advocated the use of film in this blog as a great way to expand your knowledge of the Spanish language, and we think that Almodóvar’s movies are some of the best you could choose for this purpose. Indeed, every Lingua Clinic Spanish tutor in London uses parts of his movies as a learning resource in the various Spanish courses we offer. If you’re not familiar with the movies, we strongly recommend viewing. Beginners can watch with subtitles; the more advanced may follow the dialogue – a wonderfully entertaining way to improve your Spanish when you have a Spanish course.

La familia. The family, as your Spanish tutor in London will tell you, is incredibly important to Spanish people. It’s a cornerstone of the Spanish culture, passed down from one generation to the next. Spanish families are typically very close and supportive, taking every opportunity to spend time together. This applies not just to immediate family, but also the extended family, so cousins tend to grow up together and this helps to reinforce the strength of the family bond.

The Spanish are very family orientated, probably more so than many of their British and other Northern European counterparts, where extended families can sometimes become quite dispersed under the pressures of fast-paced modern life. The Spanish family is a strong unit, which embraces and esteems members from the eldest generation down to the youngest: the Spanish are loving and tolerant towards children (not to suggest the British aren’t!) and family occasions often include children running around boisterously having fun without drawing any reprimands from the adults – they’re just being kids after all. Likewise, the older generation is also valued and well cared for. It is much more unusual, for example, for elderly relatives to be placed in care homes than it is in the UK. Instead they are cared for at home wherever possible.

Family meal times are observed in most households and this is just as much about talking and socialising as it is about the food itself. It’s the observance and upkeep of these traditional values and habits that keeps la familia central to Spanish life.

Havana, capital of Cuba and home to some fantastic architecture in the form of grand public edifices and colonial buildings dating back to the 16th century, is a city full of both character and characters. It’s a fascinating place to visit, with the added bonus of providing a great opportunity to practise and improve your Spanish.

The city’s melting pot of inhabitants are relaxed and friendly. Things get done according to what is affectionately and laughingly known as “Cuban time”, the local equivalent of the Spanish “mañana”, so you’ll invariably find someone to chat to, whether it be a driver of one of the city’s horse-drawn carriages or rickshaws, or just a friendly local happy to show you the sights of this amazing city. They’ll converse happily with you, especially if you’re prepared to part with some of your convertible pesos as a token of appreciation for their trouble!

As they speak the Caribbean Spanish dialect, you may notice that the inhabitants of Havana have a slightly different accent to your Spanish tutor in London. Notably the lisping ‘s’ sound which is prevalent in mainland Spain is absent so that ‘gracias’ sounds like ‘grasias’ rather than ‘grathias’. Final consonants of words are also frequently dropped.

Sit in one of the cafes or restaurants in a city square in the evening and you’ll probably be lucky enough to be treated to a performance by some of the local street musicians. Havana is home to the famous Buena Vista Social Club musical ensemble and boasts many talented musicians. Enjoy this chance to listen to the Spanish language in song – and remember to tip generously!

The light-hearted fiesta of La Tomatina takes place on the last Wednesday in August every year in the Valencian town of Buñol. Unlike many of Spain’s other celebrations, which are centuries old, La Tomatina is relatively new, originating around the end of World War II.

How it began is not entirely clear, but it seems that some sort of food fight broke out during a town celebration in 1944 or 1945. The young people apparently had so much fun that they decided to repeat the spectacle on the same Wednesday the following year, and despite several attempts to ban it during Franco’s rule for having no religious significance, it is now a firmly-established tradition. Today, thousands of people from all over the world flock to take part in the event, where they throw over-ripe tomatoes in the town’s streets.

The festival officially begins after one person scales the palo jabón, a greased pole with a ham on top. As if climbing a greasy pole wasn’t difficult enough, crowds are sprayed with water as the atmosphere builds. The successful climber wins the ham as their prize then a water cannon fires into the air and the tomato hurling officially begins. Trucks bringing over 100 tonnes of the fruit for revellers to throw at one another in an hour-long free-for-all until the second water cannon fires to signal the end.

During such a riotous event as La Tomatina, there may be more shrieking, screaming, yelling and, above all, laughter than any sort of conversation you may learn on a Spanish Language Course. You may not get the chance to expand your vocabulary much, but it’s a great spectacle and pure fun – well worth taking part in at least once.

The festival of San Fermin is one of the most famous annual celebrations in Spain. The fiesta is more commonly known in the UK as the running of the bulls – if you’re taking a Spanish language course you may already know the word for this is encierro – and it takes place in Pamplona in the Navarre region every July in honour of the local patron saint.

Whilst it’s the bull running which takes place daily from 7 to 14 July for which the fiesta is probably best known, there are many other elements to the celebrations besides this such as competitions of traditional Basque sports. The beginning of the festivities is marked at noon on 6 July when crowds gather in the town’s Plaza Ayuntamiento to witness the chupinazo, where firework rockets signal the start of the 9-day party. The following day sees the traditional procession in which a 15th-century statue of the saint is carried through the streets of the old town, accompanied by thousands of people.

Another spectacular part of the fiesta is the daily gigantes y cabezudos (giants and big heads) parade which features giant 4-metre figures representing four pairs of kings and queens of different ethnic origin, each carried by a dancer inside a wooden structure. The giants dance along accompanied by the ‘big heads’ – large caricature-like masks – as well as 6 kilikis and 6 zaldikos (figures representing horses and their riders), who chase children with their foam truncheons.

The fiesta reaches its conclusion in the main plaza at midnight on 14 July where crowds gather by candlelight to sing the mournful Pobre de Mi (Poor Me) and the mayor closes the festivities. San Fermin truly has some spectacular sights for anyone wanting to soak up the experience of a Spanish fiesta.

Spain is known the world over for its fiestas – that is, its feast days or celebrations. One of the most spectacular of these is Las Fallas, which is celebrated in Valencia and means ‘the fires’ in the local dialect. Originally a celebration in honour of the feast day of St. Joseph, Las Fallas has today evolved into a 5-day event to which up to two million people flock from all over Spain and indeed the world.

The festival centres on the ninots (‘puppets’ or ‘dolls’) which are effigies, often bawdy or satirical, many of which are so large they need to be hoisted into place by cranes, and which locals often spend a great part of the year, and a great deal of money, making. The ninots are placed at over 350 crossroads and parks around the city on the day known as La Plantà (the rising), and remain there until 19 March which is called La Cremá (the burning). On that day, the ninots are stuffed with fireworks and, with the streetlights turned off and to the chants of the gathered crowds, they are set alight at midnight. One of the figures, however, is chosen by a vote to be spared from the fire; this is known as the ninot indultat (the pardoned puppet) and it will take its place in the local museum alongside its fellows from previous years.

When attending Las Fallas, it is advisable to familiarise yourself with the locations of the various celebrations around the city. A Spanish language course will really stand you in good stead, supplying the vocabulary to ask for directions and to understand the signs you might see along the streets.