El otro día estaba yo paseando por un parque cerca de casa con la música de Jarabe de Palode fondo. ¡Qué grandes que son! Me encanta la guitarra, sus mezclas de estilos musicales, me encanta la voz de Pau Donés y sus letras, buenas e ideales para aquellos que estén aprendiendo español, pues son fáciles de entender.
Dejándome llevar por la nostalgia, no dejó de sorprenderme la letra de una de sus canciones, El Lado Oscuro, que empieza así: Puede que hayas nacido en la cara buena del mundo. Yo nací en la cara mala. Llevo la marca del lado oscuro.
1. Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world by native speakers, according to this. Behind Chinese and before English.
Language
Approx. number
of speakers
1. Chinese
1,197,000,000
2. Spanish
414,000,000
3. English
335,000,000
4. Hindi
260,000,000
5. Arabic
237,000,000
6. Portuguese
203,000,000
7. Bengali
193,000,000
8. Russian
167,000,000
9. Japanese
122,000,000
10. Javanese
84,300,000
2. But no one really speaks Spanish in Spain. Spaniards speak Castellano, which is the same thing. But there are other 3 co-official languages: Catalan, Galician, Basque, and plenty of dialects.
3. Spanish has also many Arabic sounding words, since it was conquered by the Islamic Moorish armies for many years.
4. It’s said that Christopher Columbus was Italian, but he conquered the Indies under the orders of the Spanish Catholic Monarchs. Not that Spaniards are very proud of South America colonisation or marrying their princesses with other convenient Royal Families in Europe, but the Spanish Empire used to be known as “the empire on which the sun never sets”.
source: wikipedia.com
5. Despite that past, Spain didn’t officially participate in either the First or the Second World War.
6. But things got pretty bad for them too and Spain had a military dictatorship, that in fact, ideologically aligned with Germany and Italy during World War II. Franco ruled the country as a dictator until his death in 1975.
7. Spain is now a Constitutional Monarchy. The King is Felipe VI, the Queen is Letizia and the President of the Country… still to be decided (after a second election).
