Spanish Language
The Spanish language is considered to be among the easier languages to learn. It actually has a lot of words in common with English and many more words which are closely related.
This makes Spanish appear not entirely foreign to English speakers and gives us all something to hold onto
in the early stages.
I studied Italian before learning Spanish and in my opinion Spanish is easier due to the fact that there are less grammatcial laws to obey than in Italian and some easier ways to work around the verbs.
Around 400 million people speak the Spanish language. It's a romance language which originated in Northern Spain evolving out of Latin and you can clearly hear Arabic influences in the language (and the music).
Mexico has the largest population of Spanish speakers in the world with over 100 million.
It's alpabet has 29 letters, can you spot the extra ones outside of English?
a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z
The letter's K and W tend only to be used in foreign words from other languages
We can also see how big the world becomes when you speak Spanish! A massive total of 21 countries...
Spain
Guatemala
Honduras
El Salvador
Nicaragua
Costa Rica
Panama
Cuba
Dominican Republic
Puerto Rico
Mexico
Venezuela
Colombia
Ecuador
Peru
Bolivia
Paraguay
Chile
Argentina
Uruguay
Equatorial Guinea
The Arabic 'feel' in the Spanish Language and its Flamenco Music
With Spanish words such as ojalá it's easy to recognize the Arabic influence in the Spanish Language. After all, the Moors arrived to Spain from Arabia and stayed for 800 years!
It's especially obvious in the tonal chararistics of the traditional Flamenco guitar. It's extensive use of the Harmonic Minor scale along with other minor modes such as Phyrigian have very close tonal links to exotic places.
With the Spanish language and it's music in general you often hear the word "Fire" associated with it. It's as though you can hear, taste and feel the passion and the heat of the sun in every passing chord.