Spanish is a Romance language that originated in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe and today is an official language of 18 countries, as well as the United Nations, the African Union, and the European Union. With more than 483 million native speakers, mainly in Spain and the Americas, it is the world’s second-most spoken native language. Additionally, it is the fourth-most spoken language, and the third-most used language on the internet.
Spanish evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. As such, about 75% of Spanish vocabulary is derived from Latin, although it is also strongly influenced by Arabic and other Romance languages, such as French and Italian. There are about ten major dialects of Spanish, with the most common of which is Mexican Spanish.
If you already speak a Romance language, learning Spanish will be easy! For example, the lexical similarity between Spanish and Portuguese is very high (89%). The same is true for Italian (82%), French (75%), and Romanian (71%). The culture of Spanish-speaking countries is rich, and Spanish literature is some of the best in the world.