With nearly 500 million speakers (estimated to become 600 million by 2050), Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world. It’s the mother tongue in 22 different countries and it has more native speakers than English.

Therefore it comes with no surprise that Spanish is the second most studied language in the world; and the advantages of learning this beautiful tongue are obvious.

But if this wasn’t enough, here are some curiosities that not everyone knows.

Because Spanish is almost phonetically perfect (words are pronounced practically the same way they are spelled), it is considered one of the easiest languages to learn, once you get to grips with the basics.

After Latin, the language that has historically influenced Spanish the most is Arabic: you will be amazed to discover how many words still carry its charming mysterious sound. And in case you didn’t know, the English language is heavily influenced by Arabic too.

Spanish is a great language for telling jokes. Spain has a whole host of popular national jokes known as chistes, which take aim at national institutions such as the police and the military.

There have been as many as eleven literature nobel prizes in Spanish. In 2010 Unesco declared Flamenco as a ‘Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’. Film directors like Almodovar have touched film lovers all over the world.

Thanks to your learning journey you will be able to understand more and more of this amazingly rich culture. Who wouldn’t like to read a classic like Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote in its original form?

And above all: who wouldn’t want to converse with some of the most laid-back people in the world while eating tapas on a jaw-dropping Mediterranean beach?