Introduction to Spanish Language

 CLASS - 6

Dear Students,

First of all, I would like to welcome you all on coming to Class 6. 

This is our first class using the blog and I want us to take maximum benefit from it.  

As we all are having difficulties in coping with the Coronavirus pandemic, what best we can do at our end is we follow all the instructions and precautionary measures given by our parents, our doctors and our teachers. We all need to help our society in this battle against Covid-19 in whatever capacity we can. I believe, our foremost duty right now is to establish a good online study atmosphere. For this, we need to complete our work right in time. 

Here, I would like to quote my favourite writer Sir George Orwell - Who controls the past, control the future, who controls the present controls the past. 

While your parents are busy taking care you and everything you need. You are expected to use this love and care in your studies. I wish you all the very best for your future.

So, now we have to take hold of the present and showcase some academic brilliance.

Thank you for taking the first step and logging in ! You all are the best !


Now my dear students, I want you to look at the heading of today's topic.

It is "Introduction to Spanish language. Today we are not only going to discuss about Spanish language but we are also going to talk about language in general, Language family as well as language family tree. 

Then we will come to discuss about why you are learning a new language like spanish and why I am teaching spanish? 

I hope we will be able to exchange a lot of information together. 

Let's first start with the definition language

Language : It is a system of communication used by a particular country or community
                    
                                                   Or
  
                  The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a grammatical way. 

In simple words : Language is a sound system that we use to express our feelings.
                              
I hope all of you are following.         

Very good, now come to Language family

Language families are groups of languages that are related to each other because they come from a common older language. 

For example, French and Spanish both come from Romance branch of Indo European Language family.

The branch on which spanish and french are located is called Romance language family. And the tree is called Indo European Language family Tree.

There are 5 languages in Romance language family

1. Spanish

2. French

3 Portuguese

4. Italian

5. Romanian

Latin is the mother language of all of these languages 

[ Note : Latin is a dead language now]

The languages in such a family are similar in their vocabulary or structure.

that means, there are so many words in Spanish that are similar to other languages of Romance language family. 

Let's look at some similar looking words in Spanish and French.

French                       Spanish                                  Meaning

Jaquette                        Chaqueta                           Jacket

Crème                           crema                                 cream

chimie                            Quimica                             chemistry

Moitiè                             Mitad                                 half

Saut                               salto                                   jump

Can you notice how similar the words in French and Spanish look.

It is just like Hindi and Urdu. Both of these languages belong to same language family. Thus there are so many words in Hindi and Urdu that are similar looking as well as similar sounding.

Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujrati, Odia, Bhojpuri, Maithili, Marathi - These Languages belong to Indo Aryan Language family.

All four south India languages Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam and Kannada belong to dravidian language family.

Click https://ielanguages.com/romance_nouns.html  to see more similar words in all the Romance languages. 

{Fun fact : Pineapple is called "anana or ananas" in all the languages except English. Also there are around 4,000 words in spanish language taken from Arabic.}

Let's look at some similar looking words in Spanish and Hindi

Hindi                       Spanish

तुम                -             Tú

नारंगी             -                      Naranja

कमीज            -             Camisa

मेज                -                      Mesa

क्या                -            Qué  

दस (10)         -             Diez

Most languages belong to a language family, but some languages do not. 

Now I want you to watch this very interesting video about why we should learn spanish language

Click  here ↠ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3xvmc1gVVE


After watching this video, you should be able to answer the following questions

1. Which is the second most spoken language in the world by native speakers ?
2. In how many countries spanish is spoken ?
3. In how many countries spanish is an official language ?
4. How many speakers are there of Spanish language ?
5. Name 5 famous spanish singers.
6. Name famous spanish dance forms.


That's all for today

Good morning and thank you students

Take good care of yourself and your family members. Don't forget to wash your hands regularly.

See you all in the next class