Spanish is a wonderful language, however, as with all languages, it does come with its own little quirks and differences to the English language and English speakers. Below are some of the commonly asked questions about the Spanish language that you may have wondered about.

Why Does Spanish Use Upside-Down Question And Exclamation Marks?

If you have ever picked up a Spanish book, or perhaps red Asterix and Obelix, you would have seen sentences that start with an upside-down question mark, upside down exclamation mark. Not only do these make the Spanish language slightly fancier than the English language, but they also have a grammatical purpose.

Instead of changing word order, Spanish signifies an exclamation or question with a question mark or exclamation mark at the start of the sentence. In English, there is a change in word order to signify a sentence is a statement or a question.

An example of this is the following sentence: Viajaste a América el año pasado.

This can be translated as either, “You visited America last year.” or it could be translated as a question: “Did you visit America last year?” If this were a question in Spanish, the only way for readers to know that this is a question is by having the question marks. It would therefore read as ¿Viajaste a América el año pasado?

Of course, this is only for written in Spanish, while in spoken Spanish the context of the situation will help everybody to know this is a statement or a question.

Did Spanish Or English Come First?

Languages and not invented in the sense that one day it does not exist and the next day it does. Languages are continually changing, as you may understand if you ever tried to read Shakespeare. Although it is still English it is certainly not the same English that we know today.

Languages form when a group of people in an area over time change the language they speak to better suit their needs. This language may get influenced by other languages nearby and get mixed together, to the point that it is no longer recognizable as the original language of that area, and is in fact its own separate language. This means that it is difficult to give a date for the creation of any language.

In the case of Spanish, the language spoken in the area we know as Spain became influenced by Latin as a result of the expansion of the Roman empire, which gradually resulted in the Spanish language. The old English used during Shakespeare’s time was in the 15th century, and it could be argued that English before this was much less recognizable than the English we know today. Old Spanish was used sometime between the 10th and 15th centuries, which supports that Spanish may have actually been around before English.

Am I Too Old To Learn Spanish?

You are never too old to learn any language, including Spanish. In fact, there are many similar words and grammar in Spanish and English, which makes it a good language to learn, because it means that some of the languages will already be familiar to you. Some examples include commence and comenzar, park and parque, bicycle and bicicleta, excellent and excelente.

It does not matter how young you are, or how old you are, if you do not have the motivation to learn a language, you will find it very difficult at any age. If you have decided that you want to go ahead and learn a language, that is something that you can certainly achieve. If this is your first time learning a new language, it may be beneficial to take some beginner classes or try out some free apps to get a feel for the language, before you consider learning on your own. I have written about some benefits of language classes here if you want to know a little bit more about this.

You can read more about the benefits as well as some drawbacks of learning languages at an older age here.

Are Nouns Capitalised In Spanish?

One difference between languages is whether or not they capitalize nouns, such as days of the week and months. In the case of Spanish, the only time nouns (not proper nouns like names) are capitalized is if they start a sentence, the same as in English.

Importantly the Spanish word for I (yo) is also not capitalized unless it is at the start of a sentence. This is different from English where I is capitalized, while other pronounce such as you and she, are only capitalized at the start of the sentence.

Why Do Spanish Speakers Have Different Accents Across The World?

This is similar to asking why English speakers in the United Kingdom sound different from Australians and Americans. The answer is that different areas in the world have different accents even if they speak the same language. This also means that Spanish speakers in different parts of the world will have different words for different things, however not to the extent that it is a whole new language. An example of this in English is the word thong, which is a word used in America as well as Australia, however, the thing that it describes is wildly different.

This does mean that if you travel from Spain through Mexico and then into other Spanish-speaking areas such as the Dominican Republic, although all these countries speak Spanish, you’ll notice differences in their accent and some words that are used. This does not mean that they are speaking different languages, this is simply regional variances of the same language.

You may notice that speakers in the same country speak in a slightly different accent depending on the region within the country they were brought up in. This is simply how languages work, and is true for all languages.