Source: Wikipedia

Spanish is spoken by 500 million people all over the five continents, but how many countries have it as their official language?

Spanish is the official language of the following 20 countries (they can be seen in the map on the left. Click on it to enlarge it):

Nº	Country	Population
1	Mexico	112,469,000
2	Spain	46,506,000
3	Colombia	44,205,000
4	Argentina	41,343,000
5	Peru	29,907,000
6	Venezuela	27,223,000
7	Chile	16,746,000
8	Ecuador	14,791,000
9	Guatemala	13,550,000
10	Cuba	11,477,000
11	Bolivia	9,947,000
12	Dominican Republic	9,824,000
13	Honduras	7,989,000
14	Paraguay	6,376,000
15	El Salvador	6,052,000
16	Nicaragua	5,996,000
17	Costa Rica	4,516,000
18	Uruguay	3,510,000
19	Panama	3,411,000
20	Equatorial Guinea	651,000
Total	–	416,489,000

How do you say “you’re welcome” in Spanish?

In response to somebody telling you “thank you” -”gracias” in Spanish- you’d say

Both are used in everyday speech, and are appropriate for any situation, formal or informal.

Spanish is a very rich language, and there are usually many different ways of saying the same thing. Often we find several expressions with a similar meaning, to be used at different times depending on the formality of the situation.

Writing this post I realized that the translation of “you’re welcome” is not a good a example of the flexibility of the Spanish language. While “no problem”, “not at all”, “don’t mention it”, “don’t worry about it”, “anytime”, etc. are all possible answers to “thank you”, I can’t think of any answer to “gracias” beyond “de nada” y “no hay de qué”.

Can you suggest any alternatives?

80 percent of the people taking our Spanish Course come from the US. Not surprising, given that Spanish is already the second most common language in the United States.

According to the 2007 American Community Survey, conducted by the US Census Bureau, Spanish is the first or second language of over 45 million people in the United States.

And figures from the 2010 Census may confirm that the number of Spanish speakers is actually in the 50 million range.

There has never been a better time to learn Spanish in the US. Only in Mexico could you find a larger Spanish-speaking community -believe it or not, there are actually more Spanish speakers in the US than in Spain!

So are you practicing your Spanish skills? With over 45 million Spanish speakers and 6 million Spanish students, you don’t have an excuse not to! Start sharpening your Spanish skills today!

If you’re learning Spanish as a second language, here is a resource you can’t miss.

The Cervantes Institute, or Instituto Cervantes in Spanish, was created by the Spanish Government in 1991. It is the largest organization in the world responsible for promoting the Spanish language and the cultures of Spanish-speaking countries.

The Cervantes Institute has over 70 centers in more than 20 countries, where it organizes the following activities:

• It teaches Spanish courses.
• It trains Spanish teachers.
• It promotes the study of the culture of Spain and Hispanic America.
• It organizes cultural events to help spread the Spanish language around the world.
• It supports the Centro Virtual Cervantes.

There are currently 6 Centers associated to the Cervantes Institute in North America:

• Albuquerque: http://albuquerque.cervantes.es
• Boston: Boston University.
• Calgary: University of Calgary.
• Chicago: http://chicago.cervantes.es
• New York: http://nuevayork.cervantes.es
• Seattle: http://seattle.cervantes.es

The websites of these centers are mostly intended for local Spanish students. If you don’t live in any of those cities, you can visit the main Instituto Cervantes website (in Spanish) for a wealth of resources, links, and information of interest to those learning Spanish as a second language.

Thousands of people studying Spanish all over the world joined the more than 350 million native Spanish speakers on June 19th to celebrate the Spanish language.

El día E (the Spanish Language Day) was established by the Instituto Cervantes two years ago, to commemorate and celebrate the relevance of Spanish as an international language.

As part of the celebration, the Instituto Cervantes asked Spanish speakers and those studying Spanish around the world to choose their favorite Spanish words. Among the most voted words are the following:

You can find the list with all the words here.