Foundational

The articles that the rest of this site returns to. Articles that lay out the premises of the project: what Latin American Spanish actually is, why it rewards serious attention, and what it means to learn it well.

What Spanish Speakers Call Their Own Language

There is a small thing about the Spanish-speaking world that often surprises learners, once they notice it. Spanish speakers do not all call their language the same thing — and the choice of name carries more history than most learners expect.

Articles Cultural Insight Regional Varieties Foundational

The Spanish of Spain and the Spanish of the Americas

A reflection on Iberian and Latin American Spanish — the demographic shift, the historical divergence, and what the choice between the two means for the learner.

Articles Cultural Insight Regional Varieties Foundational

The Spanish Your Textbook Didn't Teach You

Open a popular Spanish textbook. What you read is a language — but not, quite, the language that is actually spoken by four hundred and eighty million people. It is a close cousin. It is a useful approximation. And almost no one tells you where the approximation ends.

Articles Cultural Insight Regional Varieties Foundational

Latin American Spanish Is Not One Language

There is a convenient fiction at the center of most Spanish instruction: that Latin American Spanish is one language, learnable from one book, understood the same way everywhere. It is a beautiful idea. It is also not quite true.