April 23rd is the International Spanish Language Day or Día Mundial del Idioma Español, a celebration that has been going on since 1926. This date marks the death of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, the masterpiece of Spanish literature. To celebrate this big day, here are some facts about Spanish. These language curiosities are useless if what you are looking for is to learn Spanish, but even so, they are just plain fun.
Scroll down for the text version and reference sources of each fact.
11 Useless Fun Facts About Spanish: A Day of Spanish Language Infographic
Infographic More Fun Facts About Spanish by www.SpeakingLatino.com
Congratulations Spanish!
11 Useless Fun Facts About Spanish (Text transcript and sources)
1. The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (DRAE) has 88,431 words.
–Source: DRAE 22nd edition
2. The average native Spanish speaker uses about 7,000 words.
-Source: ABC.es
3. “Electroencefalografista” has 23 characters and is the longest word in Spanish in the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (DRAE).
-Source: ABC.es
4. The most used word in Spanish is the preposition “de.”
-Source: Listado de frecuencias del CREA
5. In the word “aristocráticos” each letter is repeated twice and in the word “centrifugados” no one is repeated.
-Source: Compendio ilustrado y azaroso de todo lo que siempre quiso saber sobre la lengua castellana
6. The Spanish word “oía” has three-letter and also three syllables o-í-a.
-Source: Libertad Digital
7. “Menstrual” is the longest two-syllable, nine-letter word: mens-trual.
-Source: Compendio ilustrado y azaroso de todo lo que siempre quiso saber sobre la lengua castellana
8. Despite being part of the Spanish alphabet, the letters “k” and “w” are borrowed letters used only to respect the spelling of foreign words like kilo, karate, or Washington, whisky.
-Source: Diccionario Austral de la Lengua Española and Daily Spanish for Dummies
9. The word “cinco” means five in Spanish and is the only number with the same amount of letters.
-Source: Compendio ilustrado y azaroso de todo lo que siempre quiso saber sobre la lengua castellana
10. Did you know that there are quotation marks in Spanish? The quotation marks in Spanish recommended by the Royal Spanish Academy are these (« »). These quotation marks (” “) are the English ones.
-Source: Compendio ilustrado y azaroso de todo lo que siempre quiso saber sobre la lengua castellana
11. The names of the European royalties are translated into Spanish. For example, when the media covers something about Kate Middleton they use the translation Catalina.
-Source: Compendio ilustrado y azaroso de todo lo que siempre quiso saber sobre la lengua castellana
Check out these other articles about the Spanish Language.
