1. Everyone speaks Spanish.
There are actually four languages in Spain:
-
- Castilian (Castellano)
-
- Catalan (Catalán)
-
- Basque (Euskera)
- Galician (Gallego)
Castilian is what the English-speaking world calls Spanish — you will primarily hear it referred to as “castellano” by Spaniards, although some still refer to it as “español.” This confused me for my first week or two living in Spain, as all the people who asked me “¿Hablas castellano?” were met by a completely blank stare from my end. Castellano has a markedly different accent from that of Latin American Spanish, most easily distinguished by the pronunciation of the letter “c” as “th.”