Countries, Nationalities and Languages in Spanish
In this post you’ll find:
- The 101 grammar to talk about origine, nationality and languages,
- vocabulary of continents, countries, nationalities and languages in Spanish,
- videos and practical exercises to help you practise.
Table of Contents
Intro
After knowing your name there is a question that every Hispanic will ask you and no, it’s not your last name or your job, it’s your nationality. Probably, they will also want to know where you live. If you don’t know how to give this information nor the names of countries, nationalities, continents or languages in Spanish, this blog post is perfect for you!
Continents and countries in Spanish
Would you like to learn the name of the continents in Spanish? Here you have the vocabulary:
La Suiza or Suiza? La India or India? Do we need to use articles to talk about countries?
As a general rule, the names of continents, countries and cities don’t have articles (la Francia, la Inglaterra, etc.), unless their name already includes one: El Salvador, La Laguna, La Meca, El Cairo, La Paz… In these cases the article must be capitalized because it’s part of the name of the country and it can’t be contracted (al, del).
When the name of the country includes a form of territory organization (state, republic, etc.), articles are recommended but not mandatory: el Reino Unido, la República Dominicana, los Emiratos Árabes…
In other cases it’s 100% optional: (la) India, (la) Argentina, (el) Perú, (la) China…
However, the article is necessary with all countries when we add an adjective. Here you have a few examples:
La mayoría de los extranjeros no conocen la auténtica España, solo la España turística.
A mi amiga Claudia le fascina el antiguo Egipto.
Spanish is the third most spoken language in the world and the second most spoken by native speakers. Almost 493 million people speak this language in the world. That’s incredible, isn’t it? But do you know in how many countries it is the official language? In 21! Below is a map with the names of the countries where Spanish is an official language.
Nationalities in Spanish
Now it’s the perfect time to learn all about nationalities in Spanish. Let’s see all the rules you need with this short presentation.
💡Attention!
Nationalities in Spanish are written with lower case (argentino, español, lituano…).
Only country names are capitalized. (Argentina, España, Lituania…).
Martina es de Panamá, pero su familia es colombiana.
Nos encanta la comida italiana. Viajamos mucho a Italia.
How can you ask about someone’s nationality or origine in Spanish? It’s quite simple we use:
¿De dónde + SER + (pronombre/nombre)?
¿De dónde eres (tú)?
¿De dónde son Ana y Miguel?
And how can we answer that question? There are two options:
1. SER + de + país
Soy de Inglaterra.
2. SER + nacionalidad
Ana y Miguel son canadienses.
Nationalities form their plural as any other noun or adjective in Spanish:
vocal
+s
italiano –
italianos
consonante
+es
alemán –
alemanes
Languages in Spanish
The next step is learning how to ask and tell the languages you or someone else speaks. Do you know how to ask or reply to this in Spanish? Do you know the vocabulary of the languages in Spanish? Are there rules or tricks to form the language when you only have the nationality? Take a look at the following presentation and you’ll find out all the answers to the previous questions. Don’t worry it’s really easy!
Now that you’ve learned all the vocabulary of countries, nationalities and languages in Spanish, it’s time to watch a fun video of our team and some of our students talking about their nationalities. Enjoy!
https://media.letsspeakspanish.com/file/LSS/BlogpostVideos/Las-nacionalidades.mp4
Let’s practise!
It’s time to practise all we’ve learned in this blog post. Good luck and don’t forget to have fun!
It’s time for a challenge! Let’s take a quick geographic quiz in Spanish.
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