Spanish

The number of Spanish speakers is around 500m, making it the third most widely spoken language in the world. It is the official language of 21 countries, including the majority of South America.

Mexico has the highest number of Spanish speakers, and it is the second most widely spoken language in the US.

When translating from English into Spanish, text can expand by as much as 25% due to the structure of the language.

English words with Spanish origins include alligator, bonanza, canyon, cargo, potato and tornado.

The longest Spanish word in use is deemed to be superextraordinarísimo, the 22-letter word meaning “most super extraordinary”.

Although Spanish uses the Latin alphabet and has the same 26 letters as English, there are an additional 3 letters: ch, ll, and ñ . In some cases rr is also used as a single letter, and the letters k & w are omitted because they are only used in adopted foreign words such as whisky.

Spanish scrabble uses 100 tiles and 28 letters. The RR is used, but the K & W are not. The Q is worth five points and the CH, LL and RR cannot be played using two tiles.