A document published by Spanish intellectuals suggesting that it has become too difficult to use Spanish in parts of Spain has intensified a national debate over the role of the Spanish language in its mother country.

In a sense, Spain has four languages that might be called Spanish — Castilian, the language that most outsiders think of as Spanish; Euskara (often spelled Euskera), also known as the Basque language, the only non-Romance language of the four; Catalan, spoken in Barcelona and much of the surrounding region, which, while an independent language, has some characteristics of both Spanish and French; and Galician, which has similarities to both Spanish and Portuguese and is spoken in the northwestern Spain. Castilian is an official language everywhere in the country, while the other languages are co-official in the regions where they are spoken. The role of minority languages has been a sensitive issue in the country in part because they were suppressed during the Franco regime.

The document that has brought the language debate to the forefront, the Manifiesto por la lengua común (the "Manifesto for a Common Tongue"), suggests that Spain's attempt at having three officially bilingual regions of the country isn't working very well, and to the detriment of Castilian. Read more...

The Spanish verb form that ends in -ando or -iendo is known as the verbal present participle or gerund. Most of the time, it's combined with a form of estar to form what's known as a progressive verb form. For example, you may have seen a sentence such as "Está durmiendo" for "he is sleeping."

But Spanish gerunds don't have to used with estar. In fact, they can follow (and, rarely, precede) almost any verb describe its action, as our newest lesson explains.