Roscón de Reyes “Mm, look what I’ve bought,” says Francisco every January 5, thrusting under my nose a giant ring-shaped bun with a few bits of red and green candied peel stuck on top and a plastic toy hidden somewhere inside for me to break a tooth on.  I fail to show much enthusiasm  . [...]

Villancico The Spanish word for Christmas carol has its origin in the old Castilian word villano, meaning ‘villager’ – as opposed to noble or squire. During the 15th and 16th centuries the villancico was a jolly sort of song-and-dance knees up for country folk, and it was only in the following centuries that the songs [...]

Oh, how we laughed. It’d been a long time since any of us had browsed such an inscrutable menu.  We worked out most of the items, though we did have a problem with ‘black poplars’ (the bilingual among you, start racking your brains …). I won’t spoil your fun. Here is a sample of the [...]

It’s estimated that around three quarters of Spanish vocabulary is derived from vulgar Latin. Add on another six-ten per cent from Arabic, and you’ve still got another 15-20 per cent to play with. So where do all the other words come from? In vague historical order, mainly: Basque, Celtic, Greek, Visigoth, Catalan, Portuguese, Gallego, German, [...]

¡Con lo bonito que es la i griega! Such a distinctive-sounding letter is the ‘y’ in Spanish. Alas, it is about to get the chop and will henceforth be known as ‘ye’, as indeed it already is in much of Latin America. The reason given is that in Spanish it is mostly used as a [...]