Newsletter - Archive - Issue 23 October 2003

Issue #37

¿Qué?

¡Hola Babylonians!

Q: Why learn Spanish?

A: Spanish is the 2nd largest spoken language in the world with over 350 million native speakers and the importance of Spanish continues to grow. Did you know that in the USA more than 10% of the population speaks Spanish as their primary language?

Learning Spanish also opens the door to one of the richest cultural heritages in the world. Whether you like to travel through Spain or Latin America, read one of the many excellent Spanish speaking authors, learn to dance salsa, do business with Spanish speaking countries or just love the Latin lifestyle, you'll enjoy it even more when you speak Spanish.

And what better way to learn the language than in the country where it is spoken? That is where our school can help you!

The Babylon Idiomas Team

Don't believe us...ask our students!

With so many Spanish language school around, which one to choose? Most of them claim to be "excellent", "in the heart of town" or "small groups" but how do you know for sure? Simple: ask our students. Since last week, you can view the comments from Babylon Idiomas students on our website. You can choose to see comments based on the nationality or on the language that they were written in. You can contact most students directly if you have any further questions. Why wait? www.babylon-idiomas.com/ask

Barcelona - Part 3: Early government

Most European countries in the 14th and 15th century were governed with an iron first by a king (or sometimes a queen) who required absolute obedience and loyalty from its people. Not so in Catalonia. Here the monarch could not take important decisions (such as raising taxes or declaring war or making new laws) without counselling an assembly of representatives from noble ranks, the church as well as merchants ("les corts").

This assembly in turn needed an organization to carry out its rulings and the "Generalitat" was born. Today, more than 700 years after the first meeting in 1289 (diputació del general), the Generalitat still governs Catalonia and is probably one of the oldest functioning government institutions in the world.

Not only was the power of the monarch curbed by the assembly, the loyalty of his subjects came with strings attached. The members of the Corts would plead allegiance to the monarch to follow his lead but at the same time the pledge explicitly stated that "the King is not more than us" i.e. the monarch just a human being without any divine powers.

Part: 1, 2

Un poquito de español - Useful when you are not feeling 100%!

Español para ti

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