Learn Spanish (Spain): En España, el español también se llama castellano. - In Spain, Spanish is also called Castilian.

En España, el español también se llama castellano.

In Spain, Spanish is also called Castilian.

Breakdown of En España, el español también se llama castellano.

in / on / by (means of transport) / about (after pensar)

España

Spain

Questions & Answers about En España, el español también se llama castellano.

Why are español and castellano not capitalized here?

In Spanish, the names of languages, nationalities, and days of the week are not capitalized unless they appear at the very beginning of a sentence. That is why España (a country) has a capital letter, but español and castellano (languages) do not.

Why is there an el before español? We do not say "the Spanish" in English.

In Spanish, you generally need to use the definite article (el or la) when talking about a language in a general sense or as the subject of a sentence. You can drop the el directly after verbs like hablar (to speak) or estudiar (to study), but here el español acts as the subject of the sentence.

I learned that me llamo means "my name is". Why is se llama translated as "is called" here?

Just like me llamo literally means "I call myself", se llama literally means "calls itself". In Spanish, this se structure is very often used to express things that happen to a subject without saying exactly who does the action, similar to the passive voice in English. So, el español se llama castellano naturally translates to "Spanish is called Castilian".

Is there a difference between español and castellano?