Question 1

Why are español and castellano not capitalized here?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 2

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

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 3

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

Accepted Answer

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".

Question 4

Is there a difference between español and castellano?

Accepted Answer

In Spain, castellano (Castilian) is often used to refer to the Spanish language to distinguish it from other regional languages spoken in Spain, such as Catalan, Galician, or Basque. In most everyday contexts, español and castellano are just two words for the exact same language.

En España, el español también se llama castellano.

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