Practice Spanish | Five Best Spanish Speaking Cities

Here are the 5 best cities (in our opinion) to practice your Spanish!

Number 5: Madrid

Madrid is recognized quickly by the statue “El Oso y Madroño”, located in the Puerta del Sol in the city. This statue is of a bear reaching up to eat fruit of the Arbutus, or Strawberry Tree. This symbol of Madrid is as old as the city.

Madrid is a great place to practice Spanish since the Spanish language originated in Spain, and Madrid is the capital city of the country. It is a vibrant multi-cultural city. It was chosen as the capital city since it is located in the center of the Iberian Peninsula. It is no more than 8 hours from any other city in Spain, giving easy access to a Spanish student to visit any other Spanish city.

Madrid offers many opportunities for you to practice Spanish, as it is the one and only official language of the city and they welcome many foreigners every year. No one will look at you funny for mispronouncing a word since there are many people in the same boat learning Spanish. There are many local pubs that host “exchange night” where foreign students meet up with locals to exchange 30 minutes of practicing Spanish with 30 minutes of the local practicing their English. More than 20,000 students come to Madrid to practice their Spanish, so you won’t be alone.

The “Real Academia Española” defines the Spanish spoken in Madrid as “Castillian Spanish”, which is considered as the “standard” Spanish. It is the closest to the original Spanish that exists today. Many students learning Spanish as a foreign language consider this version of Spanish to be the easiest to learn. This “standard” Spanish is considered the most understood in the world.

Number 4: Mexico D.F.

Mexico City’s symbol is the “Angel de la Independencia”. A tall column, located in the roundabout of the Paseo de la Reforma,  that commemorates the centennial of the war of Independence.

Mexico City is a wonderful place to practice your Spanish. Although the Spanish in Mexico City is spoken quite quickly the people here are known to be very polite and patient with foreigners learning the language.  Spanish here is quite different from the Spanish spoken in Spain because it is influenced by five centuries of contact with native American languages, most notably for Mexico City, coming from Nahuatl, which is the language spoken by the Aztecs and the most spoken native language, besides Spanish, in Mexico. The Spanish, specifically spoken in Mexico City is has quite a marked and stressed accent, and the speakers use varying pitches and timbres of their voices, going from grave to acute as if in different waves. People claim that Spanish speakers from Mexico city have a “cantadito” accent which means it sounds, many times as if they are singing, this is due mainly to that fact that final vowels of sentences, especially in regards to forming a question, are especially prolonged while the voice pitches higher.

If you are from the United States, learning this version of the language can be quite useful. After the territory of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming were ceded to the United States from Mexico, descendants of former Mexico, who remained in the territory, continue to speak Spanish today. In addition, in the 19th- and 20th-century migration from Mexico to the United States has come in various large waves and have contributed greatly to making Mexican Spanish the most widely spoken variety of Spanish in the United States. If you are from the US, studying Spanish in Mexico could be of great benefit.

Going specifically to Mexico City to practice your Spanish is a good idea because it is the largest Spanish speaking city in the world, boasting 9 million enthusiastic locals to practice Spanish with! Mexico City was the political, administrative, and financial center of the Spanish colonial empire and continues to be a very important and influential city in the world.

It’s closeness and historical context with the US, along with its worldwide importance as a city and in the Hispanic world, makes it a great place to Practice Spanish.