Presentation of the VI Congress of the Spanish Language.

On October 20 Panama will host the VI International Congress of the Spanish Language (CILE), dedicated to "The Spanish in the book: the South Atlantic Ocean”

 

This is an important event to be attended by President of Panama and the King of Spain Juan Carlos, as well as, famous Writers and Scholars like Mario Vargas Llosa, Sergio Ramírez y Jorge Eduardo Ritter, Héctor Abad Faciolince, Juan Villoro, Alonso Cueto, Abel Posse y Rosa María Britton and others. The conference can also be accessed virtually on the internet by attendees and by interested persons.

 

This sixth edition is part of the International Conference sponsored by the Cervantes Institute, the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the Association of Spanish Language Academies (ASALE), and the Government of Panama. The aim of this event is to reflect the current situation of Spanish language problems and strengthen the promotion and unity of language between citizens, institutions and governments. In addition there will be over two hundred Linguists and Academics from various countries including the Philippines, different states in the USA, Brazil, Japan, France, Italy and Portugal. Meetings are being organized between Ministers of Education and various Spanish speaking countries.

 

The conference is open to all persons who want to participate (with prior registration), so it will be a good opportunity for students and faculty of the University of Panama to join the event. This will be organized in two days, during which the public will be proposed various activities such as:

 

• Teacher training, to be held at the Escuela Normal Superior Juan Demóstenes Arosemena
• In addition, RAE y ASALE  will present the project Corpus of Spanish XXI Century 

(CORPES XXI), funded by the Bank of Santander and other academic portals providing new content and increased resources for those who speak Spanish as their first language.
• General Assembly of the International System of Certification of Spanish as a Foreign Language (SICELE), proposed by the Instituto Cervantes.
• Meeting to discuss future projects and outline future lines of work.
• Finally, it will discuss the theme that gives the name to the Congress: The book, i.e. everything that relates to communication, translation, the language checker, intellectual properties and copyrights among other.

 

It’s a perfect event for anyone who has a passion for Spanish!

 

Valeria, Intern in Tia Tula

DELE EXAMS MODELS

Continuing the theme of the DELE exams, and in response to requests from many of our students, you will find here, so that you may download and work with them, the tests for every levels of DELE: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. We have obtained those tests, from the Cervantes Institute, who are responsible for these tests and for the diplomas that are given to those who pass the exams (For more information, you can visit the Institute's web area dedicated to DELE diplomas). However, we have simplified them in their presentation for ease of use:

- DELE A1 (session of May 2009)

- DELE A2 (session of November 2010)

- DELE B1 (session of May 2009, this level of exams was formerly known as “initial”)

- DELE B2 (session of May 2009,  this level of exams was formerly known as "Intermediate")

- DELE C1 (session of November 2010)

- DELE C2 (session of May 2009, , this level of exams was formerly known as "Superior")

We remind you that you can send us any questions (whether whether they are about DELE Examination in general or more particularly about our courses to prepare the DELE exam) to info@tiatula.com. As usual, we will reply as soon as possible.

Some 43,000 candidates chose the Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera (Diplomas of Spanish as a foreign language) in the first half of the year

About 43,000 candidates have registered during the first half of the year to sit the exams to obtain the Diplomas of Spanish as a Foreign Language (DELE). The exams of the May session have been held on May 24^th and May 25^th in 537 centers across 95 countries.

The DELE diplomas are official qualifications accrediting the degree of knowledge of the Spanish language. They facilitate access to employment and to the academic world. They are issued by the Cervantes Institute on behalf of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain.  They have indefinite validity and enjoy wide international recognition.

The May session is the one that has the largest volume of applicants, with two-thirds of the annual amount of candidates, well above those held in August and November.

Distributed by country, the largest number of candidates -37% - was registered in Italy, it has increases by two points compared with last year's figures. Italy is followed by Spain (7.8% of all applicants), Greece (6.5%), France (5%), China (4%), Brazil (3.7%), South Korea (3.2%), Germany (2.7%) and Japan (2.2%).

The countries that have most increased the number of candidates are China (almost 50% more), Brazil and South Korea (more than 20% each), reports the Cervantes Institute.

SIX LEVELS

There are six levels adapted to the Common European Framework of Reference and seven Diplomas of DELE: DELE A1, A2, B1 (formerly Initial), academic B1, B2 (formerly Intermediate), C1 and C2.

The most requested levels are intermediate: almost two thirds of the candidates (64%) aspire to obtain a diploma B, compared to diplomas A (24%) and C (11%).

This month of May marks the end of the life cycle of the DELE beginner and intermediate exams, whose format and features have been in place since almost 20 years. From the sessions of next August, examinations for diplomas B1 and B2 will have new formats of tests and tasks.  The rating systems will also be modified.

The Instituto Cervantes celebrates the culture that will spread throughout 2013

The Instituto Cervantes has presented a program that seeks  "excellence and quality"

The Instituto Cervantes has introduced its cultural program for this year in an act of "celebration of culture" which has involved numerous artists and creators. A program of activities aims to show the world the best of the Spain’s culture and Spanish, which has "an extraordinary wealth and is one of our best resources".

The presentation was attended by representatives of the most important cultural institutions and relevant cultural personalities, writers such as Lorenzo Silva Fernando Savater, the musician Antón García Abril, theater director Jose Luis Gomez, the singer Juan Carmona, soprano Pilar Jury, actor Francis Lorenzo, designer Modesto Lomba, among many others. This "party culture" concluded with a recital by acclaimed pianist Rosa Torres-Pardo and singer Rocio Marquez, who played pieces by Falla, Albéniz and Granados in a short recital.

"They are not easy years," acknowledged the director of the Instituto Cervantes, Victor Garcia de la Concha. "Budget constraints have forced us to think hard about" the development of a "excellent" program, he said, which exists across five Hispanic continents, and in which the Latin American presence is essential.

The director of the Institute of Culture, Montserrat Iglesias, has shelled the main lines of 2013 programming in more than 80 cities in which the Instituto Cervantes has centres or classrooms.

Artists of all genres and specialties starred in various acts, including names such as Mario Vargas Llosa, Kenzaburo Oe, Antón García Abril, Ainhoa ​​Arteta, Maria Bayo, Pedro Halffter, Fernando Iwasaki, Jorge Edwards, Lorenzo Silva, Luis Landeros , Rosa Montero, Carlos Nunez, Concha Buika, Cesc Gelabert or Pilar Jurado.

Literature, film and music, theater, dance, art, history and popular science are some of the areas that cover the cultural activities which the Instituto Cervantes "pursues excellence and quality."

Each centre of the Instituto Cervantes will host a wide range of activities with clear teaching, and from which numerous courses will be taught along with workshops and seminars. This is in close collaboration with other Spanish and local institutions and Spanish embassies in Spanish-speaking countries. The latter fits with the mission of "latinamericanize" the Instituto Cervantes.

In short, throughout 2013, the Institute will show the cultural heritage of Spain.

Text translated from the Instituto Cervantes website.

The world speaks English and Spanish

During the Instituto Cervantes’s recent annual presentation, they gave information about their annual report in which they talked about the state of Spanish in the world. The Instituto Cervantes is responsible for the international diffusion of the language. The annual’s conclusions couldn’t be more positive. We can conclude that Spanish is and will stay the second language of the world.  

In the annual report they talked about the following topics:

• ·   Spanish is the second most spoken mother tongue (almost 500 million people have this language as their mother tongue, after Chinese.)

• ·    It’s the second most studied language, after English, and it’s really ahead in comparison to the following languages such as French and German. At the moment, there are more than 20 million students who are studying Spanish.

• ·   Spanish is the second most used language in international communication (in the commercial, economic and political area), after English.

• ·   It is already the second language in several internet fields: on Twitter it just became the second most used language and on Facebook it already was, with more than 80 million users. In general we can say that Spanish is the third language on the Internet, after English and Chinese, but it’s clearly the Spanish language that can count on a better growth: it increased with a percentage of 800 in the last 10 years, in respect of for example the rise of 300% of the English; in certain large language regions such as Latin America, there was already a growth of 1200% in the last 10 years. In fact, because Latin America presents 90% of the Hispanic speakers and because the introduction of the Internet (the part of the population that has access to the Internet) is much lower over there than the European average according to what people expect of Latin America (40% in Latin America in relation to 75% in Europe), they hope that this international growth keeps being as strong during the following years.

• ·   The Spanish language can count on a huge advantage in respect of it’s two competitors, namely English and Chinese: it has a great stability and equality, which is the result of, on the one hand well organised work and on the other hand the good language academies in the Hispanic countries. This allows each Spanish speaking person to understand and to be understood perfectly.

• ·     They have calculated that by 2030, an estimated 7,5% of the population will speak Spanish. This percentage is more remarkable than the ones of the other languages: 2,2% for Russian, 1,4% for French, 1,2% for German… In 3 or 4 generations 10% of the world population will communicate in Spanish.

• ·    In 2050, the United States will be the country with the largest number of Spanish speaking people in the world. Today Mexico is the largest Spanish speaking country.

After reading this text we can clearly conclude that Spanish is, after English, the most important language in the world. In addition to this fact we can also determine that Spanish is the second language for the English speaking population.