In this Spanish Medium Review quiz we will be taking a look at the Spanish names for some of the countries of the world. Do you know how many different languages are spoken in the world? The answer is that no one knows for certain just how many languages are spoken but as of 2009, in the Ethnologue (published by SIL International), a total of 6,909 languages were recorded. Those are only the ones that are known of but new languages are born almost every year. Thank goodness you don’t have to learn ALL of them!
There is no one country that speaks absolutely one language exclusively, although each country does have a most spoken language associated with it. For this quiz, you are going to be focusing on a number of the countries of the world and there are not 6,909 of them!
Like languages being born, countries are being born as well and/or countries are breaking up and forming new countries or renaming themselves. For the most part, however, there are approximately 196 countries. We will only be learning the names to just a few of those in this quiz. You will get more in the Spanish Difficult Review quiz series.
Now let’s take a look at the Spanish names for the following 50 countries (that’s only one-fourth of the countries of the world).
ENGLISH | SPANISH |
---|---|
Afganistan | Afganistán [m] |
Algeria | Argelia [m] (note that G has an H sound) |
Antarctica | Antártida [f] |
Argentina | Argentina [f] (spelled the same but in Spanish the G has an H sound) |
Australia | Australia [f] |
Austria | Austria [f] |
Bahamas | Bahamas [f] |
Belgium | Bélgica [f] (note that G has an H sound) |
Bolivia | Bolivia [f] |
Brazil | Brasil [m] |
Cambodia | Camboya [f] |
Canada | Canadá [m] |
Chile | Chile [m] |
China | China [f] |
Columbia | Colombia [f] |
Croatia | Croacia [f] |
Cuba | Cuba [f] |
Denmark | Dinamarca [f] |
Egypt | Egipto [m] |
Ethiopia | Etiopía [f] |
Finland | Finlandia [f] |
France | Francia [f] |
Germany | Alemania [f] |
Hungary | Hungría [f] |
Iran | Irán [m] |
Iraq | Irak [m] |
Ireland | Irlanda [f] |
Italy | Italia [f] |
Japan | Japón [m] |
Jordan | Jordania [f] |
Korea | Corea [f] |
Libya | Libia [f] |
Mexico | México [m] (note that the X has and H sound) |
New Zealand | Nueva Zelanda [f] |
Norway | Noruega [f] |
Peru | Perú [m] |
Poland | Polonia [f] |
Romania | Rumania [f] |
Russia | Rusia [f] |
Spain | España [f] |
Sudan | Sudán [m] |
Sweden | Suecia [f] |
Switzerland | Suiza [f] |
Thailand | Tailandia [f] |
Turkey | Turquía [f] |
Ukraine | Ucrania [f] |
United Kingdom | Reino Unido [m] |
United States | Estados Unidos [m] |
Venezuela | Venezuela [f] |
Although many of the countries retain the same spelling in both English and Spanish, you must always remember that their pronunciations are different. When speaking Spanish, you will need to keep this in mind. Because the country names are so similar there will be very little challenge to this quiz. Rather, as we cannot bring you into a classroom, instead of just answering each question or sentence, please take the time to pronounce each country in the Spanish tongue. Get used to how it feels to say the word and to hear the word. You still will need to focus on how each word is spelled as there could be some misspelled words if you are not looking. Some questions will ask about how a word should be phonetically pronounced which might make you have to think a little. Take your time with the 50 countries and when you are ready, begin the quiz.