Second Lengua

29/07/2025

Interested in 20th century history? Did you know that Spain experienced a dictatorship during a large stretch of the the 20th century? Head on over to our substack to learn more about this time in Spanish history and practice your reading skills!

24/07/2025

La convivencia- Spanish practice is now live! Head over to our substack, Pinchos de Cultura (link in bio) to learn more about the multi-religious history of medieval Iberia!

Note- Iberia or the Iberian Peninsula is the land mass that contains present day Spain and Portugal.

29/06/2025

El verano en España: vermuteo y pulpo a la brasa! 👩🏼‍🍳💋

06/01/2025

Is the holiday season over where you are from? It continues today in Spain with the celebration of el dia de Reyes! Check out the latest substack to learn about how this holiday is celebrated!

https://open.substack.com/pub/pinchosdecultura/p/el-dia-de-reyes?r=3yr65t&utm_medium=ios

03/01/2025

¡Felices fiestas! How are you celebrating this holiday season? While the holidays may have just ended in the United States, in Spain and many Spanish-speaking countries, they are not officially over until after January 6th. Check out this new Substack to learn about the holiday festivities so far and then check back again on January 6th for a special Reyes edition!

Holiday celebrations in Spain and beyond!

13/09/2024

Un te amb mel i llet i una esaïmada. Una mica de xocolata. Si, jo parlo catalá! 🤭

05/09/2024

Learning our third language through our fourth language today! Latin through Catalan! Thankfully Catalan shares enough in common with Spanish to be mostly comprehensible. 😆

03/09/2024

¡El primer día de catalán! ¡Los de Second Lengua siempre estamos aprendiendo!

01/09/2024

New substack post about one of las tradiciones más catalanes: los castellers! Check out the link blow to read about and see video footage of this tradition from the festa major (annual festival) of Vilafranca del Penedès!

https://pinchosdecultura.substack.com/p/castells-the-human-castles-of-catalunya

01/07/2024

Coming at you this week with something a little different! We are taking a break from the series on the and are instead looking at a Nahuá legend about the origin of two volcanoes outside of Mexico City. We will return to the next week, but for now, click the link below to learn the romantic story of these volcanoes’ creation!

https://www.secondlengua.com/blog/los-novios-popocatepetl-amp-iztacchuatl

23/06/2024

“The Umayyads, for their part, were generally happy to incorporate many aspects of the cultures that they conquered into their own, taking an expansive and liberal approach to governing the dhimmi, and readily welcoming converts into the fold of the faithful.

And there were converts aplenty. Village tax returns from less than a century after the death of Abd al-Rahmann I indicate that some 40% of Christians living in al-Andalus had converted. While we cannot know the motive of every person who converted from Judaism or Christianity to Islam during the Umayyad period (most of the converts were from Christianity, with only a very few from Judaism), what we can know is that there was a compelling practical reason to do so: your social standing would immediately improve from being a member of the majority.”

Check out the link below to read more about living as part of the dhimmi of Cordoba!

https://www.secondlengua.com/blog/the-dhimmi-of-al-andalus

Living as a religious minority under Umayyad rule