Ecuador the little country with big statistics

[Villa]

Ecuador is located in South America between Colombia and Peru.
Population: 19.3 million
Language: Spanish
Money: The U.S. dollar
Also the famous Galápagos Islands of Charles Darwin fame belong to Ecuador
Way over a million Ecuadorians living out of Ecuador


In 2007 I got a scholarship to study advanced Italian classes in Italy.
I went to the town of Perugia, Italy got off at the train station and was
about to board the bus to ride up to the historical part of the city where
the University is that I was going to go to school at. Low and behold I
found myself right in the middle of hundreds hundreds of Spanish speakers
right in Italy. I felt right at home among them because I speak Spanish much
better than I speak Italian. I immediately started talking to two very friendly
guys from Bolivia that helped me get acquanted with the town and they told
me that most of the Spanish speakers were either from Ecuador or Peru. I later
met Spanish speakers from Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay among other
Spanish speaking countries right in Italy. All had learned to speak Italian. Also
I met many people from Brazil and other Portuguese speaking countries that
had all learned to speak Italian. In 2009 and in 2013 I stayed in the house of
some friends from Ecuador in Italy.

I started doing some research and found out two very interesting statistics about
Ecuador. First, that of all the 21 Spanish speaking countries in the world with people
in Italy Ecuador has the most people there. Over 120,000 of them. Most of their
children as I have found out are now more Italian than Spanish speaking. So there
are more Ecuadorians in Italy than people from Spain, Argentina or any other Spanish
speaking country. Now it gets even more interesting. Of the 19 or so Latin American
Spanish speaking countries which one do you think has the most Spanish speakers in
Spain? Ecuador! There are some where between 500,000 to 600,000 Ecuadorians living
in Spain. And of course they have no problem with the language considering that even
in Italy they didn't have much of a problem learning the Italian language.
As if this wasn't enough Ecuadorians are the third largest population in the New York area
of the U.S. Between Spain, Italy and the U.S. there are over a million Ecuadorians living in
those countries. I know many of them in California.

So the next time you go to Italy, Spain or the U.S. you might just meet somebody from Ecuador. I have.

[Orangeamigo16]

WOW I totally did not know that. Could you tell me what the 21 spanish speaking countries are I think it's mostly south american countries (columbia,mexico) but i'm not really sure. Also does the spanish language vary in other spanish speaking countries,such as if I were to say "Hello how are you" to a columbian person would he/she understand me or does the language slightly differ there?
Also if you said that equadorian people learnt italian no problem when living in Italy would it be easier to learn spanish fluently if he/she went to a spnish speaking country?

[poli]

The language changes from country to country and between regions. Nevertheless communication isn't that hard. One word or caution is that
words for sex and sex organs change from country to country. They may be words for fruit in one country and something quite different in others.

By the way, I believe the Italian diaspora reached Ecuador at the turn of the 20th century. Some Ecuadorian restaurants that I know serving almost exclusively Ecuadorian clients have Italian food on the menu.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by Orangeamigo16

WOW I totally did not know that. Could you tell me what the 21 spanish speaking countries are I think it's mostly south american countries (columbia,mexico) but i'm not really sure. Also does the spanish language vary in other spanish speaking countries,such as if I were to say "Hello how are you" to a columbian person would he/she understand me or does the language slightly differ there?
Also if you said that equadorian people learnt italian no problem when living in Italy would it be easier to learn spanish fluently if he/she went to a spnish speaking country?

Spanish speaking countries
Est. Population
(In millions) Argentina 45.1 Honduras 7.8 Bolivia 10.9 Mexico 130.2 Chile 17 Nicaragua 5.9 Colombia 45.5 Panama 3.3 Costa Rica 4.2 Paraguay 6.3 Cuba 12.2 Peru 29.5 Dominican Republic 12.0 Philippines 92.0 Ecuador 19.7 Puerto Rico 5.0 El Salvador 6.1 Uruguay 4.5 Guatemala 13.2 Venezuela 26.8 Spain 47

The official language of the Philippines was Spanish until the U.S. took over.
Tagalo the national language of the Philippines has many Spanish words in it.

Of the 21 Spanish speaking countries the U.S. is the second largest Spanish speaking country.
There are more Spanish speakers in the U.S. than in Spain. Only Mexico has more Spanish speakers.

Many people don't know that there is even a Spanish speaking country in Africa
named Equatorial Guinea.


Equatorial Guinea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by poli

The language changes from country to country and between regions. Nevertheless communication isn't that hard. One word or caution is that
words for sex and sex organs change from country to country. They may be words for fruit in one country and something quite different in others.

By the way, I believe the Italian diaspora reached Ecuador at the turn of the 20th century. Some Ecuadorian restaurants that I know serving almost exclusively Ecuadorian clients have Italian food on the menu.

Very true poli. But even within Spanish speaking countries words for sex and sex organs can change.
For example, in one part of Cuba "papaya" means the gentials of a woman while in another part of Cuba it does not.
At any rate in Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico and The Dominican Republic the verb coger is just a comon verb.
In Mexico and other Spanish speaking countries it means to have sex. In Colombia and Ecuador the verb
tirar is used. One of my girlfriends from Ecuador use to say: "A tirar y a tirar que el mundo se va a cabar."

Poli, every one of those 120,000 Ecuadorians living in Italy has many relatives and friends in Ecuador/U.S.
or other countries. These relatives go and visit some of the 120,000 people in Italy and visa versa
creating even more of a cultural connection between Ecuador and Italy. Just for example I know of a lady
from Ecuador whose sister lives in Italy and she has taken Italian classes and has become fluent in Italian for
when she goes to visit her sister in Italy.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Originally Posted by Orangeamigo16

Could you tell me what the 21 spanish speaking countries are I think it's mostly south american countries (columbia,mexico) but i'm not really sure. Also does the spanish language vary in other spanish speaking countries,such as if I were to say "Hello how are you" to a columbian person would he/she understand me or does the language slightly differ there?

@OrangeAmigo: You can take a look at this thread for the list of Spanish speaking countries, and to this one for examples of some of their accents. Spanish is only one language and we understand each other regardless of the region we are from; differences are felt in colloquial expressions, just like in any other language, I guess.
In that last thread, post #47 has a collection of people from different countries speaking "standard Spanish", which is understood in spite of their own accent.

[Orangeamigo16]

Ok thank you everyone @poli thanks for the info @Villa thank you that was very useful information thanks and @AngelicaDeAlquezar thank you I will visit those threads now thanks everyone.

[rppp01a]

I spent a few days in Equador several months ago. My impressions:

Very modern infrastructure in the cities.
They use the US dollar. No need for a currency change.
Lots of Chinese live there.
Lots of people in indigenous clothing. Lots of others were not. I liked the mix.
Quito is very high in elevation. The weather is always pleasant, year around.
The beaches are supposed to be very pretty. My friend loved them. It is hotter as you move off of the Andes towards the ocean (or towards the rain forest on the eastern side).
The people were quite friendly and I found their spanish was about as clean as that of Colombians.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by rppp01a

I spent a few days in Equador several months ago. My impressions:

Very modern infrastructure in the cities.
They use the US dollar. No need for a currency change.
Lots of Chinese live there.
Lots of people in indigenous clothing. Lots of others were not. I liked the mix.
Quito is very high in elevation. The weather is always pleasant, year around.
The beaches are supposed to be very pretty. My friend loved them. It is hotter as you move off of the Andes towards the ocean (or towards the rain forest on the eastern side).
The people were quite friendly and I found their spanish was about as clean as that of Colombians.

Nice report rppp!
I really like Ecuador and am glad you do too.

There are many similarities between Ecuador and Peru.
Have had the opportunity to be around people from both
Ecuador and Peru. Below is a comparisons of their ethnic groups.

Ethnic groups in Ecuador

• 65% Mestizo
• 19% White
• 13% Amerindian
• 7.4% Montubio
• 7.2% Afroecuadorian
• 0.2% others

Ethnic groups in Peru

• 45% Amerindian
• 37% Mestizo
• 15% White or is it 6.7%?(different answers on the internet)
  
• 3% Afroperuvian(Black mulato 4.9%)
• Have read and heard that Peru has the largest Japanese
• population outside of Japan for % of the population.
  

What's interesting to me is I always thought that Peru
had more people of African origin but I see it is Ecuador that
supposedly does. They live on the coast of Ecuador especially
in a city called Esmeralda.

Ironcially their is an Peruvian restuarant here in California
that has the most interesting Afro-Peruvian dancers that
perform while you eat.


The Peruvian census does not contain information about ethnicity so only rough estimates are available. According to the National Continuous Survey (Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática or INEI 2006) 59,5% self-identified as Mestizos, 22.7% as Quechuas, 2.7% as Aymaras, 1.8% as Amazonians (Yanesha people), 1.6% as Black/Mulatto, 4.9% as White and 6.7% as Others (Chinese, Japanese, others).[10] Another reference estimates it to be composed of Mestizos: 47%,[11] Amerindians: 30%,[12][13][14] European: 18%,[11] Asians: 4%,[15] Afro-Peruvians: 1%.[16]