The Hispanic society welcomed the director of the Cervantes Institute of London, Señor Ignacio Peyró to discuss the history of the institute and how prevalent Spanish as a language is, all over the world. Along with Etonians, students from Holyport College also joined to hear him talk in the Jafar Hall.
He first spoke about how Spanish has an active future in the world, and how in the years to come it will have great importance. Señor Peyró went on to talk about how even though there are not that many people that receive GCSEs or A-Levels for languages nowadays, the Cervantes Institute (according to a British Council report, November 2017) aims to remedy this by giving students the opportunity to study a language at a high level at the institute itself. Speaking about Hispanic culture, he mentioned how difficult it is to explain, with many different aspects to it. While there is literature, possibly the largest part of their culture, there are art and clothes, and perhaps most important is their music, especially Latin music. To end his talk he spoke to the boys about the process of learning Spanish, and how he thinks the best way to learn is through listening and speaking it, and through this method one can learn the language the best, and the fastest.
For Señor Peyro himself, he studied Spanish for many years, and through his articulate oration he truly conveyed how Spanish was his passion, and continues to be. He spoke about how it is a language of romance, and it was one of the first to do so. We would like to give many thanks to Señor Peyro for coming to Eton, and we look forward to welcoming him back in the future.
Nathan Swidler
