The Fundéu BBVA´s 10thAnniversary

For everybody who, either out of obligation or for the pleasure of it or for a combination of these reasons, has to grapple with the language of Cervantes on a daily basis, and who has chosen to teach it day in and day out, there must be a source of reference and a beacon to guide them through the confusing issues which may arise during the course of their studies or work.

Ten years ago, thanks to a great joint idea between the Real Academia Española ( the Royal Spanish Academy) and the Agencia EFE ( a multimedia news agency), an organization was born whose very name perfectly summarizes its function: The Foundation of Urgent Spanish ( La Fundación del Español Urgente), commonly referred to as the Fundéu BBVA.

This institution offers priceless tools which enable queries and problems to be solved while laying down the law on daily issues which arise when using Spanish.

Its website offers an essential range of advice, reflections and updates which together aim to set out rules about the correct use of Spanish.

At first it just seemed like this organization had a good mission statement which some thought would come to nothing, just like so many projects which, for one reason or another, do not come to fruition. But that did not happen in this case.

The Fundéu has shown that it is on top of the latest linguistic developments and it has continued growing to the extent that it is now a reference point for journalists, teachers, students and general language lovers.

In addition to the consultation service, which can be accessed by telephone, via social network sites such as Twitter  more than 190.000 followers), Facebook ( around 50.000 followers), Google+, Pinterest and Instagram, by email or directly via this webpage, la Fundéu offers several tips which anyone, who is as interested in Spanish as I am, can subscribe to for free and which provide users with daily advice and guidelines to deal with everyday questions which arise about the use of the language: http://www.fundeu.es/dudas/.

This organization has also created a style guide for writing on the internet which can be bought as a book: "Escribir en internet. Guía para los nuevos medios y las redes sociales", or consulted here.

As if all of this were not enough, the Foundation of Urgent Spanish is also in charge of managing Wikilengua an “open and collaborative site for sharing practical information about the rules, use and styles of Spanish”

And as for mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and so on, it has created free applications which allow all its users to access its services, increasing the independent use and user-friendliness of the information:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.fundeu and https://itunes.apple.com/es/app/fundeu/id924047779?mt=8

There is no denying the effort which Fundéu is putting in to make sure that it is up to date with societal developments and with new technologies and to ensure that all its users can easily make inquiries and access information wherever they are.

For all of the above reasons and provided that this organization continues to be free, easy to use and quick at responding to queries, I want to offer my insignificant but heartfelt and sincerest thanks and congratulations to Fundéu for reaching its tenth anniversary.

Congratulations and thank you, Fundéu!