Below is a list of all Spanish software programs that can be downloaded and viewed through the TMPlayHome software. If you do not have this software installed on your computer yet then please click here for a free software download of TMPlayHome.

Types of exercise available (click here for more info) Download Topic: File Size: Text Match Picture Match Multiple Choice Mix & Gap Sound Match Picture & Sound Dialogues El Tiempo 1K En Casa 1K Las Asignaturas 1K Objetos en la clase 1K Guillermo - Personal id 2K Lo bueno y lo malo de mi pueblo 1K Vives en una casa o un piso 1K Los números 20-101 1K Alimentos 1K Comida 1K El Deporte 1K El Menu 1K El Tiempo Libre 1 1K La Rutina Diaria 1 1K Halloween 1K En el Barrio 1K Daily Routine 1K Las Fiestas 1K Es la estación 1K             Las profesiones 1K

Some information about Spain...

The Kingdom of Spain is a country located in the southwest of Europe. It shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the cities of Ceuta and Melilla in the north of Africa, and a number of minor uninhabited islands on the Mediterranean side of the strait of Gibraltar, such as the Chafarine islands, the "rocks" (es: peñones) of Vélez and Alhucemas, and the tiny Parsley Island. Spain has been a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy since the Spanish Constitution was approved in 1978. Strong postwar economic growth and an expansion in trade following membership of the European Union in 1986 made the country's economy the tenth largest in the world in 2002. Life expectancy, public transportation, sanitation, infrastructure, and health care are first-rate, although the GDP per capita remains at 87% of that of the 4 leading European economies.

The original peoples of the Iberian peninsula (in the sense that they are not known to have come from elsewhere), consisting of a number of separate tribes, are given the generic name of Iberians. This may have included the Basques, the only pre-Celtic people in Iberia surviving to the present day as a separate ethnic group. The most important culture of this period is that of the city of Tartessos. Beginning in the 9th century BC, Celtic tribes entered the Iberian peninsula through the Pyrenees and settled throughout the peninsula, becoming the Celt-Iberians.

The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries.

Around 1,100 BC Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 8th century BC the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, after the river Iber (Ebro in Spanish). In the 6th century BC the Carthaginians arrived in Iberia while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).

The Romans arrived in the Iberian peninsula during the Second Punic war in the 2nd century B.C., and annexed it under Augustus after two centuries of war with the Celtic and Iberian tribes and the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies becoming the province of Hispania. Some of Spain's present languages, religion, and laws originate from this Roman period.

As the Roman empire declined, the Suebi, Vandals and Alans each took control of part of Hispania. In the 5th century AD the Visigoths, a romanized germanic tribe, conquered all of Hispania and established a relatively stable kingdom lasting until 711, when it fell to an invasion by Islamic North African Moors and became part of the expanding Umayyad empire, under the name of Al-Andalus. When the Umayyad empire gave way to the Abbaside empire, an Umayyad exile established the Caliphate of Cordoba, effectively making Al-Andalus independent from the empire.

Modern Spain began to take form during the Reconquista, the struggle between the Christian kingdoms arising in the northern regions left unconquered by the Moors and the Muslim kingdoms into which Al-Andalus eventually split.Two states came to dominate Christian Spain: Aragon and Castile.During the last half of the XV century the heirs of both kingdoms married.In 1492, Granada, the last of the Moorish kingdoms, was conquered by the Catholic monarchs, Isabel I of Castile (Isabel La Católica) and Fernando II of Aragon (Fernando el Católico or Ferran el Catòlic).

The kingdom of the Catholic monarchs then imposed the Christian religion; in 1492, Isabel and Fernando ordered the expulsion of all Jews from their dominions, having imposed physical segregation in 1480 (two years after the establishment of the Inquisition) and, in 1502, Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity or be banished. After the reconquest of Granada, Isabel funded Christopher Columbus in his attempts to reach Asia through a western route across the Atlantic Ocean - resulting in the "discovery" of the "New World".

In 1499, about 50,000 Moors in Granada were coerced into taking part in a mass baptism. During the uprising that followed, people who refused the choices of baptism or deportation to Africa, were systematically eliminated. What followed was a mass flight of Moors, Jews and Gitanos from the city of Granada and the surrounding villages to the mountain regions (and their hills) and the rural country. It was in this socially and economically difficult situation that the musical cultures of the Moors, Jews and Gitanos started to form the basics of flamenco music.

By 1512, most of the kingdoms of present-day Spain were politically unified, although not as a modern centralized state. The grandson of Isabel and Fernando, Carlos I, extended his crown to other places in Europe and the rest of the world. And the unification of Iberia was complete when Charles I's son, Felipe II, became King of Portugal in 1580, as well as of the other Iberian Kingdoms (collectively known as "Spain").

During the 16th century,with Carlos I and Felipe II, Spain became the most powerful European nation, its territory covering most of South and Central America, the Iberian peninsula, southern Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries. This was later known as the Spanish Empire.

It was also the wealthiest nation but the uncontrolled influx of goods and minerals from Spanish colonisation of the Americas resulted in rampant inflation and economic depression.

In 1640, under Felipe IV, the centralist policy of the Count-Duke of Olivares provoked wars in Portugal and Catalonia. Portugal became an independent kingdom again and Catalonia enjoyed some years of French-supported independence but was quickly returned to the Spanish Crown.

A series of long and costly wars and revolts followed in the 17th century, beginning a steady decline of Spanish power in Europe. Controversy over succession to the throne consumed the country during the first years of the 18th century (see War of the Spanish Succession). It was only after this war ended and a new dynasty was installed - the French Bourbons (see House of Bourbon) - that a centralized Spanish state was established.

Spain was occupied by Napoleon in the early 1800s, but the Spaniards raised in arms. After the War of Independence (1808-1812), a series of revolts and armed conflicts between Liberals and supporters of the ancien régime lasted throughout much of the 19th century, complicated by a dispute over dynastic succession by the Carlists which led to three civil wars. After that, Spain was briefly a Republic, from 1871 to 1873, a year in which a series of coups reinstalled the monarchy.

In the meantime, Spain lost most of its colonies in the Americas during the 19th century, a trend which ended with the loss of Cuba and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War of 1898.

The 20th century initially brought little peace; colonisation of Western Sahara, Spanish Morocco and Equatorial Guinea was attempted as a substitute for the loss of the Americas. A period of dictatorial rule (1923-1931) ended with the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic. The Republic offered political autonomy to the Basque Country and Catalonia and gave voting rights to women. However, with increasing political polarisation and pressure from all sides, coupled with growing and unchecked political violence, the Republic ended with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936. Following the victory of the nationalist forces in 1939, General Francisco Franco ruled a nation exhausted politically and economically until his death in 1975.

After World War II, being one of few surviving fascist regimes in Europe, Spain was politically and economically isolated and was kept out of the United Nations until 1955, when it became strategically important for U.S. president Eisenhower to establish a military presence in the Iberian peninsula. This opening to Spain was aided by Franco's rabid anti-communism.

In the 1960s, more than a decade later than other western European countries, Spain began to enjoy economic growth and gradually transformed into a modern industrial economy with a thriving tourism sector. Growth continued well into the 1970s, with Franco's government going to great lengths to shield the Spanish people from the effects of the oil crisis.

Upon the death of the dictator General Franco in November 1975, his personally-designated heir Prince Juan Carlos assumed the position of king and head of state. He played a key role in guiding Spain further in its growth into a modern democratic state, notably in opposing an attempted coup d'état in 1981. Spain joined NATO in 1982 and became a member of the European Union in 1986.

With the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and the arrival of democracy, the old historic nationalities — Basque Country, Catalonia, Andalusia and Galicia — were given far-reaching autonomy, which was then soon extended to all Spanish regions, resulting in one of the most decentralized territorial organizations in Western Europe.