Spanish gains ground in Africa

Spanish gains ground in Africa

She heard her first words watching the Mexican soap opera Marimar and, from then on, knew she wanted to learn that strange language. Gloria Ane has just started a master’s degree in Hispanic philology at the Félix Houphoüet-Boigny University in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, but she is only one of the 3.5 million Spanish learners in sub-Saharan Africa — a figure that has more than doubled since 2014. Demographics, the rise of Latin music and cinema, socc…