Although Spanish is the de facto official language in Mexico English is becoming much more widely used especially in the downtown and tourist areas. Spanglish is often used by each linguistic group when it serves to facilitate communication. Further in the suburbs and rural areas fluency in English is less common but it’s rare to find sometime with no knowledge of English. The original language of the Yucatan is Maya and it is still spoken but unfortunately seems to decreasing in numbers.  Among non-English speaking tourists French (from France & Canada) appears to be one of the most commonly encountered languages. For those wishing to learn Spanish Mérida is an excellent place with many schools and private tutors offering classes. Spanish already contain thousands of cognates of English words which is a great help in learning the language. Most English words with 3 or more syllables are of Latin derivation and thus usually have a Spanish cognate (e.g. universidad, excelente, probable, general etc.). As with many other languages Spanish has adopted many English words especially in technology related areas and popular culture.  Finally, Spanish is a phonetic language and what you see is what you get. When you learn to pronounce the alphabet you can then pronounce any word in the Spanish language even if you’ve never seen the word before. Try that in English or French!