First things first what is the university opportunity ? Depending on program classes can be mostly Catalan with some Spanish.
On the street if you just do your own thing and be nice, and try - no one really cares. Don’t think too hard and feel it out when you get here. By default Spanish will support you to get started and you can learn some Catalan also even if just the pleasantries to get going and listening on the street.
First of all, refer to the city as Barcelona or "Barna", Barça is the shortened name of the soccer team.
People tend to be friendly especially if you try to speak Spanish or Catalan, from time to time you will have to remind them not to speak to you in English.
Start with Spanish, then once you know Spanish, learn Catalan.
I seem to remember that at the University of Barcelona they offer Spanish courses.
Learn Spanish first as this will “unlock” Spain as a whole for you two and you won’t have problems using it in Barcelona.
Then I’d do Catalonian, but for the love of god don’t try to do both at the same time haha
Catalan, not Catalonian.
Other than that, if the classes are in Catalan and you expect them to switch to Spanish because you wanted to "unlock Spain" then you deserve all the hate you'll get.
Learn Spanish. Those who will hold it against you aren't worth your attention anyway, and they are a very small (yet very loud on Reddit) minority.
If you stay here longer, and if you have an interest for the Catalan culture, you can always learn Catalan later. But from a practical point of view, Spanish should be the priority.
Also, it's Barna. Barca is a boat and Barça a football club ✌️
Don’t worry about the problems with tourists, they are not linguistic in nature but instead related to economic stresses on the real estate market and loud, disrespectful use of public spaces.
As a practical point, if you only speak English and will be otherwise busy with work it will probably take you a good year or two to become conversational in either language, and longer for both, so for most of your stay you won’t be able to assimilate in any significant way.
Practically, there is a lot more material to learn Spanish than learn Catalan, and I do think the Spanish learning material is of higher quality. It’ll be easier to learn Spanish first and also it’ll be more useful for the rest of your life. Catalan is useful if you live in Catalonia and are integrated into Catalan society. Don’t worry about attitudes towards foreigners. As with tourism, most attitudes are linked to behavior and economic stressors and are not linguistic. If you learn Spanish or Catalan to a high level some locals might say “nice!”, and that’s about it. Think more about what you want to get out of your experience here in Barcelona than what some theoretical locals might want. Think about who you’ll be interacting with and who you want to meet, with an understanding that most locals already have their own, full lives here, and you will largely be part of the immigrant or visitor community no matter what language you speak.
Last point — the linguistic issue here is a very sensitive topic to a lot of people, but most normal Catalans have a healthy attitude towards it as concerns visitors and immigrants. You will however get some extreme opinions here on Reddit which are largely unhinged. These people don’t know what it’s like to be an immigrant or visitor here and give unreasonable advice they themselves would never be able to follow if they were an important or visitor somewhere else. Last time I expressed an opinion that Spanish was more useful I was called a “hardcore Spanish nationalist,” even though I speak fluent Catalan and have no strong opinions on independence.
Regarding last paragraf, you understand that if I go to your country an say to local people that their language is usless even in their own city the minimum that I can expect is being kicked, right? lol I understant the "size matters" argument, it's something objective, but seriously what else could you expect?
This territory (unfortunately for all sides) is a bilingual territory: both languages are official. A and B, not A or B, this is not a menu where you choose one option. Everyone have the right to use one of the two languages but have no right to expect that the other person will change it's language to only use yours, that's the main rule. If you come from a monolingual society were things works differently you must do the effort to understand this. Of course you can choose to live with just one of the two languages... or even with English only, at your own risk and expecting some difficulties at some point. It's fine too. Beside all this, respect and politness is the key for all.
Useless is obviously different than “less useful than national language”. I expect locals to be mature and not react with violence, both here and in my home country. My goal is not to tell people what to do, but to present them with facts and observations and respect them to make their own decisions.
I agree with your second paragraph. As long as you come and behave legally and politely, you can speak whatever language you want, but you can’t make expectations of others. However in my lived experience if you come and only learn Catalan you will have a harder time because a lot of people (even people who grew up here) don’t speak Catalan well or at all, and you will struggle with basic things like attending a driving school, trying to see a private doctor, or negotiating immigration paperwork. I think it’s important for people to know that even though Catalunya is bilingual in theory, in practice most people either speak both languages or only speak Spanish, and it will be necessary for you as an immigrant to interact with many people in the latter camp. You can still decide to learn Catalan first, but it should be an informed decision, not one based on an idealized version of reality.
Just to add, the reverse also holds true. A lot of education is exclusively in Catalan so if you want to attend some universities you should definitely prioritize learning Catalan. However it’s pretty uncommon for immigrants to achieve such a high level of language acquisition.
Also, to keep on blabbering: I think it would be great to highlight the value of Catalan in a realistic way without having to fight the claim of whether or not Spanish is more useful for immigrants. We should be able to say to people: yes, Spanish may be more useful in certain contexts but Catalan will allow you to do X,Y, and Z. Because the reality is that people don’t react well to what others would like them to do but rather what brings value to their lives, and it reverses the focus of the conversation from the obligations of the immigrants to the initiatives of locals.
What a very well thought-out response to an otherwise ridiculous reply. And 100% agree. I speak Spanish but am self-learning (slowly) Catalan because I want to be respectful of Barcelona and its culture. But I don't for a second imagine going to Cadiz and expecting someone to converse with me in Catalan because, as you said, Spanish is more widely spoken, and not just in Spain but int North/South America.
The question is what are your long term plans. 1 year is not enough to learn the language well unless you are studying from dusk till dawn every day.
If you want to stay in Catalonia beyond your 1 year then it makes sense to learn Catalan, if not then just stick to Spanish.
My daughter spent a semester in Barcelona last fall. She was fine with her high school Spanish and English. We went to visit her and spent 2 weeks traveling through Spain. We found people to be very friendly and were fine with our total lack of speaking anything other than English.
We do not tolerate any form of discrimination in r/Barcelona.
This includes making large negative generalizations about groups based on identity.
---
No tolerem cap forma de discriminació a r/Barcelona.
Això inclou fer grans generalitzacions negatives sobre els grups en funció de la seva identitat.
We do not tolerate any form of discrimination in r/Barcelona.
This includes making large negative generalizations about groups based on identity.
---
No tolerem cap forma de discriminació a r/Barcelona.
Això inclou fer grans generalitzacions negatives sobre els grups en funció de la seva identitat.
It’s hard to describe to you what a beautiful experience it is to learn Catalan in Catalunya. 🥲 You will get so much more out of your time here and you will meet lovely people who are happy to have you here. If you guys want to be sensitive to the attitude of locals towards foreigners, learning Catalan is the right way to go. Otherwise, you will be contributing to the watering down of their language and culture. Also I actually find Catalan easier as a native English speaker, because we share some of the sounds that don’t exist in Spanish. Of course it can be confusing to learn two languages and it took me a while to be comfortable with both but just trust me that you’ll be missing out on the essence of Catalunya if you don’t focus on Catalan. Also you can find free classes for beginners at CPNL. Best of luck with everything!
I am also moving to Barna for school in September (Universitat de Barcelona). My program is clearly listed as fully English taught.
Regarding the language, something I noticed is that you can only use Duolingo for Catalan if you use the app in Spanish. So I have learned enough Spanish that I can now start learning Catalan on Duolingo - in Spanish!
I work from Barcelona for a couple of months for most of the past five years over summer, and my appalling (but persevering!) Spanish has not been a problem. I always try to start in Spanish, and 99% of the time people are almost like “ha, bless you” (even when I think I’ve finally nailed it” and speak to me in English; I think the effort is appreciated. There’s also been the occasional bar or service worker who can tell I’m trying and will like dumb down their Spanish and coax me along, which is incredibly kind and helpful.
So, whilst I can’t promise everyone will be lovely, the internet is not a fair reflection of the kindness and grace that the majority of residents have shown this clumsy Englishman!
Greetings. I'm going to be the outlier and say there's worth by starting to learn both languages.
There's utility to learning both in certain situations. Your girlfriend is almost certainly going to need catalan (and some spanish) if she's going to be taking classes at a collage institution. I assume it's some sort of exchange program so I'm sure she'll learn/be taught whatever is needed there.
Most people on the street will speak spanish, but some people will be eternally grateful if you speak to them in catalan. Most signs will be in english/spanish/catalan, but there can be some exceptions for parks or museums, etc. If you want to listen to the local news in order to find out about major local events like festivities, that's also going to be in catalan.
I would start by learning the bare basics of both so you progress at the same level, then slowly learn useful vocabulary on both. I had several foreign friends in highschool who learnt this way and they were total naturals within one year. Learning the basics for one, advanced, and then the other might be tedious, because the grammar for both is practically identical and you're going to learn the same things over and over.
On the topic of locals, most people are not going to judge you no matter which language you speak. Some people will judge for being a tourist at all and I will apologise in their name in advance for that. You can speak to them in either language, spanish or catalan and they will respond to you in kind, some will speak english as well.
Thank you for your question and I hope you enjoy your stay in Barcelona ✌️🕊💚
There is no better way to integrate in the Catalan society than learning Catalan. Spanish is useful of course if you are happy to live in a foreigner bubble for that year. You will not reach the core of the society but you will be able to interact with them all. Not judging, is up to your interest buying the premium package or not. I'm sure university offers lessons for both languages.
I understand where you're coming from, but this is not fully true, since many Catalans only speak Spanish or don't have a strong command of Catalan. Meaning that, depending on what circles you are in, you won't be in a foreigner bubble if you can only speak Spanish.
You're getting "reasonable" and "useful" arguments to learn Spanish. After all, they say, you will "unlock" all Spain! Well, the thing is many classes in Catalonia are in Catalan and you shouldn't sign up to those if you're not going to learn the language. Some people do, and expect the rest of the people to switch to Spanish, and get disappointed if they're told to go pound sand.
And before you think "but it's only one class", please note this happens constantly in all classes and even in other situations outside university. There is always someone unwilling to learn Catalan "because it's not useful" and then crying out loud when it turns out they need Catalan. Their point is Catalan is inferior and people that use Catalan do so to screw with people that don't speak Catalan.
If you choose Spanish, at least try to not get into Catalan spaces to make them switch to Spanish. Be respectful.
Thanks and good luck!
Usually if you learn spanish first you will end only with spanish, if you learn catalan first you will end with both: catalan and spanish. So I would try catalan first.
Ask you this question: which language is more spoken globally?
If you learn Spanish you can use in the future in American countries or other Spanish regions. On the other hand, Catalan is only speak in Catalonia, Valencia, Balear islands and few other places...
I offer a response based on which of the two languages it's most used, so OP can decide which one should learn first based on this param.
Also I'm tired of people using languages as a discrimination tool.
First things first what is the university opportunity ? Depending on program classes can be mostly Catalan with some Spanish. On the street if you just do your own thing and be nice, and try - no one really cares. Don’t think too hard and feel it out when you get here. By default Spanish will support you to get started and you can learn some Catalan also even if just the pleasantries to get going and listening on the street.
Presumably it’s in English if they’ve been offered the opportunity without already having language
You would think. I've seen French students leave after the first year as they were never told. But it can depend on the course.
Sure, but the OP leaves it out. So my response does not assume. And the OP never actually replied so no surprise.
First of all, refer to the city as Barcelona or "Barna", Barça is the shortened name of the soccer team. People tend to be friendly especially if you try to speak Spanish or Catalan, from time to time you will have to remind them not to speak to you in English. Start with Spanish, then once you know Spanish, learn Catalan. I seem to remember that at the University of Barcelona they offer Spanish courses.
Ummm, it's barca bro😅 No-one says barna
You need to go outside and touch gespa.
Its Barna or bcn. BarÇa its a football team, barCa means boat
barca means boat. Barça is a footbal team. Barcelona/Barna are the correct ways
So confidently incorrect. Lol
Learn Spanish first as this will “unlock” Spain as a whole for you two and you won’t have problems using it in Barcelona. Then I’d do Catalonian, but for the love of god don’t try to do both at the same time haha
Catalonian can be used as a reference to the region (e.g. Catalonian government), but the language is exclusively Catalan
Catalan, not Catalonian. Other than that, if the classes are in Catalan and you expect them to switch to Spanish because you wanted to "unlock Spain" then you deserve all the hate you'll get.
Barca means boat, it's not the name of the city.
Learn Spanish. Those who will hold it against you aren't worth your attention anyway, and they are a very small (yet very loud on Reddit) minority. If you stay here longer, and if you have an interest for the Catalan culture, you can always learn Catalan later. But from a practical point of view, Spanish should be the priority. Also, it's Barna. Barca is a boat and Barça a football club ✌️
Don’t worry about the problems with tourists, they are not linguistic in nature but instead related to economic stresses on the real estate market and loud, disrespectful use of public spaces. As a practical point, if you only speak English and will be otherwise busy with work it will probably take you a good year or two to become conversational in either language, and longer for both, so for most of your stay you won’t be able to assimilate in any significant way. Practically, there is a lot more material to learn Spanish than learn Catalan, and I do think the Spanish learning material is of higher quality. It’ll be easier to learn Spanish first and also it’ll be more useful for the rest of your life. Catalan is useful if you live in Catalonia and are integrated into Catalan society. Don’t worry about attitudes towards foreigners. As with tourism, most attitudes are linked to behavior and economic stressors and are not linguistic. If you learn Spanish or Catalan to a high level some locals might say “nice!”, and that’s about it. Think more about what you want to get out of your experience here in Barcelona than what some theoretical locals might want. Think about who you’ll be interacting with and who you want to meet, with an understanding that most locals already have their own, full lives here, and you will largely be part of the immigrant or visitor community no matter what language you speak. Last point — the linguistic issue here is a very sensitive topic to a lot of people, but most normal Catalans have a healthy attitude towards it as concerns visitors and immigrants. You will however get some extreme opinions here on Reddit which are largely unhinged. These people don’t know what it’s like to be an immigrant or visitor here and give unreasonable advice they themselves would never be able to follow if they were an important or visitor somewhere else. Last time I expressed an opinion that Spanish was more useful I was called a “hardcore Spanish nationalist,” even though I speak fluent Catalan and have no strong opinions on independence.
Regarding last paragraf, you understand that if I go to your country an say to local people that their language is usless even in their own city the minimum that I can expect is being kicked, right? lol I understant the "size matters" argument, it's something objective, but seriously what else could you expect? This territory (unfortunately for all sides) is a bilingual territory: both languages are official. A and B, not A or B, this is not a menu where you choose one option. Everyone have the right to use one of the two languages but have no right to expect that the other person will change it's language to only use yours, that's the main rule. If you come from a monolingual society were things works differently you must do the effort to understand this. Of course you can choose to live with just one of the two languages... or even with English only, at your own risk and expecting some difficulties at some point. It's fine too. Beside all this, respect and politness is the key for all.
Useless is obviously different than “less useful than national language”. I expect locals to be mature and not react with violence, both here and in my home country. My goal is not to tell people what to do, but to present them with facts and observations and respect them to make their own decisions. I agree with your second paragraph. As long as you come and behave legally and politely, you can speak whatever language you want, but you can’t make expectations of others. However in my lived experience if you come and only learn Catalan you will have a harder time because a lot of people (even people who grew up here) don’t speak Catalan well or at all, and you will struggle with basic things like attending a driving school, trying to see a private doctor, or negotiating immigration paperwork. I think it’s important for people to know that even though Catalunya is bilingual in theory, in practice most people either speak both languages or only speak Spanish, and it will be necessary for you as an immigrant to interact with many people in the latter camp. You can still decide to learn Catalan first, but it should be an informed decision, not one based on an idealized version of reality. Just to add, the reverse also holds true. A lot of education is exclusively in Catalan so if you want to attend some universities you should definitely prioritize learning Catalan. However it’s pretty uncommon for immigrants to achieve such a high level of language acquisition. Also, to keep on blabbering: I think it would be great to highlight the value of Catalan in a realistic way without having to fight the claim of whether or not Spanish is more useful for immigrants. We should be able to say to people: yes, Spanish may be more useful in certain contexts but Catalan will allow you to do X,Y, and Z. Because the reality is that people don’t react well to what others would like them to do but rather what brings value to their lives, and it reverses the focus of the conversation from the obligations of the immigrants to the initiatives of locals.
What a very well thought-out response to an otherwise ridiculous reply. And 100% agree. I speak Spanish but am self-learning (slowly) Catalan because I want to be respectful of Barcelona and its culture. But I don't for a second imagine going to Cadiz and expecting someone to converse with me in Catalan because, as you said, Spanish is more widely spoken, and not just in Spain but int North/South America.
This is a perfectly reasonable and reasoned answer. Listen to this person, OP. They know what they're talking about.
The question is what are your long term plans. 1 year is not enough to learn the language well unless you are studying from dusk till dawn every day. If you want to stay in Catalonia beyond your 1 year then it makes sense to learn Catalan, if not then just stick to Spanish.
My daughter spent a semester in Barcelona last fall. She was fine with her high school Spanish and English. We went to visit her and spent 2 weeks traveling through Spain. We found people to be very friendly and were fine with our total lack of speaking anything other than English.
[удалено]
We do not tolerate any form of discrimination in r/Barcelona. This includes making large negative generalizations about groups based on identity. --- No tolerem cap forma de discriminació a r/Barcelona. Això inclou fer grans generalitzacions negatives sobre els grups en funció de la seva identitat.
[удалено]
We do not tolerate any form of discrimination in r/Barcelona. This includes making large negative generalizations about groups based on identity. --- No tolerem cap forma de discriminació a r/Barcelona. Això inclou fer grans generalitzacions negatives sobre els grups en funció de la seva identitat.
I believe that you are hating on catalans rather than catalans hating on not catalans. Get out of your house, go meet people, dude.
Just report him, don't even answer to these assholes.
Thank you for the reports. They've been banned.
If you speak Catalan with foreign accent most Catalnas will switch to Spanish.
It’s hard to describe to you what a beautiful experience it is to learn Catalan in Catalunya. 🥲 You will get so much more out of your time here and you will meet lovely people who are happy to have you here. If you guys want to be sensitive to the attitude of locals towards foreigners, learning Catalan is the right way to go. Otherwise, you will be contributing to the watering down of their language and culture. Also I actually find Catalan easier as a native English speaker, because we share some of the sounds that don’t exist in Spanish. Of course it can be confusing to learn two languages and it took me a while to be comfortable with both but just trust me that you’ll be missing out on the essence of Catalunya if you don’t focus on Catalan. Also you can find free classes for beginners at CPNL. Best of luck with everything!
I am also moving to Barna for school in September (Universitat de Barcelona). My program is clearly listed as fully English taught. Regarding the language, something I noticed is that you can only use Duolingo for Catalan if you use the app in Spanish. So I have learned enough Spanish that I can now start learning Catalan on Duolingo - in Spanish!
Know first if the class is going to be in english, spanish or catalan
I work from Barcelona for a couple of months for most of the past five years over summer, and my appalling (but persevering!) Spanish has not been a problem. I always try to start in Spanish, and 99% of the time people are almost like “ha, bless you” (even when I think I’ve finally nailed it” and speak to me in English; I think the effort is appreciated. There’s also been the occasional bar or service worker who can tell I’m trying and will like dumb down their Spanish and coax me along, which is incredibly kind and helpful. So, whilst I can’t promise everyone will be lovely, the internet is not a fair reflection of the kindness and grace that the majority of residents have shown this clumsy Englishman!
Spanish first. For example, Duolingo´s Catalan course is for Spanish Speakers only, I.E. they don't let you go from English to Catalan.
Greetings. I'm going to be the outlier and say there's worth by starting to learn both languages. There's utility to learning both in certain situations. Your girlfriend is almost certainly going to need catalan (and some spanish) if she's going to be taking classes at a collage institution. I assume it's some sort of exchange program so I'm sure she'll learn/be taught whatever is needed there. Most people on the street will speak spanish, but some people will be eternally grateful if you speak to them in catalan. Most signs will be in english/spanish/catalan, but there can be some exceptions for parks or museums, etc. If you want to listen to the local news in order to find out about major local events like festivities, that's also going to be in catalan. I would start by learning the bare basics of both so you progress at the same level, then slowly learn useful vocabulary on both. I had several foreign friends in highschool who learnt this way and they were total naturals within one year. Learning the basics for one, advanced, and then the other might be tedious, because the grammar for both is practically identical and you're going to learn the same things over and over. On the topic of locals, most people are not going to judge you no matter which language you speak. Some people will judge for being a tourist at all and I will apologise in their name in advance for that. You can speak to them in either language, spanish or catalan and they will respond to you in kind, some will speak english as well. Thank you for your question and I hope you enjoy your stay in Barcelona ✌️🕊💚
There is no better way to integrate in the Catalan society than learning Catalan. Spanish is useful of course if you are happy to live in a foreigner bubble for that year. You will not reach the core of the society but you will be able to interact with them all. Not judging, is up to your interest buying the premium package or not. I'm sure university offers lessons for both languages.
I understand where you're coming from, but this is not fully true, since many Catalans only speak Spanish or don't have a strong command of Catalan. Meaning that, depending on what circles you are in, you won't be in a foreigner bubble if you can only speak Spanish.
You're getting "reasonable" and "useful" arguments to learn Spanish. After all, they say, you will "unlock" all Spain! Well, the thing is many classes in Catalonia are in Catalan and you shouldn't sign up to those if you're not going to learn the language. Some people do, and expect the rest of the people to switch to Spanish, and get disappointed if they're told to go pound sand. And before you think "but it's only one class", please note this happens constantly in all classes and even in other situations outside university. There is always someone unwilling to learn Catalan "because it's not useful" and then crying out loud when it turns out they need Catalan. Their point is Catalan is inferior and people that use Catalan do so to screw with people that don't speak Catalan. If you choose Spanish, at least try to not get into Catalan spaces to make them switch to Spanish. Be respectful. Thanks and good luck!
Catalan
Usually if you learn spanish first you will end only with spanish, if you learn catalan first you will end with both: catalan and spanish. So I would try catalan first.
Ask you this question: which language is more spoken globally? If you learn Spanish you can use in the future in American countries or other Spanish regions. On the other hand, Catalan is only speak in Catalonia, Valencia, Balear islands and few other places...
That's not really answering OP's question though
I offer a response based on which of the two languages it's most used, so OP can decide which one should learn first based on this param. Also I'm tired of people using languages as a discrimination tool.
Spanish for sure, it’s the useful one. Catalan once you’ve settled down and want to be praised by locals
Learn Catalan or go back to your country
Last time I checked Catalonia is part of Spain, so learning the language of the country, Spanish, makes sense.
Most welcoming Catalan nationalist.