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Catalan in Barcelona | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 31 17 November 2006 at 3:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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Since my last post I have also visited Valencia and the area down to Alicante (or València, Alacant to give the 'Valencian' versions). Even though the authorities use another name for the language, they are just as eager as the Catalans to use it in all official messages. But they have a population to deal with that is far less enthusiastic about the project. In Alicante it was wellneigh impossible to hear any spoken 'Valencian". In Valencia I did hear quite a lot of people speaking it, though the majority spoke Castilian. Only in Xàtiva 'Valencian' was more common, but I only stayed for a few hours, and those that I spoke to apparently preferred Castilian. Once again it might be worth looking at the newspapers: it was very hard to find any newspapers in any dialect of Catalan, except for a few Avui and one tiny local paper owned by a guy I met in a train.
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| ^veganboy^ Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5921 days ago 51 posts - 51 votes | Message 10 of 31 16 February 2009 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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valencian catalan and catalonia catalan are like england English and scottish English to me :-/
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| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 31 17 February 2009 at 4:27am | IP Logged | |||||
I assume that you speak about 'normal' English spoken by Scotsmen, because real hardcore Scots à la Burns and standard BBC or Queen's English are in my opinion much more different than Catalan from Barcelona and Valencian from Valencia. As I have written above (two years ago) it was difficult to get anyone to speak Valencian in the town Valencia, but I listened a lot to the local TV, and I also heard some Valencian in Xàtiva. In isolated villages you may be able to find something more exotic, but then that would also be the case in Catalunya. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6274 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 12 of 31 17 February 2009 at 4:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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I visited Catalonia once in the 1990s (not Barcelona itself - a coastal village). I got by on Castilian Spanish but I certainly heard Catalan spoken.
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| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5983 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 13 of 31 17 February 2009 at 11:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Catalan is the only native language in the schools, so I suppose we can say that all young people raised in Catalonia, let's say under 30, speak Catalan. English and Spanish are foreign languages in the educational system.
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| brozman Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 6058 days ago 87 posts - 106 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, English, Japanese Studies: Russian, Indonesian | Message 14 of 31 18 February 2009 at 11:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Unfortunately this is not necessary true... Many students who have finished the compulsory education CAN speak Catalan, but never do so. And when I say never, I mean never. I studied at a high school which was located on the edge of a mostly Spanish speaking area and a mostly Catalan speaking area. I remember many of those whose first language was Spanish never spoke Catalan (even in Catalan class they didn't speak Catalan if the teacher didn't told them firmly to do so). Those whose first language was Catalan spoke both languages with no problem, and they'd use each language depending on the situation. Of course there were many exceptions, but normally those who speak Spanish never try to speak Catalan, if they can avoid using it. And the problem of this society (and I plead guilty) is that if a Catalan speaker and a Spanish speaker meet each other, in the 90% of the cases they'll end up speaking Spanish. I guess it's a remnant of the old times when it was forbidden, and I just do it automatically (though I know I shouldn't). However, I wouldn't say nobody here speaks it. I do! And I learnt it at home as my first language. It is true that in Barcelona it's not spoken by so many people as in the rest of Catalonia, but I guess it may be like 40% Catalan and 60% Spanish, more or less. Anyway, Catalan is not as strong as Spanish yet, but there are lots of efforts focused on trying to cure the still weak health of this language.
Spanish is not treated as a foreign language here. If it was, nobody would be able to speak it! Nobody actually learns English, German or French at school. And in fact, people speak and write better Spanish than Catalan. I'm studying Tranlation and Interpreting at university, and we have a subject called Translation Spanish-Catalan Catalan-Spanish. In the last exam we did, we had two texts: one in Spanish to translate into Catalan, and another one in Catalan to translate into Spanish. Only 3 students out of 60 failed the part they had to translate into Spanish. However, about 70% of the students failed the part they had to translate into Catalan, mainly because of orthographic mistakes and influences of Spanish language in their vocabulary. Catalan is spoken quite badly nowadays; Spanish hasn't been so polluted by Catalan speech. Edited by brozman on 18 February 2009 at 11:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5810 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 15 of 31 19 February 2009 at 6:45am | IP Logged | |||||
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How difficult is Catalan to learn for Spanish speakers?
Is it closer to Spanish than Portuguese? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6274 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 16 of 31 19 February 2009 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Catalan is probably closest to Occitan. I would say it is closer to Spanish than Portuguese but it would be interesting to have an Iberian's opinion.
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