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Spanish in Barcelona | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Bob Greaves Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6680 days ago 86 posts - 91 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 1 of 57 24 September 2006 at 1:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Can someone tell me if the "th" sound, which is the norm in central Spain is standard in the Barcelona region too? (i.e. Barcelona would be pronounced BarTHElona).
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 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6895 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 57 25 September 2006 at 8:02am | IP Logged | ||
Generally yes, but it may depend on who you speak to. There are lots of people from other regions, especially from the south of Spain, living in Barcelona and they would use s instead. The locals are mostly Catalan speakers and speak Spanish as a second language, generally with the z-sounds. Calling it the "th-sound" can cause confusion, since th is pronounced in two different ways in English. Especially using it in the middle of the word "BarTHElona", as seen there, will point the reader in the wrong direction. The Spanish z-sound is similar to th in "thing" or "bath", not like the voiced th in "the" or "this" (barring a couple of special cases which we won't go into here). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bob Greaves Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6680 days ago 86 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 3 of 57 25 September 2006 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Henke
Thanks for clarifying. I can see that calling it the "th" sound maybe confusing, but I really didn't know what the usual way to refer to it is. Bob 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7016 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 57 25 September 2006 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's called ceceo. We've discussed this here, here and here but there are probably other threads also. It was our "favourite" topic of discussion a while ago!
EDIT: typo Edited by patuco on 07 November 2006 at 6:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 5 of 57 25 September 2006 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Barcelona you may also hear Catalan, and in that language รง and z are mostly pronounced as simple unvoiced /s/, but in some positions voiced as /z/. However most Catalans will speak to foreigners in Spanish (Castilian).
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| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6660 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 6 of 57 26 September 2006 at 7:58am | IP Logged | ||
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I was in Barcelona some years ago, and I heard the "th" sound pretty consistently. I suspect that the people I spoke to knew that I was a foreigner who understood some Spanish and no Catalan and perhaps tried to speak the purest Castilian they could.
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| Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6895 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 57 26 September 2006 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
They would choose to speak Spanish to you on that basis rather than Catalan, perhaps even speak it slowly and clearly, but nobody would resort to using different sounds than they normally would in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aldo Triglot Groupie Thailand Joined 6597 days ago 50 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English*, French, SpanishB1 Studies: Italian, German, Dutch, Mandarin, Thai, Khmer, Malay | Message 8 of 57 05 November 2006 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Catalan is the first language they will speak to you in. That is if you look remotely Spanish.
I live in the South of Spain part of the year--and we consider Barcelona not to be part of Spain. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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