Just wondering about the use of Catalan vs. Spanish in Barcelona and environs. I love to travel to Spanish-speaking countries and use my Spanish. What kind of experience am I likely to have in Barcelona as far as language is concerned? Also, just curious about how the bilinguilism manifests itself on a daily basis in this city.

Catalans speak Catalan between themselves but they'll answer you in Spanish since they don't expect you to be fluent in Catalan. You should not have any problems.

Restaurants have menus in Catalan and/or Spanish.
You'll have a choice to watch Spanish or Catalan TV channels.
Road signs are in Catalan and Spanish.

Catalan is spoken by 6 million people from the French border down to Valencia.

The distinction in Catalonia is between Catalan and Castilian. When we were there with friends who are fluent in Spanish, we did not experience any problems in communicating. I suspect that most Catalans understand and speak Spanish, but I would ask if they speak Castilian as a form of politeness, just as you would ask in France if the person speaks English.

Even though Castilian has only been taught as a foreign language in Catalan schools for many years, to the foreign ear, Barcelona sounds less Catalan than a decade ago. Probably due to the waves of Latin American immigrants and the greater mix of Spanish population due to economic growth. But I have never encountered anyone in Barcelona who doesn't speak Castilian. But beware: road signs are entirely in Catalan: it's OK when you are looking for "Gerona" and you see "Girona"; might be trickier to jump from "Lerida" to "Lleida". Ditto for "Consejo de Cien" to "Consell de Cent".

we shall not get too political, but valenciano is spoken in la comunidad VALENCIANA amd always has been. the important kingdom (Regno de valencia )extended on old maps all the way to include the balearic islands.

there are pro-catalanistas now, but i think publicizing "catalán is spoken down to valencia" would be a bit unnerving to the valenciano speaking community here.

of course.. tourists could care less about this, but try to be accurate when posting or they will start being worried about speaking castellano in valencia as well, which would be a shame.

you should have no problem with castellano in barcelona or catalunya.

"Even though Castilian has only been taught as a foreign language in Catalan schools for many years"

What kind of nonsense is this ? For many years (40 years) Catalan was forbidden..so they only taught Castilian at schools. After Franco death, Catalonia became bilingual. But Castilian has never been taught as a foreign language...it's an official language. There are schools that choose to teach most of their curriculum in Catalan and there are others who do that in Castilian, but in both you have to learn the other language..compulsory.
In Valencia is just the same with Valenciano.
Don't be afraid about the language. I do understand Catalan but I'm a Castilian speaking person and never, never had a problem in Barcelona speaking it.

I fully agree with Kenderina: all Catalans are supposed to speak Spanish fluently and not as a foreign language: both are official. If you find anybody in BCN who can't speak Spanish there are two options: a) he/she doesn't want to speak Spanish b) He/she is a tourist/inmigrant .
I'd say that Cimbrone would be able to practise his Spanish a lot.

Is Valenciano related to Catalan? Is it closer to Castellano or to Catalan? I find this fascinating.

A friend of mine spent a summer studying Spanish in Valencia while in college in 1972, and I visited her there. I saw her two weeks ago and talked about the language issue because when I traveled to Barcelona last summer I learned about the different languages and the political reasons that they were suppressed at the time I was last in Spain.

My friend was surprised to hear that Castilian Spanish was not the first langage of Valencia, as that is all she heard from the school where she studied and from the Valencian woman with whom she stayed.

There have been amazing changes in Spain between my two visits.

I am going to Barcelona again in two weeks, and in preparing I have been trying to learn some phrases, but it is confusing to remember which language is which. A couple guidebooks have phrase lists in both Catalan and Castellano, but Fodors has phrases in Castellano only. I just hope I don't blurt things out in Italian, another language I tried to learn for traveling but have yet to master.

"we shall not get too political, but valenciano is spoken in la comunidad VALENCIANA amd always has been. the important kingdom (Regno de valencia )extended on old maps all the way to include the balearic islands".

lincasanova
I'm not being political (I couldn't care less, I'm living in French Catalunya and when I cross the border I find it easier to speak Catalan than Castillano)
So what's Valenciano? Castillano or Catalan? Don't they speak Catalan in the Balearic islands?


"there are pro-catalanistas now, but i think publicizing "catalán is spoken down to valencia" would be a bit unnerving to the valenciano speaking community here".
Isn't it true? Where do people stop speaking Catalan south of Barcelona?

"of course.. tourists could care less about this, but try to be accurate when posting or they will start being worried about speaking castellano in valencia as well, which would be a shame".

"you should have no problem with castellano in barcelona or catalunya"
.
Which exactly what I told the OP.

Nikki, there exists a whole argument about which came first..Catalan or Valenciano. But they are related to each other,not to Castilian. Valenciano has a bigger influence of the Castilian language for historical reasons, a part of the nowadays Comunidad Valenciana belonged to Castilla till the first years of XXth century (part of Alicante province) so their inhabitants were fully castilian speakers. (One of the greatest poets of the Spanish language, Miguel Hernandez, was in fact, from that zone).
What your friend says of Valencia, the capital city, is absolutely true. You hear very little valenciano there. The main reason is because inmigration (from other spanish regions) during the 60's and 70's. But if you leave the city and go to villages just a few kilometres from there...you'll see they speak mostly valenciano. Also here in Castellón where I live is much more predominant than in Valencia.
Just don't worry,whatever you speak it's OK, we understand Italian quite well

One word of mild caution: it may be worth getting a source for Catalan vocabulary, esp. for menus. Some of the best Catalan restaurants may list the specials only in Catalan -- the server will probably be quite willing to tell you what they are in English or Castilian, but it's worth having the words for ingrediants firmly in hand (unless you wouldn't mind getting barely-cooked kidneys in blood sauce, thinking you were getting something else).

It is worth repeating the 2003 survey on the use of Catalan and Castilian in Catalonia, carried out the Instituto de Estadística de Cataluña (a public catalan institution that can hardly be accused of being anticatalan).

mother tongue habitual lang.
Catalán 40,4 % 50,1 %
Castellano 53,5 % 44,1 %
Both 2,8 % 4,7 %

In Barcelona, percentages are significantly shifted towards Castiliano, which is the habitual language of the majority of Barcelonians.

However, government and public institutions, including school, do not reflect this reality and push Catalan.
For example, in the Parliament until recently it was anathema to speak Castiliano.

The law of "linguistic immersion" establishes that public schools must teach prevalently in Catalan, and Castiliano is only taught 2 hours per week. Recently the Spanish government issued new rules to raise the number of hours to 3, but nationalist Catalan politicians is making huge stink about it.

Cimbrone:

Be CAREFUL what you ask for LOL..and enjoy Barcelona..it is truly unforgettable and, as you can see, Spain remains as wonderfully passionate as ever.

Thanks for all of the replies.

I may be dense, but I'm not sure I understand how to read Eric's statistics. And I'd be very interested in them if someone could explain how they work.

LOL Dukey. No immediate plans to go to Barcelona (France and Mexico coming up this summer ), but it's on my list.

Y otra vez, gracias por las respuestas.

Bad formatting, sorry, here is it again.
Mother tongue:
Catalán 40,4 %
Castellano 53,5 %
Both 2,8 %

Habitual language:
Catalán 50,1 %
Castellano 44,1 %
Both 4,7 %

Also: in the metropolitan area 41,48% declare Catalan as their habitual language. You can read the full report here:
http://www.idescat.net/es/societat/soclleng.html

-> Usos lingüísticos. Primera lengua,
lengua propia y lengua habitual.

I think the point of the habitual language is not very useful for tourists I mean, no matter what language people uses at home or in their everyday lives, when talking to a tourist everybody tries to adapt. If I speak english and it's not at all my habitual language and someone adresses to me in English..I would try to answer also in English.

The point of the thread was Castilian versus Catalan, not English. Lots of people are under the wrong impression that Catalan is prevalent in Barcelona, while the statistics show that Castilian is the most widely spoken.

kendrina, you write: What kind of nonsense is this ? For many years (40 years) Catalan was forbidden..so they only taught Castilian at schools. After Franco death, Catalonia became bilingual. But Castilian has never been taught as a foreign language...it's an official language." One of two actually, Catalan, the other one, being described as the "idioma propria"

Your little ranting is contradicted by hard facts, even more so after last year's elections in Catalonia. Just to cite "El Mundo"(http://www.elmundo.es/papel/2006/09/...a/2021149.html)

in Sept 06: "6 to 8 year old Catalan children will follow 1,435 hours of teaching during the first cycle of primary school, of which only less than 10 %, the 140 hours devoted to the subject "Castilian language and literature", will be taught in Castilian". All the remaining subjects are solely taught in Catalan, which represents a radical move compared to the previous centre-right government that had a few subjects taught in both languages. Moreover, in June 2006, the Generalitat decided that, whereas the students' level in Catalan is assessed every year, their level in Castilian would only be assessed every other year, the way it is done for English. One couldn't be any clearer about the status of Castilian as a foreign language in the Catalan education system. The current Secretary of Education of the Generalitat has declared that Catalan should be the "vehicular language of learning and education".

So, kendrina, before calling people names, do your home work.

Nor Catalunya was monolingual in Spanish during Franco's regime, nor is it monolingual in Catalan nowadays. Perhaps kids don't study enough Spanish language at school, but in the end, they speak it without major problem. .. Not sure if they write it right, but no kid seems to write Spanish properly nowadays (they blame on cellular phones).
As regards to the initial curiosity of Cimbrone, as a bilingual (although not in Catalan) I would say that bilinguism is more a personal way than a general rule: my parents keeps on addressing to each other, after almost 40 years of happy marriage, in different languages. No problem for them. As refers to myself, I tend to adopt the language of the person who I am speaking to. However, I know other people who don't use to change the language unless they know the other speaker don't understand it.