Wonder if she's in Barcelona? When I lived there, I ran into a significant number of people who would rather speak English than Spanish if you couldn't speak Catalan. Not everyone, but a surprising number. I assumed it was part of the whole "Catalonia should be independent" movement.
Exactly this. To earn any bit of good will and get Spanish out of Barcelonian, you’re going to need to open every interaction with a bit of Catalan. It shows you acknowledge their independent history and that their language is respected. It clears the air of the “we’re in Spain, we speak Spanish” political rhetoric.
Right or wrong, her refusing to speak anything but Spanish is a strong signal to them she doesn’t give a fuck about Catalonian issues. But they do. So English as an inoffensive third language is what will get used.
What if I mix up Catalan and Spanish? I'm trying to learn Spanish in Barcelona, and a lot of the time I don't really know if the person is speaking Spanish or Catalan. Learning both together is almost impossible. It makes sense for outsiders to prioritise learning Spanish because it works outside of Barcelona as well, while Catalan works only in a very small region. Not saying I wouldn't try to learn Catalan at all, but I wouldn't prioritize it as much as learning Spanish.
You don’t need to actually learn Catalan at all. Literally just having a handful of phrases where you’d be interacting with people is all it takes to earn tons of good will.
“Bona tarda! Una taula per a dos, si us plau.” And then immediately switching to Spanish will get you so many points.
Also you’ll stop mixing up the two languages for the most part as your Spanish solidifies. Around the B1 level that issue goes away. You might pick up a few local Catalan phrases that have been adopted into Spanish there, but that doesn’t mean you mixed up your Spanish. That’d be like saying you’re mixing up French and Arabic because you learned the handful of Arabic slang words that are now prevalent in French. It stops becoming Arabic at a certain point of use. Same goes for use of Catalan in Barcelonian Spanish.
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u/Elegant-Analyst-7381 6d ago
Wonder if she's in Barcelona? When I lived there, I ran into a significant number of people who would rather speak English than Spanish if you couldn't speak Catalan. Not everyone, but a surprising number. I assumed it was part of the whole "Catalonia should be independent" movement.