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I am a big fan of FC Barcelona and recently I watched a few interviews of a midfilder Xavi and hes from Terrasa, and he speaks different. Do people in Barcelona know how to speak spanish the way we know from soap operas? catalan accent is very different, fast and quick. But how different is it from Spanish? 70%? A whole lotta different?
Normally, the soap operas are from Latin America, and the way they speak and the accent it's completely different from the spanish of Spain (only in Canarias is similar).
In Catalunya many people has catalan as a first language, I think is aroun 30%-40% of the population, but everybody know how to speak spanish, most of the people is bilingual, the families in wich one of the parents speak catalan and the other spanish and in the family house they use both, are really normal.
Catalan it's very similar to spanish (also to italian and french also) and for a spanish speaker not related with the catalan, at the begining can be hard to understand everything, but if you play attention, it's easy.
Thirty or forty every town had a different accent. Barcelona has a particular accent that includes many Spanish words and certain characteristics that varies from a social class to the other.
I'm not refering here to the "standardised" Catalan created 100 years ago and broadcasted by Catalan media, a language that sounds like screeching nails on a blackboard when spoken by Spanish immigrants. I'm referring to Catalan spoken by people that have been speaking Catalan for countless generations.
There are Catalan dialects that are barely mutually understandable such as TortosÃ, Maiorcan, Valencian and the Catalan dialect spoken in Alguer, Sardinia, or French Catalan, influenced by French.
Everybody in Catalonia speaks Spanish, there are some clowns that refuse to speak Spanish to Spanish speakers, most are people with identity problems that want to overcome the fact that their last name is Fernandez. Tourists that visit this part of the world should not pay attention to those freaks.
i speak both; catalan and spanish. Catalan is not just spoken in Catalonia, in Valencia and Baleares is an official language too. Although in Spain there are several languages, everybody can speak spanish, and normally is more used than the minority languages; Catalonia could be an exception in this. People in Barcelona speak spanish like in all the center / north / east of the peninsula, pronunzing the "th" etc, what in spain we call "standar spanish". Catalan is a romance language as spanish, there are similar words in catalan and spanish, there are words that are the same in catalan and italian and different in spanish etc. Catalan and spanish share the latin roots in almost all the words, but the same happens with italian or portugues, the roots of words are the same but resulted in different ways. I put a text in Spanish and Catalan that you can compare:
Catalan:
L'avi Siset em parlava de bon matà al portal
mentre el sol esperà vem i els carros vèiem passar.
Siset, que no veus l'estaca on estem tots lligats?
Si no podem desfer-nos-en mai no podrem caminar!
Spanish:
El abuelo Siset me hablaba de buena mañana en el portal,
mientras el sol esperábamos y los carros veÃamos pasar
Siset, que no ves las estaca en dónde estamos todos atados?
Si no podemos deshacernos de ella, nunca podremos caminar
L'avi Siset em parlava de bon matà al portal
mentre el sol esperà vem i els carros vèiem passar.
Siset, que no veus l'estaca on estem tots lligats?
Si no podem desfer-nos-en mai no podrem caminar!
Spanish:
El abuelo Siset me hablaba de buena mañana en el portal,
mientras el sol esperábamos y los carros veÃamos pasar
Siset, que no ves las estaca en dónde estamos todos atados?
Si no podemos deshacernos de ella, nunca podremos caminar
I have actually never seen Catalan before, I couldn't even get the basic idea of the paragraph! It also seemed a little bit similar with Italian and it looks a little bit like Portuguese also.
I knew it was really different, but I thought it'd be more similar than that. It's really cool
It seems like a combination of Spanish, Portuguese and the Sicilian dialect. Not something I want to learn. You can see it on the multi-lingual signage in Barcelona.
Yes, they speak "standard Spanish" in Barcelona. It is the national language. Once, while in Barcelona, I was taking pictures of the port from the viewpoint in Montjuic. I struck up a conservation with a couple who was sitting on a bench. I conversed with them in Spanish. They complimented me on my abilities in the language. I responded "Tome' algunos cursos en Espanol en mi universidad." The wife mused, and said "Espanol, Espanol, hmmm..." At that point, I understood where she was going.
Sorry, folks, it was NOT listed in my class schedule as Castilian and all Americans will call it Spanish. Just be thankful that we even gave a rat's a$$ to learn another language and can speak to you in a language you are versed in.
Last edited by robertpolyglot; 04-13-2012 at 12:43 PM..
It seems like a combination of Spanish, Portuguese and the Sicilian dialect. Not something I want to learn. You can see it on the multi-lingual signage in Barcelona.
Yes, they speak "standard Spanish" in Barcelona. It is the national language. Once, while in Barcelona, I was taking pictures of the port from the viewpoint in Montjuic. I struck up a conservation with a couple who was sitting on a bench. I conversed with them in Spanish. They complimented me on my abilities in the language. I responded "Tome' algunos cursos en Espanol en mi universidad." The wife mused, and said "Espanol, Espanol, hmmm..." At that point, I understood where she was going.
Sorry, folks, it was NOT listed in my class schedule as Castilian and all Americans will call it Spanish. Just be thankful that we even gave a rat's a$$ to learn another language and can speak to you in a language you are versed in.
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I would like to learn catalan.
