Is English widely spoken in Barcelona? (country, safe, places, people)

[eastcosta]

Hi,
I have traveled to Spain in the past, i.e. Madrid, Toledo, Segovia and Valencia as a tourist and thankfully with a co-worker who spoke very good Spanish. Coming from the states I could only speak English and was so grateful for my Spanish speaking friend, especially in restaurants and stores. I am thinking about vacationing in Barcelona in the future with a small tour group or even alone. Would I be able to get by on just English? Also, is Barcelona safe these days? Your comments, advice and interesting places to visit are welcome.

[viribusunitis]

Barcelona is safe and you will get by with English.

[fearlessly]

Not a native Barcelonan, but have been a few times - in my experience, the order of language preference with the natives goes:

-Catalan
-Nearly every other language in the world
-Spanish

But really, you'll have no problem - mostly everybody who works in any remotely touristic part of Barcelona will speak English.

[KuuKulgur]

I was in Barcelona last year in August and surprisingly everybody to who I spoke to could speak quite good English, and it is also safe.

[Yanagisawa]

Originally Posted by fearlessly

Not a native Barcelonan, but have been a few times - in my experience, the order of language preference with the natives goes:

-Catalan
-Nearly every other language in the world
-Spanish

Hahahaha, I like that!

[Arigarisha]

Originally Posted by fearlessly

Not a native Barcelonan, but have been a few times - in my experience, the order of language preference with the natives goes:

-Catalan
-Nearly every other language in the world
-Spanish

But really, you'll have no problem - mostly everybody who works in any remotely touristic part of Barcelona will speak English.

That's a lie. I have plenty of friends from Barcelona and most of them speak Spanish on a regular basis. Only one Catalan from a small town asked me if I minded him speaking to me in Catalan because it's his mother tongue and he was more comfortable speaking it, while I replied to him in Spanish, no big deal.

[Catbelle]

Nowadays English level in Spain has increased a lot, so yes... expecially if you are tourist you won't have any problem at the hotel, restaurants, shops or turistic places.

If you want to meet locals not related with tourism then probably some of them don't speak good English especially if they are not young, and some others yes, just like the rest of the country.

[Krokodill]

Most people taking care of tourists speak a multilanguage pidgin capable of handling english, french, german, japanese and italian.

The vocabulary is short, but more than enough.

[fearlessly]

Originally Posted by Arigarisha

That's a lie. I have plenty of friends from Barcelona and most of them speak Spanish on a regular basis. Only one Catalan from a small town asked me if I minded him speaking to me in Catalan because it's his mother tongue and he was more comfortable speaking it, while I replied to him in Spanish, no big deal.

...So what you're saying is, you don't live in Catalonia and ergo don't speak Catalan in other regions. Go to Barcelona, nobody wants to speak Spanish. Obviously if you have Catalan friends outside of Catalonia (like in Sevilla or Granada or Madrid etc etc etc), the conversational language is not going to be Catalan, whether your Spanish friends are FROM Catalonia or not...

[Arigarisha]

Originally Posted by fearlessly

...So what you're saying is, you don't live in Catalonia and ergo don't speak Catalan in other regions. Go to Barcelona, nobody wants to speak Spanish. Obviously if you have Catalan friends outside of Catalonia (like in Sevilla or Granada or Madrid etc etc etc), the conversational language is not going to be Catalan, whether your Spanish friends are FROM Catalonia or not...

No.
What I'm saying is that I keep contact with friends from Barcelona, who are right now living in Barcelona, some who are pro-independence and some who are not, and they speak Spanish on a regular basis. Of their own accord.
Many don't even have Catalan as a first language and so they speak Spanish. In fact I have a classmate from Catalonia and her Catalan isn't especially good.