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The probles is not people from Barcelona not understanding spanish, the problem is them refusing to use it when in front of a foreigner who obviously does not speak it and instead tries his best to express himself in broken spanish.
It happened to me several times, and while I can pretty much understand 30 or 50% of spanish, I really don't understand catalan, and assuming that every foreigner will speak catalan is a bit exaggerated, especially if people have a good knowledge of standard spanish.
Or maybe locals spoke spanish in a heavy catalonian accent which I could not understand
I wasn't pointing to them having problems understanding Spanish, I say they speak it regularly, they don't reject it. My experience comes from personal relationships with Barcelonians and seeing them speak with their families in Spanish.
If the Barcelonians from the tourist sector are being d*cks to foreigner that's their loss.
Marmel; Is this the guy? Here he is speaking Spanish. He doesn't seem to be hating the fact that he's speaking anything other than Catalan. https://youtu.be/gaQKvU_F_yQ?t=199
Pretty sure the interview is crap, though.
Well , if you are a citizen form any country between Alaska or Patagonia, you are american. America:->americans, Europe->europeans, Africa->africans, and so on. It's simple.
Of course that's technically correct.
But you're just being silly anyway.
The distance from Alaska to Patagonia is twice the distance between Portugal and Japan.
Obviously within those 20,000 km, with the distances and different political and societal conditions, people are going to have different views and experiences wrt crime in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, etc.
I wasn't pointing to them having problems understanding Spanish, I say they speak it regularly, they don't reject it. My experience comes from personal relationships with Barcelonians and seeing them speak with their families in Spanish.
If the Barcelonians from the tourist sector are being d*cks to foreigner that's their loss.
Marmel; Is this the guy? Here he is speaking Spanish. He doesn't seem to be hating the fact that he's speaking anything other than Catalan. https://youtu.be/gaQKvU_F_yQ?t=199
Pretty sure the interview is crap, though.
well, I trust you, it's just that the attitude of refusing to use the national (so far) language when meeting tourists is a bit rude, especially when the tourists are making an effort to communicate. I have no opinion on the independence movement, but I don't think anything should revolve around it.
And now that we got the facts right, let's go for some opinions. Mine is , from an European perspective, that America is more socially homogeneous than most americans like to admit. And that includes everything, crime also.
Well, I will agree that in some ways the U.S. (which is what I know you are talking about BTW) is socially homogenous and I often say the same thing.
But when it comes to crime the differences can be stark.
Even within a U.S. metropolitan area (and sometimes within the same city) you can have places where it's perfectly safe to walk alone in the middle of the night and other places that I wouldn't even recommend driving through during the daytime.
The City of Detroit, which has about 300 murders a years for 700,000 people, has some fairly large suburbs where there are often no murders at all in a given year.
This crime "pattern" is very similar to that of Brazil. Argentina or even Mexico. No-go suburbs and ghettoes are a very american thing. That's why I said the "americas" can look very similar from european perspective.
Yeah, but Canada is not like that. Chile is not like that. Costa Rica is not like that. Even Mexico is not like that - though it's at the other extreme compared to the others.
Barcelona is NOT safe, you shouldn't be lulled into a false complacency by thinking it. One must be constantly on alert because of pickpockets (ubiquitous). However English is widely spoken and understood.
Only in certain spots..a very safe place. You only have to watch crowds, some train stations..sants..
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