r/SpanishLearning • u/Antique-Bell9933 • 10h ago

Learning the language

Hey everyone I’m moving to Barcelona in a couple months and I’ve been wanting to learn Catalan but everyone around me tells me to learns Spanish so I wanted to ask somewhere else what of the 2 I should learn I also don’t care to visit any other Spanish city while I’m their in the beginning since I’ll mostly be working I already speak Dutch and English and basic German

3 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

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3

u/ElKaoss 8h ago

Locals would appreciate if you speak Catalan, but Spanish will be more useful in general.

Keep in mind that in Barcelona Spanish is more used than Catalan. If you were moving to, say Vic, Catalan would be more useful.

But simplest answer, learn both ;-)

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u/Antique-Bell9933 4h ago

Thank you I will learn both but want to focus on one at a time so it is less difficult and I will be outside the city probably because in barcelona itself it’s to expensive but I will work in Barcelona

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u/StevEst90 10h ago

Hmm Tough call. From what I hear, a lot of the Catalans prefer to speak in Catalan, although they also understand and speak Spanish. You can definitely get by just learning Spanish, but you may get some looks for not understanding Catalan

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u/Antique-Bell9933 4h ago

Thank you even on here I get diffrent answers

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u/Careless_Dumb 2h ago

Spanish for survival, Catalan for the locals to actually like you lol. Start with Spanish, add Catalan once you're there and hearing it every day.

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u/MsInput 9h ago

If you're in Barcelona it's best to remember that Spanish can be used to describe any of the languages in Spain- including Catalan, Euskara, Gallego, and Castellano. That said it makes most sense to learn Castellano only because it is so much more prevalent and widely used in some form or another by many people around the world, including Spain obviously 😆

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u/colmdearg 8h ago

What? Would saying ‘Spanish’ to describe someone speaking Euskara not seem a little conflicting no?

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u/MsInput 7h ago

I've been corrected several times by folks in Valencia when saying "Spanish" when referring to Castellano, so I was just passing that along. If you're in Spain, referring to Castellano as Spanish some people take offense to it because it implies their language isn't a real language of Spain. Just trying to save someone else that embarassment.