Universitat de Barcelona (UB)

The official language of the Universitat of Barcelona is Catalan, but the Knox College Program in Barcelona is focused on the students' study of Castillian (Spanish), and so all courses were taught in Spanish. Although there are several opportunities to study Catalan for free within the UB through use of the language laboratory or arrangement of language exchange with Catalan-speaking students, I feel that Knox College Program should take some resposibility for teaching the students basic skills of the language. It is impossible to spend any amount of time in Barcelona and not encounter Catalan. In several cases, some host families spoke Catalan at home or watched Catalan TV (although the Knox College Program contract asked them not to do so in the presence of their students), which made the students who stayed with them feel excluded and upset. While the Catalan people certainly may speak Catalan whenever they please, I feel that the Knox College program should have taken some responsibility to prepare its participants for such situations by giving some instruction in the basics of the language.

Here in Barcelona everybody speak katalan and spanish, but I dont speak catalan, just spansih, so then in the social situation, when I am alone whit one catalan, they are speaking spanish to me, but when they are 3-4 they start to speak catalan, I mean it is a big problem, but what can I do, I can not forbidden them to speak catalan, and they are always speking katalan whit theirs friends and family, so why will they change just becaouse I am whit them. but if I will be a little bit bad, it is a problem for them as well, becouse everybody speak catalan, but nobody speak english. What more, about my spanish ofcaouse my spanish is better now after a year here in Barcelona, but not so much as I wished. I mean it is 2 problem, the fisrt one is the cataln, the second one is that in the univerist I was studing economices, and not spansih, I have not ant problem to read a Micro littrature in spanish, or to understand the teacher in spansih, becaouse the vocabulary is alway the same, but I had not time to take a spansish couses, so then, my spansih grammar is still quite bad.

In some of these questions there is no oppportunity for me to distinguish between local/language of instruction. Barcelona is a special case because the national language of Spain, Castellano, is spoken, but the regional dialect (which is pretty much a completely different language), Catalan, is also spoken as it is Cataluna. I did not learn Catalan and concentrated all my efforts on Castellano. So I consider the local language the same as the language of instruction - Castellano. The opportunity to learn either was great and I loved practicing my Spanish every day in Barcelona.

it sure is harder to learn spanish here, because people are speaking catalan -- however it is possible to speak spanish - people know both languages and they will answer you in castellano. most important thing is to practice whenever possible - doesn't matter if you sound like an idiot at the beginning. i would learn the language better if i would come hear .. you get lazy with the improvement of a new language. once you are used to the relaxed way of handling stuff here -- you adapt ... but it's for sure that as soon you understand and talk spanish it' s more fun/giving.

It was ok. I took four courses and only in one course a teacher refused to speak spanish. He spoke catalán. He said that if I was coming to Catalunya, I should adapt to them, not them to us. Which I truly respected his opinion, but the course said it was going to be given in Spanish. It was not so bad because there were four teachers for the course, and only one of them told me that. So that incident only lasted for two weeks. The rest was given in Spanish.

It was interesting for sure! I went because I had a great desire to become as fluent as possible in Spanish. However, Barcelona is a bit different since the main language around town is Catalan. Then to make things worse I lived with a sister and brother who spoke Gallego at home. Everyone would speak to me in Castellano (Spanish), but it made for an interesting language experience. I studied hard and, since I have a good ear, learned a lot. The only strange thing is that I was so obsessed with learning the language I may have given myself a complex. Now almost five years later my Spanish is MUCH better because I have kept up with my studies and I have much more confidence.