The idea of a year abroad is that you can completely immerse yourself in the language you’re studying; not only speaking it regularly but also hearing it being used around you helps enormously.
However, Spain is a little different. Regional dialects are common, the two most prominent ones being Basque in the North and Catalán in the East. After doing an exchange a few years ago with Laia, a girl from Barcelona, I was aware of the huge significance of Catalán, as unfortunately for me, she spoke it a lot more than Castellano. (Spanish) For example when we had dinner with her family, they would converse in Catalán and then turn to me and translate into Castellano.
Barcelona has a reputation for its strong Catalán sentiment but what I didn’t realise was that the dialect is also prominent in other areas, including the Balearic Islands. In fact, Ibiza’s official language is Catalán or Ibicenco. (I am still unsure whether this is different to Mallorcas dialect, Mallorquin.) When I first arrived, I presumed that Ibicenco was mostly used for state or government purposes and that it was not heard much on a daily basis. However, working at a local school makes you realise that Catalán is still of great importance. It is my school’s first language, therefore the teachers speak it among themselves and only talk to the students in the dialect. Despite having scheduled equal hours of Catalán and Castellano, there is clearly a strong effort to uphold Catalán as the central language.
This isn’t ideal for me as teachers often translate directly from Catalán to English, missing out Castellano all together. Talking with the staff is also difficult as I try to speak in Spanish but the conversation usually moves on in Catalán and I am left clueless. (Even when they know I’m present, people are so accustomed to speaking Catalán that they find it impossible to switch.) It can get rather frustrating; how are you supposed to pick up the daily use of a language when everyone around you is speaking something totally different? There are many similarities between Castellano and Catalán but nevertheless it stands as a language of its own.
It seems that the presence of both Catalán and Castellano make primary education more complicated. From nursery years, children here are expected to speak and understand both languages. They study both at school and other subjects are split between the two; e.g. Maths in Castellano and Art in Catalán. Keeping up two languages is hard enough at a young age but on top of this they are also taught English. Combining three inevitably gets very confusing and I can tell that most struggle with the extra language. It’s crazy to think that I started learning a second language, French, from the age of ten whereas these children are expected to pick up three from the age of three!
Moreover, Catalán is not only confined to schools, The majority of children who I do private lessons with speak Catalán at home too, as it is the fist language of families here. (Particularly those who have roots in Barcelona.)
However, I have noticed that the children almost always speak Castellano among themselves. They are reluctant to resort to Catalán and even reply to their teachers in Castellano despite their efforts to use the dialect. It’s almost as if schools force Catalán upon the youth in an attempt to keep the language going. If it wasn’t emphasised in education, the students would resort to using Castellano only and lose their ability to speak and write the dialect.
One woman I spoke to believes that the high popularity of spoken Castellano is damaging to the Catalán dialect. She claimed that it is losing its significance among the younger generations and the language will be increasingly less prominent in the years to come. As the island is such an international place, perhaps Castellano is slowly evolving into the common language.
I must admit, I don’t have a very positive attitude towards Catalán. I understand the importance of the dialect for the culture of the island but I have no desire to learn it. My aim is to improve my Spanish as much as I can and Catalán is proving an unwelcome obstacle. Unfortunately, as far as the school system is concerned, it remains unavoidable.
La Buena Vida 