If your idea of Spain is eating paella, dancing flamenco, and improving your Spanish, . Even those who have visited the regional capital, , might have missed what makes Spain's second most populated region different from the rest of the country. I wasn't prepared when, in 2016, I moved to Catalonia from Madrid with my then-partner and our 18-month-old son.
As , Madrid was getting expensive, and we were thinking about a second baby. The greenery and clean air of Girona appealed as much as the lower rent we found on a two-bedroom apartment at that time. We moved two months later, but it took me a while to realize that we hadn't just left Madrid.
In many ways, we'd left Spain. 1. The main language in Catalonia is Catalan Although and almost everyone is bilingual, Catalan is the main language outside Barcelona.
Some Catalan words are the same or close enough to Spanish, for example, "hola" is still "hola" while "adiós" is "adéu" (ad-ay-oo). But you'd never guess others, like strawberry is "fresa" in Spanish but "maduixa" (mad-oo-sha) in Catalan. Living here, you're expected to speak Catalan, though many foreigners don't.
Now, as a of two boys, my children have only two hours a week of Spanish instruction in school, and the default for all school communication with parents is Catalan. I regularly have hybrid conversations with other parents where I speak Spanish, and they respond in Catalan. Luckily, I can follow the majority of the conversation.
But if I get lost, they'd usua.