Learning Spanish in Barcelona by Simon Harris If you know that Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia and have seen those massive 'Catalonia Is Not Spain' banners at major sporting events, you might wonder whether Barcelona is such a good place to learn Spanish. The first thing to point out is that, despite having its own vibrant and sometimes militant identity, Catalonia is part of Spain ‌ for the moment, at least. Consequently, Castilian as the Spanish language is known here is one of the two official languages in Barcelona, along with Catalan. This makes Barcelona a pretty exciting place linguistically as the majority of its inhabitants are bilingual, and from my 25 years in language teaching, I can testify that the Catalans in general are extremely good language learners. Furthermore, the Barcelona publishing industry is the largest in Spain because we don't only publish books in Catalan but also publish as many, if not more books in Spanish than Madrid. Barcelona is also home to some of Spain's most prestigious universities. The Universidad de Barcelona, the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and the Universidad Pompeu Fabra are frequently the highest ranking universities in Spain according to Council of Europe figures. Being such an education-oriented city also means that Barcelona is a magnet for Spanish teachers coming to take their ELE (Espaùol como Lengua Extranjera) qualifications. The Universidad de Barcelona offers a Master's Degree in ELE and also supervises the month-long starter courses at IH Barcelona, widely recognised as one of the best ELE qualifications in Spain, but just one of many on offer in the Catalan capital.
Family Life in Spain: Issue 4
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