steviedeluxe

I think it's a shade more complicated than that. Remote rural places, especially where you get a more elderly population (the younger folk and families heading to the cities to work), are sometimes totally Valanciano speaking, more through habit than through any political statement. A bit (I believe from what I've been told) like some smaller towns and villages in northern Wales where residents prefer their own language, and may find it difficult to suddenly switch to English. For a long time the language spoken in the bigger cities like Valencia was Castellano (or "Christian" as certain elements put it!). However there does seem to be a preference for upwardly mobile metropolitan inhabitants of Valencia to use Valenciano more than Castellano. I think the working class in Valencia would almost certainly use Castellano, although I accept this may be a dated view and may be in flux.

More difficult still in Catalunya - I understand that you have to show proficiency in Catalan before you offer employment, or indeed accept a job. Not sure how that works with the Barcelona FC signings?

cricketman

That's only for jobs that have a public facing role e.g. shop assistents.

You can get by with just speaking Castellano all over Spain. However, if you want to make friends and be part of the community then you need to speak the local language too. Certainly in Catalunya and the Basque Country.

For example, I went walking in the Pyranees with a group of Catalans, they greated me in Castellano but then the whole week was in Catalan, it did wonders for my understanding and they did let me respond in Castellano

However, a worse situation was when a visited a village near San Sebastian where everyone spoke Basque and they only do 2 hours of Castellano in the schools each week. I was warned not to speak Castellano and I'd be better off trying to communicate in English.

rachelk

A similar thing happened to me once, in Aberdeen.

agoreira

Friend of mine told me she had to put the phone down after calling a call centre as she just couldn't understand the girl on the other end. I asked "Indian?" No, she was Scottish! Why on earth do they put people with such strong accents in these jobs, be they Scottish, Geordie or wherever?

Rosemary

I went to Anglessy (Wales) for a holiday and in the local food shop I could not get a response from the shopkeeper until I turned to the family and said that we would have to buy everything we wanted for our 2 week stay elsewhere.

Rosemary

agoreira

Yes, it happens! Long time ago now, but I visited a Welsh hill farm and the farmer refused to let me in as I wasn't Welsh speaking. He insisted on a Welsh only speaker, and we only had one, and he was based about 100 miles away! He got what he wanted, eventually, as we were always booked up a few weeks in advance, so it was several weeks later that someone actually got to him. Another time I called on a lady with a young girl, 3 or 4, and the lady said would it be OK if she just popped down the shop and left the girl with me whilst I was working! I could see that happening nowadays! The girl was talking to me, but she only spoke Welsh, we were stumped, we could not converse. We lived about 35 miles apart, but it was a world away in terms of "welshness".

davidbroughton

Thanks, this is good advice. I will keep up with learning Castellano first, which will at least enable me to communicate with the majority anywhere in Spain.

Rosemary

Just had an information leaflet (about our new Ecoparc) from the town hall, it is all in Valenciano no Castellano at all.

Rosemary

bil

Yeah, me too. Scots people speaking English can be completely unintelligible.

twistedmelon

In every country in the world there are regional accents.
For me the difference is between belligerent and considerate people and there is nothing you can do about the first.
So keep on as you are the rest you will have to make up as you go along here.

Palomita

Hi! If anyone would like to practice his spanish I'm interesting in practicing my english. We can meet (I'm from Chiclana, Cadiz) or chatting via messenger. Is anybody interested?

JLFS

A nice offer Palomita, I am surprised nobody has posted, as far as i know there are a lot of members on the forum who live round your way.

Cheers JL

jimenato

I would take you up but I'm just too far away.

jackytoo

Skype is good to use too, and it's free. May be a bit difficult to understand if it starts to break up though....