Passion for the Catalan language and culture crosses barriers
They came from more than ten different countries, from Cuba, Israel, United Kingdom or Serbia. All of them studied Catalan and wanted to spread their knowledge on Catalan language and culture. Some of them had already visited Barcelona but for others it was their first time. They are participating in the 2016 Summer Linguistic Program (Estada Lingüística dʼEstiu 2016) organized by Institut Ramon Llull with the collaboration of the UB's Language Services, which started on July 13 and has a length of two weeks. Until July 29, apart from going to lectures about Catalan language and literature and participating in language exchanges with volunteer students of the UB, the twenty-five international students take part in a lot of cultural activities. They will visit la Pedrera and Parlament de Catalunya, and will attend night concerts outdoors in Els Vespres, or see the Castellers of Barcelona, as well as participating in a cooking workshop with Àvies de Sils.
They came from more than ten different countries, from Cuba, Israel, United Kingdom or Serbia. All of them studied Catalan and wanted to spread their knowledge on Catalan language and culture. Some of them had already visited Barcelona but for others it was their first time. They are participating in the 2016 Summer Linguistic Program (Estada Lingüística dʼEstiu 2016) organized by Institut Ramon Llull with the collaboration of the UB's Language Services, which started on July 13 and has a length of two weeks. Until July 29, apart from going to lectures about Catalan language and literature and participating in language exchanges with volunteer students of the UB, the twenty-five international students take part in a lot of cultural activities. They will visit la Pedrera and Parlament de Catalunya, and will attend night concerts outdoors in Els Vespres, or see the Castellers of Barcelona, as well as participating in a cooking workshop with Àvies de Sils.
Interest, work, love or for the sake of learning Catalan
The participants share the fact that they studied Catalan in their countries, but the reasons they have to learn Catalan are very diverse from each other. Ralph Alexander Meixner, Mexican with Hungarian origins, started studying Catalan to be able to communicate properly with his sonʼs wife, who is from Valencia. “Then I learned about the culture and met some Catalan people and I loved it all” he said. His son and daughter in law live in Mexico with him but Ralph has a baby granddaughter and wants to talk to her in her mother tongue.
Germanʼs Alex Pösch case is different. He had studied Spanish in high school, and when he got to university, where he studies Linguistics, he became interested in the Basque and Catalan languages in order to analyze the grammar of those languages different from German. He said music helps a lot when learning languages and he fell in love with Catalan by going to Catalan band concerts such as Mishima.
Czech Jakub Sváb found by chance a poster in Prague that said “Do you want to study Catalan?”. He got interested and gave it a chance. “I didnʼt have much information on Catalan language but thanks to the language I learned about this fantastic culture” he says. Jakub said it was hard to learn Catalan at the beginning because it is very different from Czech -which does not have subjunctive or weak pronouns (the Catalan pronoms febles)- but one wouldnʼt say so when listening to him speaking Catalan.
Mar Rojo, from Madrid, started studying Catalan because she is a civil servant in Congreso de los Diputados (Spanish Parliament) and was tired of asking “What did you say?” to the Catalan members of the Parliament. Moreover, she has friends in Barcelona and when she came to visit them got lost in some conversations. “Now I am very glad and my children are happy that I speak Catalan, they find this fun”.
Free Catalan lessons in the university where Isaías Santiago Maqueda, from Mexico, studied was a push to start learning it. “I like Romance languages and it is not very common to have options to study Catalan in my country, where French, Portuguese or Italian are more popular”.
Colombian Andrés Fontecha started a Catalan course thanks to the Catalan community in Bogotá after having met some Catalan people. “We were three or four boys attending Marionaʼs lessons. She was a great teacher and we became friends. She actually came back to Barcelona because she missed the city and we might actually meet one of these days” he says.
“This program should last two years! I donʼt want to go back to Mexico”
All of them would recommend this program with no doubt. This yearʼs group has two people from Madrid who are taking the courses for the second time. “It should last two years! I donʼt want to go back to Mexico” says Isaías. He is one of the few who had not seen Barcelona before and is now excited about it, although he says he was already in love with the city before stepping on it, thanks to the local cinema and music. “I would totally recommend this program, people are friendly and really close”, says Andrés.
Alex comments on the language immersion style of the program: “Apart from all the cultural activities, this experience is useful to improve the language, because itʼs been six years since I donʼt officially study Catalan, and by speaking or learning only you donʼt learn its grammar properly” he says.