Not so fast!
I studied French, Spanish and Catalan at university. Catalan is way more similar to Spanish than Welsh is to English. I found I could understand the written form before undertaking any study (having previous good Spanish and French). And pretty much all Catalans speak fluent Spanish.. they had to by law up until Franco went in the late 70s. Nowadays you might find the odd octogenerarian who claims not to understand Spanish, but they pretty much always do. They live in a country called Spain.. And Manuel is a very traditional Spanish name.
..to be a little pedantic..
(, Wed 29 Oct 2008, 14:33, Reply)
He also is actually from Barcelona...
and therefore would probabaly understand Spanish.
(, Wed 29 Oct 2008, 14:38, Reply)
Well Barcelona is in Catalonia (part of Spain)
..so he'd almost certainly speak Catalan fluently too - if he'd been brought up there. But Spanish would not be at all a problem, which was my point. And I think I remember his dialogue in the program to be either English or Spanish - no Catalan.
Catalan is a beautiful language with a rich literary history however. Don't mean to do it down - it deserves to survive.
Right, must get up and do something..
(, Wed 29 Oct 2008, 14:53, Reply)
Aye...
...but I mean it's a pretty damned major city, so presumably he would speako both lingo.
(, Wed 29 Oct 2008, 15:57, Reply)