Learning Spanish - Today is only our second day in Barcelona. We experienced unusual thunderstorms and heavy rains during the night, but ventured out anyways in the morning drizzle.
While we are still exploring the district where our apartment is located - Gràcia - (see our favorite Vila de Gràcia square above) we also are figuring out how to get around the city with public transportation.
Public Transportation
Our first goal: to get a metro and bus pass. The number of choices are amazing!
Using our basic Spanish (learned with GamesforLanguage Spanish 1), we found out about passes for 10 trips, 50 trips in 30 days, 30 days unlimited, daily passes, etc. etc. We finally settled on a pass of 70 trips in 30 days for families (including couples). The price: Euro 51.80 - which breaks down to only $.74 per trip for each of us, if we use all of them. Quite a deal!
Learning Spanish in Museums
With this pass, we took our first subway trip to the Plaza d'Espanya and the CaixaForum. Inaugurated in February 2002, CaixaForum is the Barcelona headquarters of Fundació "laCaixa" - a social and cultural foundation belonging to "la Caixa" savings bank. The Forum is situated in an old but wonderfully renovated textile factory.
Benefiting from the free admission, we saw two fabulous exhibitions: one of Francisco Goya (with many works lent by Madrid's Prado), the other of Eugène De La Croix (with works lent by Paris' Louvre). All descriptions of the paintings were in two languages: no, not in English – but in Spanish and in Catalan. Barcelona is indeed a bilingual city.
Not having had any exposure to Catalan before, we were surprised that we could easily understand the Catalan descriptions of the paintings as well as the Spanish ones.But why be surprised?
Yesterday, fresh off the airplane, I bought the “blue” edition of “el Periódico,” the local newspaper. Sitting in an outdoor café, we skimmed over some of the headlines and read a few articles. We only realized after a while that we were reading the Catalan edition! (The Spanish edition has red as a background color.)
As stated in the Lonely Planet guide, Catalan “belongs to the group of Western European languages that grew out of Latin, including Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.” Many of the words in our newspaper resembled Italian and French. A knowledge of both of these languages helped us understand the newspaper articles and the descriptions in the CaixaForum.
At both lunch and dinner, our menus came in two languages: Spanish and Catalan. (We are describing in "Solving Lunch and Dinner Mysteries" some of the clues we used...)
So all you anglophiles: Brush up on your romance languages, if you want to know what you are seeing and what you are eating in Barcelona!
Bio: Ulrike & Peter Rettig are co-founders of Gamesforlanguage.com. They are lifelong language learners, growing up in several European countries before moving to Canada and the United States. You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
As we completed our Spanish 1 course in preparation for our upcoming stay in Spain, we were reassured that our idea of a “Travel-Story” for our language courses makes sense. (Click HERE to listen to the "The Story" Podcast of Level 1 as our Spanish 1 "hero" flies from Boston to Barcelona.)
Why a Travel-Story Language Course to Learn & Practice Spanish?
When we are trying to recall certain words and phrases, we begin to imagine the situation our Spanish traveler (David) finds himself in.
And expressions such as: “...es la primera vez...”, “ ...es muy bueno...”, or “...no es muy bueno...”, “...me quedo tres semanas...”, “...me alegro...”, etc., etc. often come to mind as we are thinking about '”The Story”.
We also fully expect that with a vocabulary of only 700 words, we will not be “fluent”, nor likely to understand everything that is being said. But we also are sure that we will encounter many of the travel related words and phrases on our trip.
We already know that we can read a fair amount of Spanish text (which users of only audio and picture programs may not be able to); and watching yesterday a Spanish "soap opera" (La Que No Podía Amar) for the first time, we already understood quite a bit as well. We'll keep a log of our language adventures.
However, if you want to learn some basics in Spanish: greetings, polite phrases, travel terms, go to our - also completely free - sister site Lingo-Late, where we have 30+ Spanish words and phrases. You can Listen, Record Yourself, Playback Your Voice as many times as you want to learn and practice.
PS: See our posts about our month-long stays in Barcelona and Seville. We were fortunate enough to be able to practice our Spanish while also enjoying the many museums and cultural events in both cities.
"Cognates" are words that have the same language root and often have the same or a similar meaning.
Word pairs that look like they have the same root, but have a different meaning, are called "false cognates" or "false friends." Below are six Spanish examples (for speakers of English):
1. me despierto: I wake up
Not: I'm desperate (Spanish: estoy desesperado) Example: Mañana tengo que despertarme temprano para tomar el tren a Granada. Translation: Tomorrow, I need to wake up early to take the train to Granada.
2. éxito: hit (success)
Not: exit (Spanish: salida) Example: Este nuevo tour se está convirtiendo en un éxito para los turistas que visitan Sevilla. Translation: This new tour is becoming a hit among tourists visiting Seville.
3. pretender: to try
Not: to pretend (Spanish: fingir) Example:Pretendemos lanzar la campaña “Visita España” la próxima primavera. Translation: We will be trying to launch the “Visit Spain” campaign next spring.
4. recordar: to remember
Not: to record (Spanish: grabar) Example: Recuerde abrocharse siempre el cinturón de seguridad. Translation:Always remember to fasten your seat belt.
5. ropa: clothing
Not: rope (Spanish: cuerda)
Example: Es conveniente ponerse ropa de abrigo al visitar Granada en invierno. Translation: It's advisable to wear thick clothing when visiting Granada in winter.
6. contestar: to answer
Not: to contest [a decision] (Spanish: protestar contra) Example: ¿Podrías contestar al teléfono por favor? Translation: Could you please answer the phone?)
Learning Spanish - Today is only our second day in Barcelona. We experienced unusual thunderstorms and heavy rains during the night, but ventured out anyways in the morning drizzle. 
Benefiting from the free admission, we saw two fabulous exhibitions: one of Francisco Goya (with many works lent by Madrid's Prado), the other of Eugène De La Croix (with works lent by Paris' Louvre). All descriptions of the paintings were in two languages: no, not in English – but in Spanish and in Catalan. Barcelona is indeed a bilingual city.