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If you love languages and challenging yourself, you may have considered learning Spanish and Catalan. Although both languages are spoken in Spain, they are not interchangeable! So, what are the differences between Spanish and Catalan?

First of all, we would like to apologize for this reductive title: Catalan is not just a dialect of Spanish, but a language of its own. It would never occur to us to compare English and French... But Spanish and Catalan are closely linked, first of all, geographically.

What to learn, Spanish or Catalan?

Spanish, the official language of Spain, is spoken in all regions of the country, while Catalan is spoken in only some regions: Catalonia, Valencia and Balearic Islands. Surprisingly, Catalan is also spoken outside these regions, such as in Alghero (Sardinia, Italy), Eastern Pyrenees or in the country of Andorra, where it is the official language.

Both are Romance languages, but Spanish belongs to the Iberian-Romance sub-branch like Portuguese, while Catalan belongs to the Western Romance branch. Learning Spanish is not the same as learning Catalan! So, can we really compare two languages or find similarities?

Spanish and Catalan: the similarities

Let's start with the similarities. Spanish and Catalan are both Romance languages, which means that they share certain similarities in terms of grammar, syntax and vocabulary.

In terms of vocabulary, some words are similar enough to recognize them. For example, "the book" is called "el libro" in Spanish and "el llibre" in Catalan. "The cat” is called “el gato" in Spanish and “el gat" in Catalan. On the other hand, "the dog" is said "perro" in Spanish, but... "gos" in Catalan! If you know one language, you will probably understand bits and pieces of the other. But that's not enough!

Fun fact: Catalan is very similar to French! So it might be easier for French speakers to learn Catalan. Do you understand this sentence? "Tinc quatre galetes. Me'n menjaré dos i te'n donaré dos.” “J'ai quatre biscuits. Je vais en manger deux et t'en donner deux.” The word "menjaré" sounds like "manger" in French (to eat) and "donaré" sounds like "donner" (to give), right?

Spanish and Catalan: the differences

Learning Spanish is not the same as learning Catalan. There are significant differences between the two languages. First of all, the pronunciation is different, and it is often more difficult to understand Catalan when you have learned Spanish. In Catalan, whole syllables are sometimes "hushed", whereas in Spanish everything is pronounced. For example, most nouns and adjectives in Spanish end with a vowel, whereas in Catalan, they are not!

In Spanish, there is only one sound for each vowel, whereas in Catalan there are two sounds for the "e" and two sounds (or phonemes) for the "o". French speakers will identify with this similarity, Catalan has both grave and acute accent (anglès or jardí), while Spanish only has an acute accent (English). The alphabet is also different: there are more letters in Catalan, especially because of the stressed and unstressed letters (stressed À and unstressed Á, open È and closed É, closed Í and opened Ò, etc.), as well as the use of letter “ç”, that only exists in Catalan. Another difference is that the letter "ñ" does not exist in Catalan, where "ny" is used.

As you can see, while Spanish and Catalan have some similarities in terms of grammar and vocabulary, each language also has its own qualities. Even if you've learned Spanish, you'll still need to take a few Catalan classes to make yourself understood and speak to the locals in Catalonia!