“Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.”
Rita Mae Brown
The national language in Spain is Spanish. But it’s a multinational country and you can hear there a lot of different languages and it amazed. There is the main language Catalan in Catalonia region. Also being so close to UK you can expect to have a lot of immigrant from UK in Spain and it’s obvious. But despite this English isn’t the language number #2 as an international language in Spain. And this surprised me a lot. Only in airports and auto bus stations you can expect that people will understand you if you ask something in English.
To find an apartment to rent I had to start learning Spanish as there was no one who answered me in English without using google translator. It was unexpected. But it’s nice to walk in Spain and hear English speech from native British. In supermarkets I had to use my basic Spanish to communicate with people and it was enough good. But what differ Spanish from other nations – they speak very fast and very emotional. It’s really hard to understand if your level of Spanish isn’t at least conversational.
So if you’re going to popular touristic Spanish resort in the middle of season, you shouldn’t worry about the language – people, especially young people try to learn English and other languages to have better level of services. But if you want to travel a bit inside the country or to communicate with local people, it would be better to have at least basic level of Spanish. Especially it helps in supermarkets, in stations or when you hear some conversation, it helps not to be lost and not be fooled. Spanish is honest nation and there is a high level of life and services in all levels but in popular touristic places can be some scammers as everywhere.
Also there are some cities where can be more people speaking other languages. For example there are a lot of Russian speaking people in Torrevieja, the city on the south-east coast. If you speak Russian and want to move to Spain, you can find there many russian speaking people, real estate agencies and all needed information and people with who you can communicate with.
There are a lot of online programs and зhrasebooks which help you to learn basic phrases to feel comfortable in Spain. Don’t be afraid to learn and travel in Spain – it’s fantastic!
