Manel is an indie band from Barcelona. Their second album 10 Milles Per Veure Una Bona Armadura became the best selling album in Spain 10 days after being released. This is more interesting than you might think – the songs are all in Catalan.
Catalan people are bilingual – they speak their mother tongue which is Catalan and also Castellano the language that some of you may know as ‘Spanish’
But obviously people who live in the rest of Spain are not always bilingual and if they are it is unlikely that their second language is Catalan.
The language question is very important – one the one hand it is just the language of this part of the world so obviously people speak it, write it, dream it and sing it. But there it also has a long history of being repressed and even nowadays it still brings up controversy.
People are criticised for speaking it in public. Like the case of the football coach who answered a question put to him in Catalan, in Catalan. Spanish journalists told him to speak in Spanish. They weren’t just asking him to translate so they could understand – they wanted him to stop answering in his own language. Pep Guardiola answers English questions in English, Spanish ones in Spanish and Catalan ones in Catalan. But he is only criticised for the Catalan part. Strong reactions. As if the language is a threat. As if it is a language which needs to be put in its place.
So, it is actually very amazing that an album sung totally in Catalan is top of the Spanish charts.
Here is the track called Aniversari. It has the lyrics in castellano so you can hear one and read the other!
I hear this on the radio almost every day so I have gone from ‘sort of finding it ok’ to really enjoying it.
PS Tomorrow. Virtual Vermut. At a time when it suits you. Fins Ara!
Author: Kate Wilson
To Err is Human
Day 3 of intensive Catalan.
I remembered not to speak English first thing in the morning – something in my brain has accepted the challenge and starts the day with Bon Dia. I told my dreams in Catalan – a bit of a muddle but I don’t think the other person is usually listening much to the details of strange journeys, dreams of a little girl singing to her cat and yet another experience of driving without brakes! What surprises me is that I think I don’t know the word for brakes, I pause for a moment, then it comes into my head. Like magic!
(Frens by the way)
I have learnt so far on this challenge
- I know much more than I thought I did
- If I can relax and just ramble there is lots of vocabulary hidden in my brain. I didn’t consciously put it there but it has been taken in and stored and is accessible, if I am patient
- It is ok to make mistakes – in fact it is vital. I have lots of friends here who speak English, some of them very fluently. But they all make loads of mistakes – in pronunciation, in grammar, in vocabulary. It doesn’t make me think any less of them and in fact I am impressed that they speak English so well when I am still struggling with Catalan and Castellano.
For some reason I put pressure on myself to get it right. It is hard to make that leap into just talking – without worrying about what I get wrong or stumble over. But this is exactly what this week is helping me do. I have taken away my easy option, I have put up a No Entry sign in front of the path of least resistance.I have to take another route and even if it is a bit twisty and turny, we get there in the end.
I really do feel there is something mysterious in this process – as if I am remembering the language rather than learning it.
Spring
Time to get creative.
Barça – Madrid – this time it’s personal!
This is how it is tonight!
Food ready to eat at half-time
Radio on so we can listen in Catalan as well as watch the TV
It’s raining in Granollers as well as Camp Nou
Semi Final of the Champions Cup – Part Two
Barça – Madrid for the 4th time in the last few weeks and I am hoping for a good game, without bullying tactics, without post match whining, more fabulous football from Messi
And…for Barcelona to win!
Day Two – swearing more fluently!
Today has been good – I found myself talking this morning almost without taking breath and suddenly noticed myself!
Where does it come from? I can only imagine that almost two years of listening is paying off. If I trust what my mouth wants to say then it is almost always, not correct but understandable.
Then I cycled in the sunshine into the town to have coffee and a chocolate croissant with my language helper – a really nice man who volunteers with the Catalan language programme. We meet once a week for coffee and talk for an hour. I still find it harder to understand all that is said than to say what I want. The temptation is to nod and smile and wait for inspiration. Sometimes this plan goes awry and we look at each other in silence – he is waiting for a response and I have no idea what he was saying! But I think this is normal and you can’t ask for help with every word. No more than you can look up everything in the dictionary. That way lies madness.
Later Pep and I went to buy paint and sandpaper. We mused about why it is SAND paper in English and GLASS paper in Catalan. I think most words conjure up images as we learn them so I had an idea of a sprinkling of sand in varying grades on the paper while he had always pictured crushed glass.
I also drove to the paint shop, feeling as usual that I am a weirdo for keeping to the speed limit instead of treating the open road as a motorway.
Then a trip to look at houses in the surrounding countryside. We climbed up to an empty house that overlooks the Pla de Llerona.
It had a beautiful peaceful atmosphere but on one side is the railway, the other is the road and above a huge electricity pylon. And the threat of a new carretera which might be constructed underground……and maybe not!
We visited the sanctuary of Fatima – not sure why it is in this place near La Garriga but it is well loved
and then discovered some cornish style roads with no traffic, birds singing and flowers by the wayside
I want to live here!
On the trip home I had some practice in the art of swearing in Catalan. I am getting better – now I make things up like Cap de Polla! It isn’t authentic but it feels satisfying.
All about driving styles as usual!
Thanks to Oreneta I was inspired to find out how to use the accents on my keyboard so now I have no excuse for not writing Català….like that! Except that when I write in English I think it is better to use the English spelling. What do you think is the correct form?