Choose: Catalan or Spanish?

Most people in Catalonia are bilingual. We can speak both Catalan and Spanish, but some prefer Spanish, others prefer Catalan. Personally, I like both languages… although maybe I slightly prefer Catalan. After all, my mother tongue is Catalan.

That’s why when I entered at university I had a very huge problem: “Do you want to translate into Catalan or into Spanish?” Oh, come on, I cannot decide! Can’t I translate into both? “No, just choose one.” Since Spanish is more used, I decided Spanish. Plus, when my mother asks something in English I answer in Spanish… That’s why I thought that it would be better to choose Spanish… But now… I think I would do better if I translated into Catalan.

The other day, I was talking with a friend by MSN. We started talking about the Spanish language. He said that it was better for foreign students not to come to Catalonia because we speak Spanish so badly. Then, he said that Spanish-speakers from South America speak better than Spanish-speakers from Spain, and started teasing me, which made me feel very bad (I was already feeling bad because of my problem with choosing Spanish instead of Catalan). He noticed how I was feeling, apologized and told me that since we were friends, I could tell him anything that made me feel bad.

Well… since then, I’m perfectly. I don’t think about that problem. I think: “Since I write better in Catalan than in Spanish, I’ll learn Spanish and, if they let me, I’ll translate documents into Catalan too”. I suppose that I write better in Catalan because my mother tongue is Catalan. In Spanish I make errors because Catalan’s way of writing is different from Spanish’s. Months ago, I didn’t know that it was like this…