Today English, and increasingly Chinese or German, are languages that are studied all over the world. But why would anyone decide to learn Catalan?

That must be the question we students of Catalan hear most often. I think not many Germans, English or Americans would ask that question because they have a prouder perspective on their language. Perhaps they might admire someone’s level, but they’d never ask the reason why we’re studying their language. As a Romanian I used to do the same: ask why anyone would want to learn Romanian, but after answering that question so many times I’d never ask it again. It’s like showing a certain mistrust of your own language, and what’s more, why would you have to justify learning a language, any language? As for my decision, it was a gut question: I went to the Faculty of Languages to have a parachute in case the entrance exam for the Faculty of Journalism didn’t go well. I’d never thought of studying Catalan, I wanted to study Danish, but the University of Bucharest didn’t offer that possibility. It was a spur of the moment decision, but it seems it was quite inspired.

What’s the secret of being able to speak so many languages well?

I don’t think there’s any secret. Each language I speak I learned in a different way and I forgot one completely. One I learned when I was small, because I absorbed everything like a sponge, one I was forced to, another to understand the lyrics of my favourite group, the other, Catalan, for love at first sight, with the language, obviously... Now I have an idea about how it’s easiest for me to learn a language, and at times it’s hard for me, because I don’t find the right method for me in that language. I think the most important thing is to have motivation, a method or a teacher who inspires you, chances to practise the language and most of all to pay no attention to what books say about “acquisition of second languages”, for example the fact that there’s a critical age for the acquisition of a language. Statements like that are disheartening and depressing.

As a teacher and former student of the University Campus, what do you think is the best way to learn the Catalan language?

I think my progress as a student of Catalan can more or less be a good example. It wouldn’t be completely the best model, because I already spoke three Romance languages before starting to study Catalan, and what’s more I had the advantage of having a lot of classes of Catalan or in Catalan because I was studying philology, but it can serve as a guide. It would be important to go to all the language practice classes, to have the courage to speak and make mistakes and then have an opportunity to go to the Campus, for example, and set aside all the other languages you speak and devote yourself only to Catalan. After two weeks speaking nothing but Catalan you’ll never want to leave it again. And as well as all that you’d have to add more contact outside the classroom: watch series or films in Catalan, listen to music in Catalan or write long e-mails to your friends on the Campus.

To what extent is knowing about the culture and history of a community indispensable to speaking the language well?

If we relate them only with the learning process, I don’t think they’re that important, because I learned at least one language without knowing a lot about the culture and history of its community. Those aspects are important in motivating the students, to give them more resources, to put them in touch with the language they’re studying and, in the case of some languages, to explain their sociolinguistic situation. I can imagine the teaching of English or Spanish without culture or history classes, but I’d find it harder to imagine Romanian, Catalan or Serbian classes without those aspects. I think the more “popular” or “important” a language is, the more culture or history classes lose importance, because people’s aim will be to communicate in that language because its an “international” language, whilst the “smaller” or less “known” it may be, the students will feel the need to have more facts and figures about its sociolinguistic context.

Internationally, Barcelona is the best know city of Catalonia. What led you to study in Girona?

Although it’s the most famous Catalan city in the world, I don’t like Barcelona. On my first time in Barcelona I didn’t hear a word of Catalan and I was very disappointed. My goal was to be always learning the language, and as Barcelona didn’t give me that opportunity, it stayed at beginner level. I chose Girona because I wanted to continue my Catalan studies and it seemed to offer the best conditions, because in Girona Catalan is spoken a great deal and because it’s a marvellous city.

On some occasion you’ve said that to feel fully integrated in Girona, you have to learn to use the weak pronouns badly.

Well, I’m still not completely integrated. I find it very difficult to use the colloquial relatives or simplify the weak pronouns.  That’s the effect of studying a language without continuous immersion and a certain obsession with speaking correctly. I also think it’s difficult to use colloquial expressions, but with my final work for my master’s degree I tried to correct that aspect. Once, another student on the master’s degree course was offended by my correct combination of weak pronouns. When I remarked that I’d say something to a teacher, I said: “Ja li ho diré [I’ll tell him that]”. And he replied: “Don’t ever say that to me again”. For me it’s quite natural to say “la mare de la qual [the mother of whom]” and people always look at me askance. Well, some of them point out that I’m not completely Catalan, but I’m fed up with the ones who think that because of the accent I’m from Girona, or sometimes because I pronounce the “v” I’m from Mallorca.