college in barcelona

th3lunatik

has anyone studied in barcelona for a year or know of a good college there ?? im thinking of studying there for a year

mikedragon32

Moved from Travel

number10a

I was there for a few months alright. Went the the UB. Though there's way more than the UB there. What would you be hoping to study? Going for Erasmus or what??

th3lunatik

just wanted to do something different get away for a year and thought barcelona would be nice, did you have trouble with the language over there or was there a lot of english speakers around ??

Fysh

If you're looking to move there for a significant period of time (ie to study) you'd want to get at least a basic grasp of Spanish (Castellano)before moving there. If you're serious about being there for a while, you might also try to pick up some Catalán.

You might be able to scrape by with English, but I wouldn't recommend it as a long-term strategy.

number10a

For me, there were too many English speakers as I wanted to improve my Spanish while I was there. There's plenty of Erasmus groups, international students, backpackers etc. so you'll never be lonely. But when it comes to living there and going about your everyday life it's one extreme to the other in Barcelona - either you'll go into a place where everyone speaks English, or no one does. Depends on how touristy a place is.

Catalan is Barcelona's first language, then Spanish, but almost everyone speaks both. You will need a decent command of one of these languages if you hope to live there properly and not just be on a long holiday going to tourist traps all the time. Genuinely not wanting to sound in anyway condescending, but if you measure your language skills in the way most Irish people do (and like I did), being able to just about order a meal and drinks is not a good level of Spanish. That's basic. But it's still more than most so if you can do that, it's a huge advantage to know the basics! Just don't want you to be disillusioned like I was when I first went over. Regardless of your level, speak as much as you can when you get there. Don't be embarrassed to speak Spanish (or Catalan), no matter how little you have, or how stupid you think you sound. Most will really appreciate the effort as they're so used to the usual tourist thing of automatically speaking in English rudely assuming the person understands. You'll be surprised by how much you'd improve in even two weeks. You'll find plenty of ads for people who want to do a language exchange (advertised even in English as an intercambio - the Spanish word for it) so that would really help.

You can get by with just English, but life will be that bit harder but by no means painful. For example, your landlord is unlikely to speak any English. A friend of mine is living in Madrid for two years now and has no Spanish at all and she loves it, so it is possible!!

It is an amazing city and a great choice for a year away!! Few places in the world come close to it in my book. But don't go over there blindly, just on a whim. Work is quite hard to come by over there at the moment. Unemployment in Spain is at 20%. And the whole college thing - there's a law that most of the courses a college offers have to be in Catalan. You need to know why you're going, what you're gonna do when you get there - though I would strongly advise against sorting out a place to live before you go.

There's a lot there - I hope not too much! I do tend to go on, but I loved Barcelona so I suppose that's the reason. Anyway, if you have any questions at all you can PM me if you want, or reply on here, whatever suits you!