Language

A quick post while I’m waiting for Peyton to arrive…

I’m at a university in Barcelona. There are some summer students here, some staff, some people from random parts of the world here for the conference. This creates an interesting problem: I can’t really tell what language to address people in. I could divide them into three groups:
- Students and staff who speak Catalan and Spanish.
- Students and staff who speak Catalan, Spanish and English.
- Conference attendees who speak English and often some other language (typically not Spanish)

So, I’m generally addressing people in Spanish, but I can’t help but wonder if I’ll end up talking to an English-speaker in Spanish because we both know enough to get by and won’t bother to ask.

Actually, I know slightly less than what is needed to get by, leading to a rather hilarious exchange at the airport.. will post about that later.