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Ok I'm starting a post over Catalan, which is a Franco-Spanish dialect. A few months ago, while in barcelona, I was asked if I was trying to speak catalan when i was having a chat with a native. I was just speaking the Spanish of my teacher's .. Like what I was wrong to believe in her skills mrgreen

Catalunya was originally a land based in the south east of France and in the north east of spain, careless of the border splitting both european countries. There was developped a dialect, a sort of Francized Spanish.
The language is far less spoken in France because it is very too different from French. Only the elders nowadays are still the French natives of that dialect, who just learnt French at school. But with the French policy of nationalisation of the minds, forcing the spreading of Parisian French to everyminds, this language lost of its influence in the arrounds. French kids can still follow lessons of Catalan in these regions, as an option ...

in Spain, this language is spoken in the arrounds of Barcelona. Pupils there can speak either catalan either spanish at school, there is not much influence. Plus Madrid leaves them in peace because this region is the Economic Lung of Spain. That way those catalans were more lucky than their French comrades.


The language can be someway understood by people speaking spanish & french. Still some phrases are so different from spanish that none of them can understand them.

Catalan isn't a dialect it's an independent language like Basque, spoken as listed and in Adorra

Is that what he said? eek *didn't read the post, obviously*

ja , beginner's phrases of catalan are located here: www.101languages.net

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clicky anyone?

I'd say, that people who speak different dialects (or accents) of the same language, can understand each other (though with some effort), whereas people who speak different languages can't understand each other unless they learnt the other's language.

The English words are a bit vague ... in German 'accent' doesn't mean 'dialect' as well, but only the mannerism of somebody speaking a language they've learnt. So I would speak English with a German accent, but people from Dorset speak a dialect of English. But that is also referred to as a 'Dorset accent' in English.

The difference between languages and dialect aren't all too clearly used, the so-called 'Chinese dialects' are in fact different languages, as well as there are languages so similar to each other (typically Swedish-Norwegian or Spanish-Italian) that people can understand each other if the other person speaks slowly and explains expressions.


Andalusian seems to be officially a dialect of Kastilian Spanish.

This is a fun site! surprised