Tuesday 5 August 2008

ENG: You Have Not Been Forgotten

Although I believe that most regular readers of this blog understand either Catalan or Swedish, there might be a few who only feel comfortable reading in English. Rest assured that I have not forgotten about you. As you will have noticed, I now add a three-letter language code in the headlines of my entries, so if you subscribe to the RSS-feed you can limit yourself to come here when there is new content in your preferred language.

Once Vilanova’s Festa Major 2008 is over, I plan to sum it up in two entries in English. One will focus on the vocabulary - as a guide for tourists to Vilanova i la Geltrú and other Catalan towns to understand a typical Festa Major program. The second one will be a personal reflection on what not to miss if you happen to be here during the festes in the future .

At the same time I want to encourage all readers not to shy away from my entries in Catalan since there will be more and more of them. As a part of my preparations for the Generalitat’s C-level tests next year, I need to practise writing, and in blogging I have found a rewarding way to do so.

Admittedly, my texts are full of the kind of errors any non-native speaker will make (which, for obvious reasons, also is the case with my entries in English). However, now in the possession of an official certificate confirming my level of Catalan to that of an intermediate learner, I feel confident that I can contribute to the world’s collective knowledge of the language.

To encourage those of you who still avoid texts in Catalan to make a first contact with it, is a nice project for me and will certainly benefit your integration in Catalonia. Why not give it a try? Anyone with a decent level of either Spanish or French will be able to understand quite a lot. And in the process you will learn to know me and my family.

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Technorati tags: Catalan, Spanish, Wirdheim

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