*Kyo wa watashi no tanjobi desuyo*

[DFW]

83. There you go!

Actually, way back in my tender years, I lived in the part of Spain where the local language is not Castellano ("Spanish&quot , but the older language of Català ("Catalan&quot , the language of the medieval kingdom of Aragón, almost identical to the medieval southwestern French Langue d'Oc. This was during the Franco era, so school, TV and newspapers were forbidden in Catalan, but since all the people spoke it, and I lived with a local family, I learned it by osmosis, and then took a private course (also forbidden, but tolerated) in how to write it.

Unless you spend a lot of time in the northeast of Spain, Andorra or the Balearic Islands there is no real reason to learn Catalan, but since I go back to Barcelona about once a month, I have every reason to keep mine fresh. I go mostly for work, but the fact that Barcelona is optically (Gaudí is just art of it) one of the most fascinating cities in Europe doesn't hurt any.