Can Spanish and French speakers understand Catalan? | Mutual Intelligibility Challenge

In this video, we explore the mutual intelligibility of Catalan, Spanish, and French - three distinct Romance languages. Join us as speakers from Mexico, Catalonia and Quebec converse and find common linguistic ground, highlighting the nuances and overlaps between their languages. If you're interested in language comparisons, or simply want to witness a friendly exchange, this is for you. 🤓
Mutual intelligibility refers to the ability of speakers of different languages to understand each other without prior knowledge or study.
🤗 BIG THANKS to Jan, Max and Marco (@_marcobaez) for making this video possible.
📝 Volunteer your language skills for future videos → docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FA...
🕰 Time Stamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:24 - 1. Challenge
4:20 - 2. Challenge
8:03 - 3. Challenge
12:29 - 4. Challenge
18:00 - 5. Challenge
22:35 - Commentary in English
🤗 Big hug to everyone reading my video descriptions! You rock! 🤓💪🏻
#catalan #languagechallenge

[@GypsieSeeker]

Thanks for including a Quebecois speaker! Always appreciate your diversity even within widely spoken languages.

[@TheEstampe]

While I get the meaning, "J'ai habité à la grandeur du Canada" is not used in French at all, only in Quebec French.

[@_marcobaez]

I loved Catalan!! 😃

[@Weissenschenkel]

L1 Brazilian Portuguese speaker, with some knowledge in Spanish, Italian and French. I got all five words correctly. Yay! I remember listening to a woman speaking in Catalan here in a past video and I found hard to understand word for word but relatively easy to get the meaning from the whole content. Thanks for the video!

[@L-mo]

Catalan is very closely to the local languages of northern Italy. Especially when written

[@fablb9006]

Catalan is actually considered as a dialect of occitan by many linguists

[@mkgvlc4]

@@fablb9006 explain valencian then

[@clonn]

@@fablb9006 It is indeed. Aranés is an Occitan dialect spoken in la Vall d'Arán and except for a few things it sounds almost like Catalan.

[@green4black]

I'm an English speaker who's learning most of the major Romance languages except Catalan. I was able to understand more once I started recognizing the vowel and consonant patterns that differ in Catalan. The vocabulary seems to be very similar, so once I could start processing the unique sound of Catalan I could make sense of maybe 80%+ of what was being said. Thanks everyone, well done!

[@miquelgilolea11]

No et preocupis, si aprens l'italià, el francès, el portuguès i/o el castellà veuràs que el català poc a poc l'entendràs bé. També el pots aprendre d'una manera més activa, però tot i així, si no es el cas, no et serà difícil.

[@green4black]

@@miquelgilolea11 Ho intentaré. Gràcies Miquel!

[@matthewsiregar]

Şi vorbesci romana?

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

@@miquelgilolea11 entens el romanes?

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

@@matthewsiregar da

[@bepivisintainer2975]

Intresting. Being a lombardian speacker myself. Gallo Romance group. I always find Catalan as a link between Spanish and Gallo Romance. (Lombardian, Piedmontese Ligurian etc).

[@JoseAntonio-tt2mb]

O catalão parece uma mistura ,espanhol ,italiano e francês .

[@AdamSlatopolsky]

both are very closely related with Occitan (Northern italian dialects and Catalan)

[@franciscafarfallina]

Great when the language challenge focuses on Catalan !

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

O italiano e o catalão são similares também ! Parlare-parlar mangiare-menjar freddo-fred paura-por arrivare-arribar domani-demà cercare-cercar mancare-mancar finestra-finestra donna-dona

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

Em português se diz rã, extintor, sussuro, esconde-esconde e balança ! Realmente o catalão também se parece com o português também !

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

@@Jaze09 espanhol entendo 99%

[@alberthernandez2611]

@@stephanobarbosa5805 en espanol tambien se dice extintor o extinguidor en mi pais RD es mas comun extintor

[@Goldsaint_]

En Español Columpio es un juego para niños, donde se avalanzan sobre su propio peso, se llama "sube y baja, o culumpio"

[@m0Ray79]

I don't speak any of these languages (learning French for now), but was able to deduct all the words. Interesting.

[@AtomikNY]

As a native English speaker who has learned both Spanish and French, this was a pretty easy one for me. I got 5 out of 5 before anyone started asking questions.

[@4himsanctified]

me as well by and large. Sure appreciate my Spanish

[@canchero724]

Jan really did well by giving a lot of clues and even used both catalan words similar to spanish and french a lot during his descriptions.

[@AtomikNY]

@@canchero724 Yeah, the explanations were great. I was avoiding looking at the screen (it's too easy when you can read along) and still managed to pick up enough information to guess all the words.

[@kame9]

because he speak very very slow and clear and use easy words.

[@4himsanctified]

@@kame9 oh for sure

[@MarcioSilva-ssiillvvaa]

Really cool! Love Catalán!

[@osvaldobenavides5086]

Thanks!You got to love the romance languages! Catalan is very much like French and Spanish. Sometimes a sentence was almost all Spanish and sometimes with many French cognates. Overall I got about 90%!

[@Ecolinguist]

Thanks for your support! 🤗

[@ronshlomi582]

Very easy if you know Spanish and French!

[@SuperLisitsin]

I am a native Russian speaker, fluent in English and learning Spanish for over 2 years. I got all the words right :-) This is an excellent idea, I absolutely love the format. Thank you very much for your work!

[@4himsanctified]

Yeah, I got #1. (rana/frog), #2 (extinguisher) #3. (whisper) #4 (form of "hide and seek"), #5 (scale) (English/Spanish speaker) ... doing the happy dance. I've listened to and looked over Italian some and think that in a couple month in country I'd have it down fairly well (at least conversationally), French and Portuguese a bit longer and Romanian maybe a little more than Italian.

[@FeedsNoSliesMusic]

#4 was tick, no? Different game from hide and seek.

[@4himsanctified]

@@FeedsNoSliesMusicthe closest to what kids play in the States

[@xbenniboi]

Québecois French speaker here and I was able to understand just about everything and guess all the words correctly. Shoutout to all the Romance languages!

[@eliasshakkour2904]

I’ve never heard a Spanish speaker use the filler “este” so many times. 😳

[@_marcobaez]

Hahahaha I was thinking that too myself 😂😂😂😂😅

[@_marcobaez]

It's super Mexican to do that

[@cristianbrasca]

Estaba nervioso quizás

[@_marcobaez]

@@cristianbrasca quizás jaja, voy a poner atención a eso

[@licanueto]

Same thought, my guess was he doesn't speak it often (he makes mistakes here and there and sounds just a tiny bit foreign-y) so he's possibly falling back to 'este' as a mean of "translating" whatever filler he uses in either english or french

[@AdamSlatopolsky]

We say Extintor in Spanish from Spain. Extinguidor sounds really weird, but it seems to be in the Spanish from LatinAmerica

[@_marcobaez]

Yep indeed sorry that was spanglish 😭😅

[@Edgar_Cantu432]

from Mexico, the Catalan language is interesting to me, it is like the midpoint of Spanish and French, some words actually sound like Spanish but with the last vowels cut off

[@norielgames4765]

Yes and some words look like french but are pronounced more similarly to Spanish, for example mot and petit.

[@65fhd4d6h5]

Bona feina amb les explicacions! Normalment, arriba un punt on els amfitrions ja no saben què més dir, però el Jan ha sabut seguir oferint detalls de totes les paraules sense quedar-se en blanc. :)

[@DrGokumadafaka]

In spanish the correct word is "extintor", "extinguidor" is the word to describe the sustance it contains

[@_marcobaez]

Yep you are correct

[@ricardorodriguez9587]

El catalán me parece bastante trasparente para los hispanohablantes, entiendo muchísimo sin haberlo estudiado, es como una mezcla de italiano con francés con una pronunciación muy fácil de captar.

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

parece 1 mezcla de español, frances e italiano

[@bilbohob7179]

En realidad Occitano, castellano e italiano. Casi todo el sur de Francia hablaba occitano y este es más similar al catalán que la langue d'oil de París...

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

@@bilbohob7179 ainda existem nativos de occitano.

[@JoseAntonio-tt2mb]

Muito fácil de entender

[@Goldsaint_]

Yo escucho el acento parecido al Portugues

[@alovioanidio9770]

@norbert, do a trying to understand european portuguese

[@familhagaudir8561]

Native Québec French speaker. I know some Occitan and took Spanish for a year at school. Catalan was somewhat intelligible for the basic conversation, though the more "rural" Catalan accent is easier to link with Occitan basics.

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

compreende o crioulo do Haiti ?

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

bonjou... vou komprann kréyol ayisyen ?

[@_marcobaez]

@@stephanobarbosa5805moi oui

[@patolt1628]

@@stephanobarbosa5805 oui

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

@@_marcobaez trè byen

[@ricnyc2759]

As a Brazilian, Portuguese speaker I understood the first one: "sapo" (frog). Second one: "extintor". Third one: "Sussurar". (In the beginning I thought he was taking about head phones). Fourth one: "pique" or "pega pega" (play catch-up). Fifth one: "balanca" (scale). Catalam is not as close as Spanish or Italian, but I still can understand a lot of it. I had to read the captions. I don't think I would understand if I was just listening to it.

[@despertaferro1714]

Granota/Extintor/Xiuxiueig/Fet-i-amagar/bàscula

[@203-fu8ft]

Can you do a video about compairsion between Papiamento with Spanish and Portuguese?

[@MrJoao1988]

Eu não sei catalão mas deu pra entender até que razoavelmente

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

Barça, Camp Nou, Blaugrana

[@Carlos-rc7hx]

Tot i així aquests nois tenen l'accent molt marcat , fins i tot el noi que parla espanyol .

[@elmundoderey2957]

Mi primera lengua es español et ma deuxième langue est le français, car j’habite à Québec. Par le contexte, puedo comprender bien el catalán que tiene bastantes puntos comunes con esas dos lenguas y diría también con el italiano. Bueno, el catalán es una lengua romance, pareille que le français et le espagnol. Merci et bonne journée

[@ceciliogarcia9569]

I think the guy who speaks Spanish has an advantage because Catalan is more similar to Spanish than French. I noticed that the guy who spoke Spanish was catching on faster the meaning of the object being described. Catalan is spoken in Spain.

[@mattchtx]

He mentions in the beginning he speaks Spanish, French, English, and is studying Italian and Interligua. So that’s 3 natural Romance languages, one constructed Romance language, and one Germanic language whose vocabulary is overwhelmingly borrowed from Romance languages. It’s a really big well of information for him to pull from.

[@_marcobaez]

Yeah in fact I was able to understand more from the French side strangely. It was as if French had become Spanishfied. So in other words, it sounds to me like French words that where pronounced in Spanish/Castellano accent

[@user-yz1dl3eu8l]

@@_marcobaez Yes, it is French Spanishfied

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

Catalão também é muito similar ao italiano !

[@danymann95]

But it is the variety used in Mexico, so no contact between both languages here

[@musha660]

creo que hablo o "casteshano" o español en argentina decimos castellano entendi casi todo hasta el frances no por algo son lenguas derivadas del latino el portuguez lo entiendo perfectamente, sera que en argentina hay gente de todos esos lugares??? el que si me dificulto algo fue el rumano

[@GustavoCorra]

En Argentino extintor es Matafuegos.

[@manoeldejesus2864]

A língua falada pelo apresentador é o catalão?

[@DiegoDanner]

balança em portugues é exatamente igual até o Ç 22:22

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

exato

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

Ç... me lembrei do Barça

[@JoseAntonio-tt2mb]

Faça uma comparação desses idiomas com o português .

[@bumble.bee22]

Em portugues 1. rã 2. extintor 3. cochichar/sussurrar 4. esconde-esconde/ pega-pega 5. balança

[@eefaaf]

I wonder from what part of Catalunya Jan's accent is, or that he just was trying to speak as clearly as his unstressed vowels weren't reduced as much as I am used to hear from east Catalan.

[@antoniboixadosbisbal137]

He speaks a very usual central catalan, probably from Barcelona or nearby.

[@eefaaf]

@@antoniboixadosbisbal137 Thanks. I think he did his best to speak as clearly as possible. I see Bisbal in your username. Reminded me of passing through there twice back in 1991 on a cycling holiday. Once leaving in the direction of Verges, and a week or so later leaving for Calonge, getting surprised by a LOT of rain, and arriving completely soaked after a death defying decent from the pass. I stumbled upon a hotel or restaurant, where they offered me a jersey while I tried to wring out my clothes.

[@antoniboixadosbisbal137]

​@@eefaafyou are talking about La Bisbal, a small town not far from Girona. Probably you will never forget that name😂 Bisbal is my second surname and it comes from 'bisbe", who means bishop in catalan.

[@eefaaf]

@@antoniboixadosbisbal137 Yes, La Bisbal. Had some nice restaurants there. Not quite the same as bisbe indeed. So, there's a bishop in your family tree?

[@antoniboixadosbisbal137]

@@eefaaf Bisbal means "who belongs to the bishop", like "reial" means "who belongs to the king", king being "rei" in catalan. I don't know if among my ancestors there has been a bishop, but I don't think so.

[@DA-og4px]

Does this particular Catalan speaker’s accent have any obvious Spanish influence? I don’t speak a word. I know that some Basque speakers are heavily influenced by Spanish, for example, and some Irish Gaelic speakers speak in a very pronounced anglicised way due to the influence of English.

[@_marcobaez]

Yeah to me he sounded very castillian

[@hereter3546]

I think he has an east-central accent (Barcelona area), because I have a similar accent. He speaks a good catalan, that´s just the way cultivate catalan speakers speak today in that region. My grandmother spoke the barcelona dialect (she was born in 1925) and it sounded quite different from this.

[@bilbohob7179]

Actually it is the opposite, Basque speakers had influenced in castillian accent... And basque accent is very different to catalan accent...

[@serfin01]

You’re wrong. Spanish was influenced by Basque from the birth of Spanish language. Basque is older than Spanish and Spanish is a Romance language spoken by basques.

[@KB99KraYziE]

PLEASE! MAKE "CAN A PIEDMONTESE ITA Dialect UNDERSTAND CATALAN?"

[@renerenatorivera9062]

I'm a native Spanish speaker and was able to understand Catalan quite well.

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

Um italiano que sabe espanhol pode entender bem o catalão

[@patolt1628]

"Cachette" pour le 4ème mot ne se dit pas trop en Français "standard". Ce doit être Québécois je suppose. Plutôt "cache-cache" il me semble.

[@fulvia1454]

Jouer à cache-cache, oui. Parfois on dit aussi "pris-pris".

[@patolt1628]

@@fulvia1454 En France ? Je ne sais pas mais pourquoi pas ? C'est peut-être aussi une question de génération : pour ce qui me concerne je ne suis hélas plus tout jeune mais, bien qu'ayant des enfants et des petits-enfants et ayant aussi pas mal bougé, je n'ai jamais entendu "pris-pris".

[@norma73]

I thought they were going to try with argentinian words that sound like Italian. Either way, moth is polilla. Not sure why the guy thought "insecto" was an specific noun to describe that animal.

[@PopescuSorin]

as a romanian i understood everything

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

compreendo parte do romeno através dos idiomas ibéricos e do italiano

[@gabrielcarvalho7438]

In portuguese there is the same word "balança".

[@juandiegovalverde1982]

el francés quebequés suena realmente muy diferente al de Francia.

[@heikebastian3182]

Seguro, la colonisation empezó en el siglo XVI. Los franceses que se fueron a vivir a Canadá dejaron de tener mucha comunicación con Francia y desarrollaron su propio dialecto.

[@cesargomez376]

I speak dominican spanish and I understood 80% that he said.

[@antoni-olafsabater9729]

Què vols que et digui ……

[@cesargomez376]

@@antoni-olafsabater9729 . El català és un idioma bonic el meu amic

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

você identifica bem as pronúncias cubana e boricua ?

[@keithtorgersen9664]

Can formal Dutch speakers understand Afrikaans or Belgian Dutch?

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

Qual é a diferença entre mot e paraula ?

[@user-yz1dl3eu8l]

Quelle est la différence entre le mot et la parole. 'est' is pronounced 'é' in French. Totally comprehensible by a Francophone.

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

@@user-yz1dl3eu8l o francês é mais fácil na forma escrita. Na forma oral é mais difícil. Entendo melhor na forma oral espanhol, catalão, italiano, romeno, galego...

[@antoniboixadosbisbal137]

No existeix cap diferència. Mot i paraula són la mateixa cosa. Mot és més culte.

[@catalanet77]

Són sinònims

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

@@catalanet77 gracies

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

Max pode entender crioulo haitiano ?

[@_marcobaez]

Probabilemente si

[@isacard1776]

Hablo español y me parece difícil de entender muchas cosas, a veces entiendo a veces no

[@JoseAntonio-tt2mb]

Esse canadense fala frances com sotaque de inglês .

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

verdade... e quando ele fala inglês... praticamente o sotaque francês inexiste

[@xjmmjbnqfstjdijoj2044]

Non, c'est juste l'accent québécois (l'accent canadien français)

[@JoseAntonio-tt2mb]

@@xjmmjbnqfstjdijoj2044em quebec eles falam frances e ingles?

[@alexlim6300]

​@@JoseAntonio-tt2mbsim a gente fala os dois.

[@Carlos-rc7hx]

Tots els nois parlen les llegues amb molt sotaques estrangers , el noi que parla català té sotaque molt marcat , el que parla espanyol parlar amb un accent molt barrejat potse anglès o francés

[@steph7793]

As a French speaker from France who never learnt any other Romance language, very difficult to understand spoken Catalan there. Surprisingly misleaded by the fact that Catalan is a bit more like french, ending words without an "o" or an "a" like in Italian or Spanish, but this similarity threw me off! Plus a few false friends not helping. Way more difficult than Spanish because of the greater exposure we have with it.

[@DrWhom]

Misled

[@patolt1628]

Amusant : ma mère était Catalane et mon père Français mais polyglotte de sorte que mes parents parlaient Catalan entre eux. La moitié de ma famille vivait en Catalogne espagnole, l'autre moitié en France et moi outre-mer ... C'est compliqué mais peu importe : je comprenais évidemment le Catalan mais je le parlais très peu. En revanche j'ai étudié l'Espagnol au collège et c'était un cauchemar : pour moi c'est l'Espagnol qui était beaucoup plus difficile et bourré de faux-amis. En fait je n'ai jamais vraiment été capable de le parler, j'y suis presque hermétique (pourtant j'ai regardé Narcos 😉) alors que l'Italien, que je n'ai jamais appris, m'est beaucoup plus accessible en compréhension par le Français et le Catalan justement. Tout est relatif ...

[@steph7793]

​@@patolt1628 Ah toute proportion gardée c'est l'inverse pour toi alors. Ta familiarité est de base avec le catalan et tu as galéré pour l'espagnol. Ton cerveau était préparé pour le catalan et l'approche de l'espagnol a dû te perturber j'imagine ! :) L'italien effectivement je pense qu'objectivement c'est la langue voisine la plus accessible pour nous francophones. Pour ma part soyons raisonnable c'est plus grâce à la popularité de l'espagnol que je reconnais quelques tournures usuelles! Puis quelques voyages en amsud m'ont plus familiarisé un peu plus (toujours sans le parler hein!), et dans la vidéo le catalan m'est difficile à comprendre à l'oral sans regarder le sous-titre (sinon easy). Et pareil lors de mes incursions en catalogne, honnêtement je pigeais peu au catalan parlé alors que l'espagnol ça allait mieux. Peut-être qu'en catalogne française avec une intonation plus familière ça passerait mieux j'imagine...

[@patolt1628]

@@steph7793 Oui, je n'ai pas fait non plus les efforts suffisants sans doute mais j'ai vraiment galéré en Espagnol puis j'ai abandonné au profit de l'Anglais que je préférais et que j'ai beaucoup pratiqué professionnellement. En Catalogne française l'intonation est probablement plus abordable, c'est sûr mais ... c'est en gros la même langue. Cela dit ce n'est plus beaucoup pratiqué de ce côté-ci de la frontière et la Catalogne française c'est assez petit. Enfin, franchement, vu le nombre de locuteurs de Catalan dans le monde ... il vaut clairement mieux apprendre l'Espagnol

[@muchanchoasado73]

Argentina es el único país que le dice matafuego al extintor?

[@alberthernandez2611]

El catalan es muy parecido al espanol pero el frances apenas logro captar alguna palabra clave pero no se hacerca para nada al espanol

[@JoseAntonio-tt2mb]

Em português sussurrar .

[@steph7793]

In French we have both "chuchoter" as responded in the video - speaking at low volume in general - and "susurrer" - whispering something but rather targeted at someone's ear in particular - but overall they are quite similar.

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

Os italianos podem entender catalão !!

[@alexzambrano8441]

The guy who speaks French kind of looks like an AI 😶

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

Um italiano pode entender catalão ?

[@_marcobaez]

Io pensa que si

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

@@_marcobaez pode ser

[@polliceverso2455]

Io direi assolutamente sì, ho capito tutto. Però va detto che il ragazzo catalano parlava molto lentamente e scandiva molto bene le parole

[@stephanobarbosa5805]

@@polliceverso2455 palavras em catalão fáceis para os italófonos (italianos e suíços).... paraula, arribar, demà, taula, forquilla, così, menjar, dona, trobar, blau, parlar, mancar, cercar, tallar

[@antoni-olafsabater9729]

@@stephanobarbosa5805 E muitas mais !!!

[@hannahrobertson2947]

JE DEAD ÇA

[@IvanPlechkov]

очень трудно понимать что-то на каталанского языка.

[@trololotrololoeff9559]

I'm Ukrainian and understand nothing from these languages 😊 But, my favourite languages is: Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese and Romanian🎉

[@trololotrololoeff9559]

@@Jaze09 no but i like this language, o-zone band my favourite)

[@trololotrololoeff9559]

@@Jaze09 i like all song O-zone, Dragostea din tei too

[@_marcobaez]

@@Jaze09😂😂😂👍

[@_marcobaez]

@@trololotrololoeff9559NUMA NUMA YEI NUMA NUMA NUMA YEIII

[@Carlos-rc7hx]

Portugués suena muy ruso

[@zedda_iv6910]

Tros de cuyò

[@user-xq5tk1cg3o]

🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺❤❤❤❤

[@GustavoCorra]

El frances habla rapido para que no se lo entienda. Tipico de la mala intencion linguistica de los franco parlantes-

[@oliveranderson7264]

C'est de la paranoïa. Comme tu peux voir le catalanophone n'a eu aucune difficulté pour comprendre le francophone.

[@lainfain7329]

Больно и обидно видеть украинский флаг в шапке вашего канала Мы не враги, но почему вы себе это позволяете? Мы все друзья и братья, к чему этот флаг

[@Joel-ej2he]

Con todo el respeto, en México muchas personas hablan un español algo desvirtuado e incorrecto, en ciertos casos confunden palabras o las cambian, y por el hecho de ser el país con mas hispanoparlantes en número la RAE lo acepta. Es una pena para nuestro querido idioma que esto ocurra. En el caso de extinguidor, era extintor, ya que extinguidor es el líquido o sustancia que se encuentra dentro del extintor, no es lo mismo. Un saludo

[@_marcobaez]

Ehh dime más ejemplos, de hecho yo lo dije incorrecto porque se me pegó el spanglish de vivir en EUA (extinguisher). PERO, normalmente hablamos normal y bien. Lo único que no usamos es vosotros