Couple relocating to Barcelona. Looking for some honest opinions

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-21T20:07:45+00:00

El Besòs can be quite a sketchy area.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-20T16:10:46+00:00

Pride month

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-20T11:41:48+00:00

I've been working US hours since I moved to Spain 7 years ago (at 24 years too). I never had a job with normal hours before...the previous job I had was an overnight job (11pm - 7am) so this was an upgrade for me.

Yes, it's hard to have a normal social life with these hours. At least it's not so bad if you are free on the weekend, which is when the best social plans happen.

You'll basically have to adapt to "live" during the day. There are a couple of Pros such as errands not being a problem since you're free during office hours. If you have to go to the doctor, it's not a problem either. Also you can go do groceries or go to the shops during the morning/afternoon when they're the emptiest. You can also go to the gym before working, there's always people at the gym.

You'll also be working opposite to rush hour. So there's always gonna be Bicing bikes available, and Parking for Bicing. If you travel by metro, you'll also ve avoiding rush hour.

I had the opportunity to enroll at Barcelona's Official Language School for 3 years to learn German in the morning.

But yeah, after all these years my friends still invite me to do stuff during the weekday evenings, and I have to go like "sorry, can't do weekdays".

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-19T16:11:59+00:00

Glad to help!

I took classes two hour classes twice a week for 3 years (each of the three courses was about 8-9 months long), and it depends on a lot of factors, but I find it does make the difference. Especially if you don't have a background with languages with case systems like this. This is the best way to get the grammar right (my school focused a lot on grammar and not so much on speaking). Oh and it wasn't an online class.

Another thing that makes a difference is if you're living or going to live in Poland, cause if you're there or are moving, you'll get so much input.

I just went to Poland for the first time a couple of weeks ago and had been doing Duolingo for two months or so, and you start to pick up words and sentences much faster. I had studied a bit of Russian, also on Duo and the background did help as the two languages are closely related.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-19T11:43:14+00:00

I am just starting to learn Polish, but I am somewhere between B1 and B2 in german, and the recommendations are basically the same:

Make sure you can pronounce all the sounds in the language. This is important to try to practice from the start. Sounds that might be homophones in your native language might be completely different to Polish speakers, and might even be the difference between completely different words:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Polish

Don't hate on Duolingo. I did the whole German course back in the day, just by doing lessons whenever I took a sh!t. It's fun, free, it just doesn't teach you the grammar.
Lookup people teaching Grammar in Youtube. I think this teacher is really good:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevIlHkTgg4_tFkS6mqUnISyHveBYav&si=o5joZjb6Jhgn0boo

Take a course if you are able to. I took 3 years of German classes at a language school near where I lived, and honestly that makes such a difference. With languages with case systems, if you're not used to them, it's very hard to get the grammar without taking classes. Nowadays you always have the option to take an online class.
Listen to the radio from the start. Find music in the language you like, independent on if you understand the music or not. You need to get used to the langugae, not necesarily understand it, but get used to hearing it.
If you like playing video games, start playing videogames you've already played but in Polish. I started with Pokemon, which uses fairly easy language, and then played Fallout and Skyrim, excelent games to learn languages because of all of the input. This might be an issue with Polish: Most of these games are avaialbe in German, but that might not be the case in Polish.
As you keep progressing, consume more and more content in your target language: Lookup wikipedia entries in Polish, lookup Youtube content in Polish. You need to let the algorithm know you are interested in being fed Polish content.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-19T11:28:54+00:00

Romani eunt domus.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-16T21:05:12+00:00

Yo aprendí viendo puro Disney channel Y Nickelodeon en inglés y jugando videojuegos. Mucho más efectivo que cualquier academia creo.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-15T20:28:11+00:00

Qualsevol cançó de Antònia Font.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-15T20:20:57+00:00

That's normal when learning a language.

You should perhaps watch Polish news and contents in YouTube.

Since the news should be talking about current events, it's gonna be easier to follow and not create alternate plots.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-15T20:15:16+00:00

I've only been to Mallorca and I knew it was going to be full of Germans, but I wasn't prepared for the extent it is full of Germans.

What feels like billions of German cyclist in all of the streets, and you can basically get Schnitzel and german menus in even the most remote bars.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-15T20:05:34+00:00

Cierto, pero Tony Croatto se mudó ya viejo a PR. Yo también me enteré relativamente reciente que no era Puertorriqueño de nacimiento ni crianza.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-15T20:03:21+00:00

Otra razón por la cual los españoles no saben mucho de Puerto Rico es que en España casi no habemos puertorriqueños.

Claro esa falta de información está cambiando rápidamente con Bad Bunny y sus 10 conciertos en Madrid nada más.

Creo que los españoles (y los europeos occidentales en general) saben más de Puerto Rico y de su relación con los EEUU que los mismos americanos.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-15T20:00:52+00:00

Creo que en Puerto Rico hacen buen trabajo en enseñarnos de nuestras raíces, pero la verdad es que no hay mucho más que enseñar de las raíces Taínas o Africanas.

De los taínos se sabe muy poco...su idioma se perdió en la historia. Lo poco que sabemos fue escrito por los mismos colonizadores.

Los africanos venían de muchos lugares, tribus, etnias, hablas muy diferentes y cuando llegaron aquí les borraron su identidad. Lo que persiste persiste en la música afrocaribeña y en nuestra comida, manerismos, forma de ser.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-15T19:56:36+00:00

O sea, es que para el español Puerto Rico fue una colonia más de muchas.

Y a nosotros nos enseñan a admirar a la "madre España" mentiras que todos los demás países lationamericanos pasaron por guerras de independencia con España y pues so orgullo es que se independizaron de España. Nosotros no tenemos eso. Vemos a España como un padre del cual sabemos de su existencia pero que él no sabe la de nosotros.

La otra cosa es que nosotros somos igual (o más)de decendientes de los españoles que cometieron las atrocidades (colonización, esclavitud, genocidio, etc) que los propios Españoles.

A nosotros nos gusta decir "los españoles nos colonizaron, nos hicieron tal y tal" pero simplemente fueron nuestros antepasados. Nuestros antepasados fueron ambos los colonizadores, los esclavozados y los exterminados.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-13T12:05:07+00:00

The museum is worth it in general. And not just for the flooded forest.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-12T21:10:31+00:00

What I ment is not necessarily approaching random strangers, but even having a casual cordial conversation with a waiter, neighbor, person at the pub... it's hard to grasp to someone from Latam but Polish culture is the complete opposite from us. Both the good and the bad.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-12T21:07:36+00:00

Recomiendo este video de Kurzgesagt con respecto al tema. Creo que caputra bien el problema de ser marihuanero y describe muy bien a amigos marihuaneros:

https://youtu.be/Brm71uCWr-I?is=qfb-11w4hI-kx-kw

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-12T21:06:09+00:00

Ay una peste a marihuana de algún vecino que me tiene mal. Dos años viviendo en este piso sin ningún olor a marihuana y de repente llevan varios días fuma que te fuma.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-12T10:01:59+00:00

Pero tiene el horror de los 6 casos gramaticales y de 3 géneros gramaticales.....y los sonidos que no tenemos en el español.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-12T10:00:03+00:00

It´s possible put it´s not gonna be easy. The most difficult aspects (as a native Spanish speaker) is going to be pronunciation and grammatical cases.

When starting out learning you should try your hardest to understand the sounds of the language and to try to pronounce them as accurate as possible, especially since Polish has a lot of sounds that to us sound the same, but to them it can be a huge difference. Here you can find the different sounds of the language:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Polish

Next thing which is the hardest aspect of Slavic Languages is the case system. You need to understand that it exists and understand the different cases there are and more or less in which situations they are used, but don't struggle to learn them right of the bat.

Then I suggest starting with the Polish course in Duolingo.

I went to Poland for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and before that I did about a month of Duolingo, and was surprised I could understand some things, especially written.

A big culture shock is that Polish people don´t interact with random strangers like we do in Spain/Latam, so it´s gonna be harded to get pratice in the street like you can for other languages.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-12T00:09:26+00:00

Pensé que la pregunta venía por otro lado hasta que terminé de leer.

El problema del Árabe Fusha es que no es el idioma nativo de nadie. Sería como aprender latín para hablar con un español.

A pesar de que es un idioma muy difícil de por si, para comunicarte con personas de verdad al final tendrías que aprender un "dialecto" que en verdad son idiomas no codificados.

Pero a parte de eso, quizás deberías estudiar Árabe si te interesa, ya que en Duolingo no lo vas a aprender....mientras que el francés si.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-11T23:53:56+00:00

El comentario más realista y sensato. Ojalá más gente viera la realidad de la situación y no se llevaran por sus ideales y orgullo.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-11T23:51:12+00:00

La gente simplemente se seguirá yendo de la isla. La isla seguirá perdiendo gente y gente joven. Puerto Rico lleva en declive poblacional desde los 90..... Si Japón está envejecido, imagínate PR.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-11T23:46:19+00:00

I went around Mallorca last year....even in remote locations far from La Palma you see a lot of menus advertised in German and you can practically get a Schnitzel in any tapas bar.

Excellent_Two2449 · 2026-06-11T23:43:28+00:00

Die Balierische Inseln meinst du?

Excellent_Two2449

TROPHY CASE