As some who speaks/reads/writes French Fluently, and can understand Spanish (but speak poorly)...I can read Catalan to the point of getting a jist of what the paragraph is a about...

but I've never heard Catalan spoken before...my question is...in relality, is spoken Catalan more like French or more like Spanish ???

It has a big influence from both languages. You should be able to understand it more or less while reading it, because the vocabulary is similar to french or spanish (or by the way, to any lathyn language).

Understanding it spoken is somewhat more difficult. Think it is a completely different language, so you will have the same difficulties as if you were trying to understand italian.

Fernando

Radio Nacional de España broadcasts a channel in Català(Ràdio 4). You can listen on-line at
http://www.rne.es/index.htm

Thanks

Here’s my cut on it.

A long time ago I visited my company’s factory in Barcelona.

In the waiting room they had the company creed on two large plaques. One was in Spanish (which I speak), the other was Catalan (which I don’t speak). As I had some time on my hands I studied each.

I would probably be assaulted in Barcelona for saying this but this is what I concluded from this quick non-academic study, Catalan is Spanish with about 10%+ French thrown in.

Interestingly most Spaniards (non-Basque, non-Catalan, non-Valencian) I’ve shared this observation with, totally agree.

Obviously this is a touchy subject.

Put a soup spoon full of peanut butter in your mouth and try to speak spanish, that's about the same thing as speaking in catalan.

As many times as I travel to barcelona, I swear I don't understand a freaking word of what they are saying to me in catalan.