LIVING

IVAN COUFAL
Language may be a barrier to many things but love obviously isn’t one of them. When Ivan Coufal first met his Catalan wife, Anna Dalmau, 17 years ago, the fact that they didn’t share a common language was no impediment to romance. Ivan was born in what was then Czechoslovakia, but moved to South Africa when he was four. Trained as an engineer but now in charge of the Empuriabrava Skydive centre on the Costa Brava, Ivan grew up in a multi-lingual environment in South Africa: he spoke Czech at home with his parents and English and Afrikaans to his friends at school.

Now Ivan and Anna are able to converse happily to each other in either Castilian or English, while with their children, Ivan speaks in English and Anna in Catalan.

Ivan said that rather than being confusing for them, the two youngsters, aged nine and seven, are able to shift seamlessly between languages. The fact they also hear Castilian spoken at home and watch some Spanish television means they already have a good grasp of a third language as well.

“Anna and I speak to each other in Castilian, but I speak to the children in English and she speaks Catalan to them,” he said. “They switch between languages with no problems at all. We also have lots of friends from Madrid and Valencia who come to stay, so the children have to make the effort to speak Castilian as well. I think it’s a huge advantage for them, especially as English is the language that we all have to speak.”

RAQUEL DURAN
Someone who has no doubts about the benefits of having a foreign parent is Raquel Duran, a 20-year-old history student at Girona University. She has an English father and a Spanish mother and feels she has gained not only linguistically but also culturally by having grown up with exposure to two different worlds. While Raquel definitely prefers Catalan sun to English rain, and isn’t a fan of the UK’s pub culture, Britain doesn’t feel like a foreign country to her.

“When I was a kid we used to spend every Christmas with my English grandparents and family, then they came to visit us in the summer,” she said. “Now I am planning to carry on my studies at university in England. For me it’s an easy adjustment to fit in there, although it does take me a little time to get used to the accent in Newcastle where my grandparents and cousin live—they speak so quickly.”

At home, Raquel speaks English with her dad, who owns a language school in Banyoles, and Catalan with her mum. When they speak together as a family it is either in Castilian or Catalan depending upon the situation.

As well as taking classes with her dad, Raquel said she improved her English by reading, a pastime that received a kick-start from the most unlikeliest of cultural sources—The Beano comic.

“I am a good reader and have read a lot since I was a kid. I started off with reading The Beano because my grandmother used to post one to me every month,” she said. “That really helped to improve my English.”

It is clear that Raquel’s friends, who have had to study hard to learn English, would like to have had her upbringing: “They envy me because I can speak English so well but didn’t have to make any effort. For that reason, I would speak to my kids in English and Catalan. Sometimes people think children get confused by having to deal with different languages but they don’t—I am proof of that. Being exposed to different languages is a very rich experience. It’s not just a new language but a new world.”

Despite her ties with England, though, Raquel said the fact that she grew up in Catalunya has given her a stronger affiliation for the place.

“I do feel a connection with England but I am from here,” she said. “If people are speaking badly about England I will stick up for it. But if you ask me I would always say I was Catalan.”