Dear student,
You will soon be arriving at the University of Barcelona to continue your studies in the school or faculty that you have chosen. We would like to welcome you and tell you about some aspects of language use at the UB.
Catalan is the UB’s institutional language and also the native language of Catalonia, while Catalan and Spanish are the UB’s official languages. Catalan and Spanish belong to the family of Romance languages. The common ground shared by Romance languages means that in a short space of time students who know one of them can easily acquire the skills they need to understand classes taught in another language in this family.
The more formal type of scientific or technical language used in teaching is even easier to understand. Learning Catalan will help you to become more involved in academic life and build stronger bonds with your classmates, the city and its social and cultural environment. We encourage you to do this!
To make it easier for you to learn Catalan, the UB offers all its exchange students a series of language and cultural resources. First, for a nominal fee you can sign up to do a basic level Catalan course (A1) that will give you the basic listening and reading skills you need to attend your courses in your subject area in Catalan. And for the next semester, we recommend the following intensive courses:
− From 2 to 12 September, from Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Face-to-face course.
− From 2 to 12 September, from Monday to Friday, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Face-to-face course.
− From 16 to 26 September, from Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Face-to-face course.
− From 16 to 26 September, from Monday to Friday, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Face-to-face course.
− From 30 September to 30 October, Tuesday and Thursday, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. On line.
You can enrol online at ub.edu/sl/form. At ub.edu/sl/cursos you can find other timetables and levels to continue studying Catalan beyond A1. Remember that if you pass A1 you can study the A2 level totally free.
If you want to practise speaking Catalan in an informal context, make friends and discover the culture of Catalonia, we recommend that you join CATclub (ub.edu/llengua/catclub), a community of international and local students who meet once a week to do cultural activities. You can also join the Language Exchange Service (ub.edu/llengua/borsa), who will find you your very own ‘language partner’!
All these activities are complementary and are an opportunity that the UB offers during your stay. You can find more information about these and other resources at ub.edu/llengua/acollida, on the interuniversity website intercat.cat and at the site Study Catalan before arriving in Catalonia
If you want to study Spanish, Hispanic Studies offers courses at eh.ub.edu. If you are interested in studying other languages, see the course offering of the School of Modern Languages at eim.ub.edu.
Welcome to the University of Barcelona!
Montserrat Yepes Baldó
Vice Dean for Academic and Student Affairs of Universitat de Barcelona
Barcelona, July 2025
