[franciscop]

Just my experience as an occasional visitor to BCN, lots of people will answer in Catalan when you talk to them in Spanish to make a point, but then in the tourist areas everyone speaks English. Not BS, maybe an isolated experience but that was my experience over there (and I only visited tourist-y spots, so there's a strong bias ofc). I'm not saying they don't know how to speak Spanish, I'm saying many people won't to make a point.

[capableweb]

Based on a couple of occasions I've been in Barcelona and around Catalunya, people always answered me in Spanish (both in tourist and non-tourist locations) when I was in Barcelona and surrounding areas, while when I visited Lleida and Vic (and surrounding areas), they always answered me in Catalan (and one time even got visibly angry when I couldn't reply to them in Catalan, only in Spanish).

So my anecdote would be that generally Barcelona seems to be fine with Spanish (and walking around the city I heard a lot more Spanish than both English and Catalan) while areas up north/west seems to almost require you to speak in Catalan.

[GekkePrutser]

Makes sense too as Barcelona is aan international city and has many immigrants from Latin America. And many people from other parts of Spain live here too.

In the rural area that's much less except for the migrant farm workers

[mejutoco]

As a bilingual Spanish-catalan speaker this does not match my experience at all. I was raised in Barcelona and approach people in either language and I can remember maybe 2 occasions were sbdy demanded to be spoken in one specific language. You can see this a lot in groups of friends where people switch languages all the time. It is a beautiful thing to see.