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Two languages in one city, described rather than settled
Catalan is a Romance language with around ten million speakers, co-official in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and — under the name Valencian — the Valencian Community, and also the sole official language of Andorra. It is not a dialect of Spanish and not a dialect of French; it developed separately from Latin and is closest to Occitan. Its literature runs continuously from the medieval period, and it was suppressed under the Franco dictatorship and then rebuilt after 1975. The everyday picture in Catalonia is genuinely bilingual and the balance varies by place and generation. Surveys by the Generalitat suggest that nearly everybody understands Catalan, a large majority can speak it, roughly a third use it as their habitual language and rather more than that use Castilian — with Catalan stronger in smaller towns and inland, and Castilian stronger in metropolitan Barcelona. Most people switch between the two several times a day without remarking on it, which is what the bookseller means by hábito. Schooling is the part that is actively contested, and it deserves a plain statement rather than a position. The Catalan model is linguistic immersion: Catalan is the normal language of instruction, with Castilian taught as a subject. Supporters argue this is what has kept Catalan viable and that pupils leave fully competent in both, which attainment data broadly supports. Opponents argue that Castilian-speaking families have a right to instruction in their own language, and Spanish courts have ruled repeatedly on whether a minimum proportion of teaching must be in Castilian. That litigation is ongoing and this course has no view on it. What a learner should know is that the subject is live, that it is argued about in good faith on both sides, and that it is not a good opening topic with somebody you have just met. What does work, and works everywhere in the four bilingual regions, is the approach lesson 67 set out. Use castellano rather than español. Learn a greeting — bon dia, gràcies, adéu. Ask how to say things. And notice which language somebody addresses you in and answer in whichever you can: nobody in Barcelona will be offended that you replied in Castilian, and nobody will fail to notice if you tried the other one first.