ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Linguistic features of Spanish as spoken by Catalan speakers

Okay kiddo, so you know how people in different parts of the world speak different languages, right? And sometimes, even if they speak the same language, they might have a special way of saying things that's a little different depending on where they're from.

Well, in a place called Catalonia, which is in the north east part of Spain, people speak a language called Catalan. But a lot of people there also know how to speak Spanish, which is the main language of the whole country.

When these people speak Spanish, they might sound a little different than someone from another part of Spain who speaks Spanish because they use some special words and sounds that are more common in Catalan.

For example, in regular Spanish, the letter "z" is usually pronounced like the letter "s". But in Catalan, they pronounce it more like the letter "th" in English. So when someone from Catalonia is speaking Spanish, they might say "barthelona" instead of "Barcelona".

Another thing that's different is that they might use different words to describe things than someone from another part of Spain. For example, in regular Spanish, you would say "la playa" to mean "the beach". But in Catalan, they say "la platja". So someone from Catalonia might also say "la platja" when speaking Spanish instead of "la playa".

So basically, because people in Catalonia also speak Catalan, which is a different language than Spanish, they might use some of the sounds and words from Catalan when they're speaking Spanish. This makes their Spanish sound a little different than the Spanish spoken in other parts of Spain, but it's still Spanish!