WIKITONGUES: Pau speaking French, Lithuanian, Italian, English, Spanish, and Catalan

This video was submitted by Pau Mateo from Oviedo, Spain, where he lives and studies. Pau's native language is Catalan, having learned Lithuanian abroad, Italian with his partner, and English, French, and Spanish in school. Catalan is spoken by as many as 9 million people, primarily in the Spanish regions of Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands, as well as by communities in France and Italy. It is also the national language of Andorra.

Good evening everyone! My name is Pau.

I'm Spanish.

This video, in this video,

I don't really know what to say.

I would like to talk about

the languages that I speak,

and why I speak them.

So, I can speak a bit of French.

I know that my grammar,

and that my pronunciation,

is not very good.

I can speak a bit

because I took it in school for 6 years,

but I didn't speak it,

and that's why my French isn't

(how do you say it?) very fluid,

if you can say that in French.

So, yeah.

That's all that

I'd like to say in French,

and... good.

Um, well, now, like starting with the,

let's say, three languages

that I feel most comfortable with,

somehow, I started with the language

that I feel least comfortable with

(speaking with/in/in with/in, OK!),

that was French, because I...

as I said, I can't really not...

I cannot really practise with anyone,

and then Lithuanian –

I can hold a conversation

I can somehow speak about it

I mean, I can speak really good

about medical terms

because the Lithuanian that I was learning

was, like,

more oriented into medical world,

and then, Italian?

I feel really, really comfortable speaking

because, well, I can understand it

almost, like, 95% of what they tell me.

Well, it really depends on what accent,

what dialect.

I mean, if they talk to me in one dialect

then I am totally lost.

It depends. For example,

for me to understand southern people

of Italy, it's more complicated

than English.

Well, I learned English in school.

Spain? We're... Spanish people?

We're not really famous for having

a really good English.

This is unfortunately one reality,

and, well, me?

I really improved my English

when I moved to Lithuania,

when I was 19 years old,

because, I mean,

I had this very strong Spanish accent,

but then I was, like, so focused

on trying to get a very neutral accent.

I mean, kind of like...

I mean, to tell the truth,

I was a bit ashamed of my accent

because I thought that

if you have a Spanish accent

then it's like something bad,

then it's something not interesting,

then, something that sounds bad

to the other people.

Then, I learned that

it was something attractive

or interesting for other people

from other countries, other nationalities,

and... but somehow,

I tried to hide the fact

that I was Spanish

when I was speaking English.

I mean, I tried to really focus on

the thing that, in Spain, we do.

For example, we don't say "Spain",

we say "Espain",

so I was trying to really focus on

these things.

I think that speaking English is

a really useful thing,

to tell the truth.

I mean, it has opened the doors of life,

of things so much to me, and

I'm really grateful that I can

hold conversations in English,

I can write, I can read,

I can watch movies,

I can basically live in English,

so I'm really, really grateful for that.