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Ayuntamiento and Generalitat double investment to teach Catalan in Barcelona
Learning Catalan in Barcelona will become much easier starting in the 2026-2027 academic year. The Ayuntamiento and the Generalitat have reached an agreement that will create more than 5,000 new annual places for Catalan courses aimed at adults, a measure intended to meet the strong increase in demand seen across the city in recent years.
The reinforcement will come with more teaching staff and more public investment. The Centre de Normalització Lingüística de Barcelona will add 23 new professionals and the municipal contribution to the Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística will rise from 1.9 to more than 3 million euros a year. The aim is to reduce waiting lists and make it easier for more people to access classes in every district.
Demand for Catalan courses has grown especially among new residents, international workers and people seeking to improve employment opportunities or integrate more easily into everyday life in Barcelona. In many neighbourhoods, getting a place had become a race against time because of the lack of sufficient provision.
The plan already began to accelerate during 2025 with new teaching appointments and courses spread throughout the city. Districts such as Ciutat Vella, Sant Martí and Nou Barris concentrated an important part of the effort, precisely because they are areas where very diverse profiles coexist and where learning the language has a more direct impact on daily integration.
The agreement will also make it possible to extend support to bodies and associations that organise courses outside the traditional circuit. The idea is to make timetables, formats and access points more flexible in order to adapt Catalan learning to a city where working patterns and social diversity make it increasingly difficult to follow rigid training models.
Beyond the classroom, the political and social aim is to strengthen the real presence of Catalan in everyday life. The council wants to extend its use in spaces such as sport, educational leisure, youth activities and cultural projects linked to neighbourhoods and nursery schools.
Barcelona has spent years trying to balance its international character with the protection and promotion of Catalan as a language of social use. The growth of the foreign population, tourism and demographic changes have profoundly transformed the city’s linguistic reality. With this new impetus, the authorities seek to ensure that learning Catalan ceases to be an access barrier and becomes a natural part of urban life in Barcelona.