[JaumeGreen]

FYI naming it Catalan Spanish would be akin to naming Welsh as Welsh English. Catalan and Spanish (also known as Castilian) are two different languages, like French and Italian.

So it's normal that you didn't understand much, as even it having some words that are similar the tonalities and some of the constructs are very different.

And they might have been speaking in Balearic, which is a Catalan dialect, and that's sometimes even harder to understand.

[xanderlewis]

I don’t think it is akin; Welsh is almost completely different to English with only a few modern words in common. Just try reading some Welsh as an English speaker. It’s unintelligible.

Catalan is very much a Latinate language, and anyone who speaks Spanish or Italian or French (or even English) can guess the meaning of a lot of words and understand the grammar quite easily.

[Freak_NL]

So by your logic those would be properly called Italian Spanish and French Spanish?

[apparent]

I have never heard it claimed that English speakers can guess the meaning of a lot of Catalan words. Is this a common sentiment?

[kiliancs]

It is akin in that the same sort of mistaken political intrusion into linguistics was being made.