101–110 of 158 posts
The city is good but I can't get how people live there with such low salaries (20K-45K). This is in tech. I don't want to think about what people make in other areas (humanities?)...
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> I'm from Spain and have lived in Barcelona without speaking Catalan at all. Ok, but this advice is not useful to the second-language learner. To become fluent one needs immersion, and learning two similar languages at once is going to slow that down a lot. Not to mention a business trip to Mexico City or Lima, not helpful. Similar to advising a Chinese person to study English in Edinburgh or the Netherlands, while…
You do know they speak in English in Scotland, right?
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> I'm from Spain and have lived in Barcelona without speaking Catalan at all. Ok, but this advice is not useful to the second-language learner. To become fluent one needs immersion, and learning two similar languages at once is going to slow that down a lot. Not to mention a business trip to Mexico City or Lima, not helpful. Similar to advising a Chinese person to study English in Edinburgh or the Netherlands, while…
This is an exact metaphor. Should I go to Scotland if my main goal were to learn english? Is a beautiful place, no doubt about it, and totally worth it to pay a visit, but there are easier ways.
Disclaimer: I'm from Madrid and I live in Madrid right now. I've created 3 startups. I've spent monts or weeks working from San Francisco, New York, London and Barcelona. My companies have been invested by Atomico, Idinvest, PointNine, 500 Startups Many people ask me why I haven't moved permanently elsewhere. The answer is simple: quality of live. It's really hard to get the quality of life that we have in Spain (fre…
I pay 378 euros a month as an automono and I don't have paro.
4.5k a year for health insurance it better be a damn good one.
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Absolute number wise, it's probably hard to beat the united states. Life quality wise, probably that changes. I make well above the ranges you were mentioning in the US, and still feel poor in comparison :) If your end game is to come back to USA after 2-3 years, it might be ok. But if you want to come back after 20-30 years, you might be losing on quite a lot of income. That assumes, you know, you want to work as an…
Also, universal medical coverage in Spain covers you and all your family members, without additional cost. E.g. if you're married and having 4 kids, all 6 people would be 100% covered by the public health insurance. E.g. If you have a child with problems requiring medical treatments costing 2 millions of USD (e.g. unlimited surgeries, unlimited hospital time, unlimited treatment), it would be covered.
> will likely involve a pay cut in absolute terms. In absolute terms, but take in mind that life in Spain can be much less expensive than living in Berlin or Paris. It depends on the area and the job. > I'm currently functional in Spanish but I have a long way to go until fluency. That's one of my goals in moving to Spain Madrid is the right option then. Has worst climate with more hot in summer and colder in winter,…
I wouldn't discourage the OP like that. Most of Barcelona's huge immigrant population -- Romanian, Bulgarian, Pakistani, etc. -- never learns Catalan even after two decades living there. They manage perfectly fine without Catalan, and become proficient in Castilian instead. (Of course, their children learn Catalan as they go through the local school system.)
Of course, I think it would be rude for a white collar person like the OP to move to Barcelona and never learn Catalan, but he could certainly move there and get by with Castilian for the first several months.
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Also, universal medical coverage in Spain covers you and all your family members, without additional cost. E.g. if you're married and having 4 kids, all 6 people would be 100% covered by the public health insurance. E.g. If you have a child with problems requiring medical treatments costing 2 millions of USD (e.g. unlimited surgeries, unlimited hospital time, unlimited treatment), it would be covered.
My question: what happens if you lose your job as a foreign worker (say, too sick to keep working)? The family scenarios are all also covered by my US employee-based coverage, with a small-compared-to-the-salary-numbers out-of-pocket annual max, but in the US where you can get screwed is if you get too sick to work.
As you can see on this article, people from Barcelona are sometimes a little chauvinist with their loved city so I want to clear some things said. Specifically on my 20 years of experience with engineers of both cities (and working in Barcelona sometimes, even tough I'm from Madrid) I've seen more or less the same ranges of English capabilities from engineers of both cities. It's true that people in Barcelona are more fluent in general in English, but with engineers and young people the level is about the same.
Engineers in startups and normal companies in Madrid doesn't wear suits. Only consultants, bank workers and similar do in my experience (also in Barcelona). Currently school and high school in Madrid is bilingual.
Somebody said that you can get a flat in downtown Barcelona for 800€. Thats pretty unrealized, only for very small or really crappy flats. 1200-1500 is more realistic. Madrid is about the same.
Most catalans won't have any problem speaking Spanish with a foreigner. Some will avoid speaking spanish with a Spaniard (not urban legend, happened to me more than once) as a way to assert their nationalism. But there are assholes everywhere on any city.
People in Barcelona is probably more warm and open and given to small talk. People in Madrid have this castillian character that is something between laconic/shy/cool that could sound like unfriendly but it really isn't.
The best climate for you will depend a lot on your preference to humid/dry climates. Barcelona is humid (not Florida level but almost) and Madrid is VERY dry. The temperatures are more extreme in Madrid (-5/40C are usually the extreme ranges in winter/summer) and Barcelona is could be 8/35 but being humid Barcelona 35 feel hotter than Madrid 40 since your body will transpire worse on an humid climate, but all working places and public transportation will have AC om both cities, so it really depends on what your body is accustomed to.
The startup scene is very healthy in both cities, specially on the latest years where investors are moving money outside of the broken housing market (In working on a startup in Madrid right now).
Other than that both are great cities with a lot of culture and night life and surely you'll enjoy both.
In Berlin there are beaches but of course they are not comparable to south (actually they have a different taste) But at least now I can afford a couple of times per year going to BCN and enjoy the city more than I used to. Barcelona was like honeymoon for me. In the beginning it was so good but once I was there for a couple of years everything lost its taste.
I was fluent in Catalan and Spanish from day 0 (well Catalan came a bit later) and have never been in expat bubble. I know that expat community enjoys more. But when you are involved in the local community you see that in Spain economical and political issues make people unhappy there. They won't say you that because even they can't recognize how much they are complaining about their life. This sucked my energy. Yes, weather is nice and all those mediterrean stuff looks so interesting but you can't eat sun and sand. I was personally looking for being productive but unfortunately Spain was not somewhere you can build stuff like you can do in the north. When I realized that I was wasting one of my most productive years, I simply moved on. If not I would have regretted 30 years later.
I think until you are 30 you should have lived there, definetely one of the best places to be young but if you want to have a good future, good career etc. you'll need to spend the rest of your life in a more developed economy of Europe, of course then you can come and buy your house in Costa Brava and die there once you are retired,
Hi there, Native from Catalonia here. Specifically, from Barcelona. First of all, let's talk about the language because I see many concerning posts in this thread. Anyone that tells you that you won't be able to speak Spanish in Barcelona is highly misinformed to say the least. I've worked with people from around the Spain without any issue, either for them or for me. No issue either when you visit the city, go to re…
That said, it's the only city in the world I want to live in. I came here for a month in 2002 and never wanted to leave.