Catalan language seen as key for career growth despite daily use declining

Catalan is seen as important for professional growth by 82.4% of people in Catalonia, according to the 2025 InformeCAT by Plataforma per la Llengua. However, daily use is falling, especially among foreign-born residents, with only 8.6% speaking Catalan regularly and 72.9% using Spanish.

The number of people who identify as bilingual, between 2018 and 2023, rose by 7.7 points, while those who identify only with Catalan fell by 6.3 points.

People in Catalonia, 62.4%, believe the Catalan language and culture are at risk. Yet nearly a million people born outside the region say they haven’t had enough chances to learn the language.

According to the study, 36.5% of Catalan speakers say they rarely or never speak Catalan in shops. Nearly 70% say they’ve had to speak Spanish when visiting a doctor and cases of linguistic discrimination have increased sevenfold between 2019 and 2023.

The organization links the decline of Catalan to demographic changes in Catalan-speaking areas in recent decades. These shifts partly explain the drop in people who identify only with Catalan and the growing difficulty in accessing services in the language, noting that Catalan is less present in many areas of social life.

The report looks into trends in culture and media, noting that Catalan-language cinema attracted nearly a million viewers in 2024. However, fewer than fifteen of the over 300 films released that year were seen in Catalan. Similarly, despite growing production, Catalan music remains a minority on the radio and television.

The study also highlights challenges and progress in several areas. In education, Catalan universities offer master’s programs partly or fully in Catalan, but only 10% are entirely in the language. In business, Catalan is the most used language for customer service in small and medium companies, but its availability has dropped significantly in some cities. In the judiciary, most court decisions in Catalonia are in Spanish, though a new law now allows Catalan to be used in courts across Spain, with some limits.

However, technology is helping promote Catalan, with a 16% increase in language tech tools since 2020, and the gain of popularity of Catalan content creators on social media.