The use of Catalan is growing in areas of Catalonia where it was previously used the least. It is also being used more in shops, bars, restaurants and in commerce, even among people who do not speak Catalan as their first language.
The Language Policy of the Catalonian government studied 20 cities throughout the region and found that Catalan is now more frequently spoken even in the suburbs around Barcelona. Here there has always been resistance to speaking the language in the past, mainly because these are areas of immigration from Spanish-speaking parts of the country.
However Catalan is still more widely used in the public administration than in the private sectors of the economy.
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