Catalan (català) is spoken in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Andorra, where it is the only official language, the Pyrénées-Orientales department in the extreme south of France and the Sardinian city of Alghero. Spoken by about 7 million people, it is the 8th most spoken language in the European Union. It is, like Spanish, French and Italian, a Romance language, and people who hear it for the first time typically get the impression that it is a mix between them. However, it is a separate language, as old as any of the other Romance languages, and you will be very welcome if you try to say some words while you are in a Catalan-speaking region.