How to meet new people in Barcelona

The quickest way, because the evening is arranged for you: a small group who have not met, a table booked, nothing to organise.

• Socials by Detor (this site): 4 to 6 people at a social table for dinner, drinks, coffee or brunch, or a small-group activity meetup. We build the group from a few answers you give once, a person checks every group, and we send the venue's address the day before. The others see only your first name and pronouns. A seat has a price per session, no membership, and you pay the venue for your own food and drinks.
• Timeleft: dinners for 4 to 6 on Wednesdays and Fridays at 21:00, plus a women-only dinner on Tuesdays. You pick Spanish or English and sit with people who speak it. A subscription is needed, priced in the app.
• Populit: an app for Madrid and Barcelona for shared restaurant lunches and dinners with strangers.
• Happy to Gather: a two-hour, phone-free, alcohol-free gathering of about 20 people at MAUI Beach Coworking in Poblenou, drinks and snacks included. The room is mostly internationals.

Who it suits: anyone for whom the first hello is the hard part.

The first answer anyone here gives: a bar full of people who came to talk to strangers, for the price of a drink. Beginner Spanish is the point, not a problem.

• The Friday Language Exchange: Fridays 20:00 to midnight at a bar by Estació de França. One drink gets you in; name tags show languages, Catalan included.
• Barcelona Language Exchange: Mondays and Thursdays at 19:00 at Space Cowboy in the Born, Wednesdays at 19:00 at Soda Bus in the Eixample, Saturdays at 20:00 at Trafalgar Pizza Club, with a drink minimum of 4 to 5 euros.
• New in Barcelona runs its own Friday exchange at Dissidence (Carrer de Rauric 21), one drink asked.

This is where the first hellos are easiest. New in Barcelona has run since 2015 and is the biggest: 11,499 members on Meetup, more than a hundred upcoming events, and WhatsApp communities with over 17,000 contacts. InterNations runs events for internationals.

The catch: people who stay only in expat groups never get past them. Use them for your first month, then take the people you like to the smaller things below.

Free, weekly and outdoors, which in Barcelona means most of the year.

• CorrerJuntos Barceloneta: a timed 5K on Saturdays at 09:00 on the seafront. Free with a parkrun registration.
• RunnersFast in Gràcia runs on Wednesdays. Free.
• Nike Run Club starts from Passeig de Gràcia. Free.

A federated club costs roughly 15 to 40 euros a month, by CorrerJuntos' estimate.

A centre cívic is a council-run neighbourhood centre with quarterly courses, amateur theatre among many others. There are 52 of them, with 10,778 activities and 138,070 enrolments in the last year counted. The same people every week is how acquaintances turn into friends.

Catalan courses at A1 and A2 from the Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística (CPNL) are free. Spanish is the everyday language of about half the city, but over 90 percent understand Catalan and it is the first language of 35 to 40 percent.

A few hours next to people with something to do together is easier than any party. Three places to start: Amigos de la Gente Mayor, which holds periodic sessions for new volunteers, Fundació Arrels and Càritas. Ask for a weekly slot rather than a one-off.

The Castellers del Poble-sec, a human-tower team, list a permanent open rehearsal at Carrer de Blesa 7; days, times and cost are not published, so ask first. Lluïsos de Gràcia and several civic centres have amateur theatre groups. There are free monthly book clubs, and stand-up nights.

• Keep the local clock. Lunch is around 14:00 and dinner around 21:00; suggesting 19:00 marks you as new.
• Pick weekly things and go back. Locals are described as reserved and slow to trust; the same faces each week is what gets past that.
• Learn Spanish and greet in Catalan when you can; being greeted in Catalan and answering in Spanish is normal here. And "Barça" is the club, not the city: say Barcelona, BCN or Barna.
• Drop "back home it was better". Locals name it among the things they cannot stand from newcomers.

Want the fastest one first? See this week's tables and meetups in Barcelona.