The Romanian presidential elections have placed in prime time Speeches and posters in Romanian. Perhaps some astute spectators have thought that Catalan and Romanian sound quite similar. Beyond a certain familiarity, can a Catalan and a Romanian understand each other speaking their own language? Are they two mutually incomprehensible languages? Professor of Romance Philology at the University of Barcelona, José Enrique Gargallo, is quick to add insult to injury: "We are occasionally dazzled by purely orthographic coincidences, but I, who understand and speak Romanian, continually find that those who don't know it don't understand it when someone says a sentence."