This is a small pet peeve of mine. Now, to be fair: In Castilian Spanish (Spain’s “proper” Spanish), soft C’s and Z’s are pronounced with a light th sound. So if you’re speaking Spanish and say Bar-the-lona? Fine. Linguistically defensible.
But here’s the part people miss.
Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia—where the primary language is Catalan, not Castilian Spanish.
And in Catalan, soft C’s are pronounced exactly the way you expect them to be.
No th. No lisp. No drama.
So when you drop a heavy “BarTHelona” in the middle of an English sentence, you aren’t signaling cultural fluency. You’re trying to sound informed, but you’re actually announcing that you don’t quite get the linguistic landscape.
Which is fine! Most people don’t.
Just… don’t double down on the th.
This has been a public service announcement. 
And for those asking about Ibiza: If you really want to go local, it’s Eivissa (Eye-vee-sa). If you say ‘I-bi-tha,’ you’re just speaking ‘proper’ Spanish to a Balearic Catalan island. Which, again, is fine! Just know what you’re doing.
Mike McCready 
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