What opinions do you hear about it in your country? How do you use it (what situations) and how much do you use it in comparison to the main language in your country?
I ask as a Catalan speaker who really enjoyed recently seeing the movie about Kneecap, an Irish rap group that makes music in a mix of Irish and English.
To answer my own questions, I use both Catalan and Spanish here, depending on the circumstances. Catalan is more official and professional in a lot of cases, ie, most written work is in that language, but Spanish is still omnipresent at work. Social situations really depend, and with lots of Latin Americans here and high historical rates of immigration from other parts of Spain, Spanish can predominate one gathering, with a different gathering the next day being mostly in Catalan or a mix of the two, with the language changing mid-sentence.
That said, I'm writing from Barcelona; many other small cities in towns in Catalonia have a greater influence of Catalan in both personal and professional contexts.
I check the news in about a 50/50 mix of languages, and read novels and non-fiction more in Spanish, though I've brought the ratio up to about 65/35 Spanish/Catalan. I listen to tons of Latin American music and flamenco, so Spanish dominates my music intake, but I'm very happy to see that popular music in Catalan has enjoyed something of a golden moment recently with groups like the Tyets or Figa Flawas.
As far as how the language is perceived, I'm a firm believer that media (traditional and social) amplifies the voices and opinions that are vocally and scandalously anti-Catalan, and that the vast majority of Spanish people either have absolutely no problem with the language and culture or actively find them interesting (many Valencians, Basques, Galicians and others will also of course know exactly what it's like have two languages and be keyed into two cultures).
Anyways, I'm really curious to hear from other Europeans about how you all use your minority languages and how they're perceived. Thanks for reading.