Catalan/L004

NOTES

1: al, at the, to the is obligatory contraction of a + el. el cafè can mean the café or the coffee. 2: l'Anna, (the) Anna. la obligatorily contracts to l' before a, e, o sounds. More on this later. 3: parla, he/she/it speaks from the verb parlar, to speak. We have seen parlo, I speak. Also in this lesson: parles, you speak, used when addressing friends, peers, or children. 4: The double 'r' as in arriba should be a trilled r sound. 5: una, a,an is used before feminine nouns. un is the masculine form, as in un cafè, a coffee. 6: Catalan, like Spanish, does not distinguish 'b' and 'v'. The sound is closer to 'b'. 7: Notice there is no word like "do" here to ask a question. It's just the statement with a different intonation.

Translation Exercise

 * 1) El Joan parla anglès? Sí, una mica.
 * 2) El Joan parla català al cafè.
 * 3) Vols un cafè? Sí, gràcies.
 * 4) Com està el cafè?
 * 5) On és el cafè?


 * 1) Does Joan speak English? Yes, a bit.
 * 2) Joan speaks Catalan at the café.
 * 3) Do you want a coffee? Yes, thanks.
 * 4) How is the coffee?
 * 5) Where is the café?