Language Course

[pa-integral]

Bon dia!

Welcome to the Catalan Course!
Here you will be able to:

1. Follow a Catalan Course

2. Ask your doubts about anything concerning Catalan.

3. Translate anything you need into Catalan.

The web page of the course: http://cat.unilang.org/

[pa-integral]

I will write the Course in green colour, so those who come for the first time will be able to read only the Course and not those messages which doesn't belong to the Course.

That's why I would like nobody to use THESE GREEN COLOUR not to confuse the begginners. You are free to use any of the rest of the colours.

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[Strigo]

Hello Pa-Integral!!

I would like to learn Català. I think it is a very beautiful and nice language to learn, I just know a cruel tongue twister in català.
I will be your pupil, so add me to your class!!

Adeus!Carlos

[Car]

I'd like to learn Català, too. The language looks really interesting and since I'm a fan of FC Barcelona, it interests me even more.

[Fenek]

Jo també voldria estar un alumno!

[pa-integral]

Hola! ;D
I'm glad you all want to learn Catalan! It will be fun I need to know what languages you understand/speak, so then I know in what languages I can write the examples.
Enter and have fun!




LESSON 1 / LLIÇÓ 1: The article / L'article


In Catalan, we've got three articles to determinate things:

EL --> It is used for the masculine words. Its plural is ELS
Example: El noi / Els nois (The boy / The boys)

LA --> It is used for the feminine words. Its plural is LES
Example: La noia / Les noies (The girl / The girls)

L' --> It is used for those words which begin with a vowel. The plural form is ELS or LES, whether it is feminine or masculine.
Example: L'ombra / Les ombres (The shadow / The shadows)



Then, there are also the undefined words, which would be the same as 'A' in English (Sp. 'un/una', Fr. (un/une), Pr. (um/uma)):

UN --> For masculine words. Its plural is UNS.
Example: Un noi / Uns nois (A boy / Some boys)

UNA --> For feminine words. Its plural is UNES.
Example: Una noia / Unes noies (A girl / Some girls)

There is not apostroph form for this article.

[E}{pugnator]

CATALÀ!!! Woohoo!!! Jo amo el català! (lengua)

I've been waiting for this moment for a long time!!! Since the VLS started i`ve been asking Poliglot for a Catalan class...Now he's gone...But at least pa-integral ressurged from the ashes and want to take the place his compatriot didn't want to!

I'm anxious to start it!

I have the TY book...You can give examples in any Romance language, since I more or less study most of them and know some...Comparisons with Spanish, French and Italian would be welcome...

[pa-integral]

[LESSON 1 / LLIÇÓ 1]


Catalan words are usually shorter than any other Romance language. Adjectives are placed before the noun. Nouns can be feminin or masculine (as we saw when we learnt 'the article' which must have the same genre and number of the noun).
But, how can we know when a noun is feminine or masculine?

FEMININE NOUNS: They usually end in -a and make the plural with -es. You will rarely find any feminine noun which doesn't end in -a, although there are some...

MASCULINE NOUNS: They have several possible endings, like: -e (or any stressed vowel), -o (which is usually a word borrowed from Castilian), -[consonant], mainly.

[Car]

Apart from German and English, I know some French and Spanish.

[Fenek]

I can speak English and Italian.
I can understand French.

I have copied the lesson no. 1 to my copybook
Now it's time for some exercises


Una samarreta. Unes samarretes.
La samarreta. Les samarretes.
Un advocat. Uns advocats.
L'advocat. Els advocats.
Una opera. Unes operes.
L'opera. Les operes.
Un diccionari. Uns diccionaris.
El diccionari. Els diccionaris.

[pa-integral]

I can speak English and Italian.
I can understand French.

I have copied the lesson no. 1 to my copybook
Now it's time for some exercises


Una samarreta. Unes samarretes.
La samarreta. Les samarretes.
Un advocat. Uns advocats.
L'advocat. Els advocats.
Una opera. Unes operes.
L'opera. Les operes.
Un diccionari. Uns diccionaris.
El diccionari. Els diccionaris.

That's great! It's all correct except the word 'òpera', whose stress you didn't write. So the correct form would be:

Una òpera. Unes òperes.
L'òpera. Les òperes.

But that's not so important, since I'll explain everything about stresses much later.

[pa-integral]

LESSON 2: Plurals / LLIÇÓ 2: Plurals



For FEMININE words:

-Those words which end in -a, make the plural replacing this -a for -es.
Example: casa / cases (house / houses)

-Those words which end in -e, make the plural replacing this -e for -es.
Example: mare / mares (mother / mothers)

-Those words which end in an stressed vowel (like -à), make the plural replacing it for: VOWELL (not stressed)+NS.
Example: mà / mans (hand / hands)



-------------------------------------------------
You can find a dictionary Spanish - Catalan at this web page:
http://www.diccionarios.com/
-------------------------------------------------

There is also a Spanish - English dictionary, but I couldn't find any Catalan - English dictionary. Anyway... I'll keep looking for...




EXERCICE 1: Try to put an article and make the plural of the following words: finestra (window), porta (door), noia (girl), vida (life), bossa (bag), escola (school), organització (organisation), roda (wheel), bicicleta (bicycle), dona (woman), lluna (moon), unió (union), cadira (chair), mare (mother), taula (desk/table), poma (apple), estrella (star), habitació (room).

[pa-integral]

[LESSON 2: Feminine plurals / LLIÇÓ 2: Plurals Femenins]


However, you may have some problems with feminine (& masculine) words which end with some of the following endings. I will write this special endings and their respective plural form:

-ca / -ques
-ga / -gues
-qua / -qües
-gua / -gües
-tja / -tges
-ça / -ces





MASCULINE PLURAL FORMS: Most of them make the plural like feminine words:

sing. / plural

-E,-A / -ES
-È, -É / -ENS
-Ò, -Ó / -ONS
-Ú / -UNS (ù, ì, and á doesn't exist in the Catalan Alphabet)
-À / -ANS
-Í / -INS
-S / -SOS
-TX / -TXOS
-IX / -IXOS
-TG / -TJOS
-[the rest of the consonants] / -[+S] (example: fred / freds)







EXERCICE 2: Write the plural of the following words with any article you want. Genre is indicated in brackets:

Coixí (M) - Pillow
Llit (M) - Bed
Cara (F) - Face
Botó (M) - Button
Dit (M) - Finger
Llet (F) - Milk
Ordinador (M) - Computer
Llum (F) - Light
Blanc (M) - White (adj.)
Blanca (F) - White (adj.)
Cel (M) - Sky
Vaca (F) - Cow
Paraigua (M) - Umbrella
Platja (F) - Beach
Carrer (M) - Street
Ciutat (F) - City
Arròs (M) - Rice
Mar (M) - Sea
Oceà (M) - Ocean
País (M) - Country
Noi (M) - Boy
Noia (F) - Girl
Home (M) - Man
Vestit (M) - Dress
Negre (M) - Black (adj.)
Negra (F) - Black (adj.)
Concentració (F) - Concentration
Francès (M) - French (adj.)
Francesa (F) - French (adj.)

[davisma1984]

Hi! I would like to join the course. I'm new here. I just registered today. I only speak English fluently. I have an advanced basic knowledge of French (does that make sense?).

[Luís]

Here's a joke in Catalan I got in the mail It's funny

S'explica que quan Déu va crear el món, perquè els homes i les dones
prosperessin va decidir concedir-los dues virtuts. Així ho va fer.

ALS suïssos els va fer ordenats i complidors de la Llei.
ALS anglesos els va fer persistents i estudiosos.
ALS catalans els va fer treballadors i pacients.
ALS italians alegres i romàntics.
ALS francesos els va fer cultes i refinats.

I quan va arribar als espanyols, es va girar cap a l'àngel que prenia nota i
li va dir:

- "Els espanyols seran intel·ligents, bones persones i del Partit Popular"

Quan va acabar de crear el món, l'àngel li va dir a Déu:
- "Senyor, vas donar a tots els pobles dues virtuts i als espanyols
tres. Això farà que tinguin privilegis sobre tots els altres".

"Doncs és veritat. Bé... com que les virtuts divines no es poden treure, i
com que els espanyols en tenen tres, no podran tenir més de dues virtuts al mateix temps".

La cosa queda en què:

- L'espanyol que és del Partit Popular i bona persona, no pot ser intel·ligent.

- El que és intel·ligent i del Partit Popular, no pot ser bona persona.

- I el que és intel·ligent i bona persona, no pot ser del Partit Popular.