An introduction to Catalan

Izambri · Post by **Izambri** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 7:04 am

Ghost wrote:Izo, have you got any good translation exercises for when we get proficient? The only thing I can find (and it is quite good) is the Catalan Wikipedia.

If someone tells me (s)he feels prepared to translate texts from Catalan to English or vice versa, I'll be glad to post texts (or sentences if youse prefer) to translate in this thread.

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 9:50 am

Izopiru wrote:
Ghost wrote:Izo, have you got any good translation exercises for when we get proficient? The only thing I can find (and it is quite good) is the Catalan Wikipedia.
If someone tells me (s)he feels prepared to translate texts from Catalan to English or vice versa, I'll be glad to post texts (or sentences if youse prefer) to translate in this thread.

Moltes gr?cies! Uh... give me a while

Ghost

JohnQPublik · Post by **JohnQPublik** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 12:25 pm

Izopiru wrote:
JohnQPublik wrote:While the Yates book certainly doesn't approach the level of detail and organization of Izopiru's work here on ZBB, it's by far the most useful of the TY books I've seen.
Ei, que em fas posar vermell!!!

No sentis turbaci?. El que has escrit a?i ?s meravell?s! Deus escriure un nou llibre. El llibre de Yates fou escrit 30 anys fa. It's time for a formal Catalan grammar/textbook in English!

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 1:08 pm

I'm hoping to buy TY Catalan (with CD recordings) and this cheap dictionary within the next week or so. Apart from that, all I can find on Amazon is Colloquial Catalan, which only has cassette recordings and is more expensive, a more expensive dictionary, and a very large and dear grammar that I may pick up once I get a decent grasp of the language.

Ghost

Izambri · Post by **Izambri** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 2:15 pm

A good English-Catalan dictionary on the Net is this. It's used by some ZBBers.

chris_notts · Post by **chris_notts** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 2:44 pm

Ghost wrote:I'm hoping to buy TY Catalan (with CD recordings) and this cheap dictionary within the next week or so. Apart from that, all I can find on Amazon is Colloquial Catalan, which only has cassette recordings and is more expensive, a more expensive dictionary, and a very large and dear grammar that I may pick up once I get a decent grasp of the language.

Ghost

I personally find the Colloquial Series to be much better in general than Teach Yourself. There's a Catalan dictionary and several books in my local bookshop, but having learned Spanish I'm not too keen to learn another Romance language. I'm aiming for diversity. But anyway... go Colloquial.

linguoboy · Post by **linguoboy** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 3:37 pm

Izopiru wrote:
Ghost wrote:Izo, have you got any good translation exercises for when we get proficient? The only thing I can find (and it is quite good) is the Catalan Wikipedia.
If someone tells me (s)he feels prepared to translate texts from Catalan to English or vice versa, I'll be glad to post texts (or sentences if youse prefer) to translate in this thread.

Estic preparat. Tinc una mica d'experi?ncia amb els contes d'en Pere Calders.

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:31 am

chris_notts wrote:
Ghost wrote:I'm hoping to buy TY Catalan (with CD recordings) and this cheap dictionary within the next week or so. Apart from that, all I can find on Amazon is Colloquial Catalan, which only has cassette recordings and is more expensive, a more expensive dictionary, and a very large and dear grammar that I may pick up once I get a decent grasp of the language.

Ghost
I personally find the Colloquial Series to be much better in general than Teach Yourself. There's a Catalan dictionary and several books in my local bookshop, but having learned Spanish I'm not too keen to learn another Romance language. I'm aiming for diversity. But anyway... go Colloquial.

I'll probably use Colloquial as a second, follow-on book, with the intention of revising and grouping up everything that Ive learned. Then I'll need to get hold of a fat-on grammar and a few native speakers on MSN.

Ghost

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 4:39 pm

OK, I've just ordered TY Catalan off Amazon. One thing that I forgot to ask: already learning both French and Spanish at school, I've obviously got the advantage of their similiar vocabulary and grammar. However, could there also be a disadvantage of confusing myself by learning 3 Romance languages at once? I didn't have a problem seperating French and Spanish, but is Catalan similiar enough to Spanish to cause me confusion (my main concern is seperating the vocab).

Ghost

JohnQPublik · Post by **JohnQPublik** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 7:01 pm

Ghost wrote:OK, I've just ordered TY Catalan off Amazon. One thing that I forgot to ask: already learning both French and Spanish at school, I've obviously got the advantage of their similiar vocabulary and grammar. However, could there also be a disadvantage of confusing myself by learning 3 Romance languages at once? I didn't have a problem seperating French and Spanish, but is Catalan similiar enough to Spanish to cause me confusion (my main concern is seperating the vocab).

Ghost

My own situation may be unique to me, but I've never mixed up Catalan and Spanish words (although my knowledge of Catalan is written only, with the help of dictionaries). Interestingly enough, I have never mixed up Spanish and Portuguese (I speak both at a near-fluent level) and Portuguese is a LOT closer to Spanish than is Catalan.

However, before you breathe easier, I should tell you that, as odd as it may seem, Italian DOES mess up my knowledge of Spanish. I spent a year teaching myself Italian back in 1990 prior to spending a month in Italy and it really screwed up my Spanish vocabulary, to the point that after my return from Italy, I had to spend time studying Spanish vocabulary books (I am not a native speaker of Spanish), which ended up driving out my Italian vocabulary. I will be in Italy once again next month, and have spent the last year re-learning Italian vocabulary, again to the detriment of my Spanish vocabulary. For whatever reason, my brain doesn't like holding Spanish and Italian vocabulary at the same time, though Catalan, Portuguese and French present no problems. Weird, huh? (NOTE: the above problem applies to vocabulary only; I've never had any problems keeping the differences in the grammars of these languages straight.)

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 6:19 am

JohnQPublik wrote:
Ghost wrote:OK, I've just ordered TY Catalan off Amazon. One thing that I forgot to ask: already learning both French and Spanish at school, I've obviously got the advantage of their similiar vocabulary and grammar. However, could there also be a disadvantage of confusing myself by learning 3 Romance languages at once? I didn't have a problem seperating French and Spanish, but is Catalan similiar enough to Spanish to cause me confusion (my main concern is seperating the vocab).

Ghost
My own situation may be unique to me, but I've never mixed up Catalan and Spanish words (although my knowledge of Catalan is written only, with the help of dictionaries). Interestingly enough, I have never mixed up Spanish and Portuguese (I speak both at a near-fluent level) and Portuguese is a LOT closer to Spanish than is Catalan.

However, before you breathe easier, I should tell you that, as odd as it may seem, Italian DOES mess up my knowledge of Spanish. I spent a year teaching myself Italian back in 1990 prior to spending a month in Italy and it really screwed up my Spanish vocabulary, to the point that after my return from Italy, I had to spend time studying Spanish vocabulary books (I am not a native speaker of Spanish), which ended up driving out my Italian vocabulary. I will be in Italy once again next month, and have spent the last year re-learning Italian vocabulary, again to the detriment of my Spanish vocabulary. For whatever reason, my brain doesn't like holding Spanish and Italian vocabulary at the same time, though Catalan, Portuguese and French present no problems. Weird, huh? (NOTE: the above problem applies to vocabulary only; I've never had any problems keeping the differences in the grammars of these languages straight.)

Hell, I might as well try. And scanning a few Catalan wordlists, the vocab does seem pretty seperate from Spanish, at least compared to what I expected. We'll have to see.

Thanks for all the help, anyway!
Ghost

Izambri · Post by **Izambri** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 2:17 pm

OK, here we go: Catalan to English.

Nou dies de misses precedeixen al conclave
M?s de dos-cents mandataris assisteixen avui als funerals, que seran retransmesos en directe, entre fortes mesures de seguretat

El Vatic? es convertir? avui en el centre del m?n. M?s de dos-cents mandataris -entre els quals, el president de la Generalitat, Pasqual Maragall i el cap de l'oposici?, Artur Mas- assistiran avui als funerals de Joan Pau II a la pla?a de Sant Pere. El caos tornar? de nou als carrers.
A les deu del mat? comen?a la cerim?nia, que durar? tres hores. Aquesta ?s la primera missa de les nou que tindran lloc fins al pr?xim dia 16.
Despr?s dels funerals, el Papa ser? enterrat a les Grutes Vaticanes, no pas en un sarc?fag sin? sota terra, tal com va demanar ell mateix, en un acte que durar? mitja hora. La televisi? vaticana no retransmetr? el moment de la sepultura.
Davant l'arribada de les delegacions internacionals, Roma ha quedat blindada: l'espai aeri est? tancat i hi haur? uns quinze mil policies. Les autoritats vaticanes han demanat als fidels que no portin bosses grans a la cerim?nia o que la vegin per les vint pantalles gegants instalades all?, ja que tan sols hi ha espai per a cinc-centes mil persones.

linguoboy · Post by **linguoboy** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:06 pm

Izopiru wrote:OK, here we go: Catalan to English.

Oh, I thought this was going to work a little differently: You would send the texts to the volunteer translators, we would create English versions, you would vet them and post them for the learners to translate. That way, their attempts wouldn't be influenced by the "correct" versions.

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 3:44 pm

Quick question for Izopiru: Are you done posting on grammar? I've been collecting all your entries in a word document to be made into a PDF for future study, and I was wondering if there's any more coming. Thanks.

Izambri · Post by **Izambri** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 2:23 pm

WMiller wrote:Quick question for Izopiru: Are you done posting on grammar? I've been collecting all your entries in a word document to be made into a PDF for future study, and I was wondering if there's any more coming. Thanks.

Well, I thought to post something about syntax (types of sentences, verb complements, subordination, juxtaposition...). I also must post something about pronouns (the catalan pronoun system is considered pretty difficult by many learners, so I feel forced to post further information). I think I'll post some info about lexic (derivation, composition...). Maybe I'll post some appendixes with the most common affixes.

---------------------------------------

About the translation exercises: After I post the text to translate in the thread youse have one week to do the translation. The last day youse can post your translations, and the next week we comment them.

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 2:45 pm

Izopiru wrote:About the translation exercises: After I post the text to translate in the thread youse have one week to do the translation. The last day youse can post your translations, and the next week we comment them.

Ulp... I'm gonna have to exclude myself from them for a while then, I've still got many long, hard conjugations to go.

Ghost

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 11:04 pm

Izopiru wrote:
WMiller wrote:Quick question for Izopiru: Are you done posting on grammar? I've been collecting all your entries in a word document to be made into a PDF for future study, and I was wondering if there's any more coming. Thanks.
Well, I thought to post something about syntax (types of sentences, verb complements, subordination, juxtaposition...). I also must post something about pronouns (the catalan pronoun system is considered pretty difficult by many learners, so I feel forced to post further information). I think I'll post some info about lexic (derivation, composition...). Maybe I'll post some appendixes with the most common affixes.

Thanks. I'll wait doing my tidying till you've got those done. They sound like they'll be pretty good things to have in there.

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 3:08 pm

Just a quick basic query: my textbook says you can use either en or el for the masculine personal article. However, other internet sources I've checked only seem to use en (l'). Is the usage of el correct?

Ghost

Izambri · Post by **Izambri** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:04 pm

Ghost wrote:Just a quick basic query: my textbook says you can use either en or el for the masculine personal article. However, other internet sources I've checked only seem to use en (l'). Is the usage of el correct?

Ghost

The article is explained at the end of the first page in this thread.

Very briefly:

1) El is the masculine general article:

el llac "the lake"
el gos "the dog"

1) El is also used as personal article. In Catalan we put an article before the personal name:

El Joan in English would be simply "John"

Is apostrophated before vowel:

(El + vowel = L') L'Andreu "Andrew"

2) Anyway, in Catalan we have a specific personal article, which is en for masculine names and na for femenine ones:

En Jordi "George"
Na Maria "Mary"

Both articles are apostrophated before vowel:

(En + vowel = N') N'Andreu "Andrew"
(Na + vowel = N') N'Elisabet "Elisabeth"

3) Though en, na are the traditional personal articles, el, la are more common, and more direct. You can say El Roger "Roger" if this guy is your friend, a person of your family... Also if he is the president of your country, but it's preferable to say En Roger when you talk with non-familiar people: for example, if you're on TV talking about the (hipothetic) president Roger, you'll say En Roger, president de... "Roger, president of...", but you won't say El Roger, president de....

Remember, en, na it's more formal. El, la it's more familiar.

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:15 pm

Ah right, I missed that first time round. Perfectly expalined though, thanks.

I return to my studies...

Ghost

Drydic · Post by **Drydic** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 11:44 pm

Does anyone know where en, na came from? /me is curious

linguoboy · Post by **linguoboy** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 11:54 am

Darth Drydic wrote:Does anyone know where en, na came from? /me is curious

Latin DOMINUM/DOMINA, which--through VL DOM'NU/DOM'NA--yields the Spanish cognates don/do?a.

DOMINA also the source of Modern Catalan dona "woman". Like German Frau, it originally meant "woman of high status; lady", but then, through pejoration of the originally unmarked terms (fembra and Weib, respectively), came to replace them in everyday usage.

Drydic · Post by **Drydic** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 12:38 am

linguoboy wrote:
Darth Drydic wrote:Does anyone know where en, na came from? /me is curious
Latin DOMINUM/DOMINA, which--through VL DOM'NU/DOM'NA--yields the Spanish cognates don/do?a.

DOMINA also the source of Modern Catalan dona "woman". Like German Frau, it originally meant "woman of high status; lady", but then, through pejoration of the originally unmarked terms (fembra and Weib, respectively), came to replace them in everyday usage.

Coolness. Now I have a parralel for developing a Polite address form from DOMINUS. Mi Odden, velz kanduθ?

Nikura · Post by **Nikura** » Sun May 08, 2005 8:26 pm

I will write in English after... but I must write few things in catalan also !!!

D?u n'hi do!!! Estic molt content de veure que el catal? t? un lloc d'honor dins aquest lloc web. Veig que sembla que li agradi a la gent descobrir aquest idioma... A veure si n'hi ha uns quants que gosaran aprendre'l. Compliments per la teva feina !!!

I'm French. I live in Barcelona since two years. I discovered catalan in Switzerland, where knew some people of Terrassa (Vall?s, center of Catalonia). They teached me some words and I liked it. Now I still see these persons and we're good friends. I've learned this language with facilities. In fact it helps when like me you speak French, Occitan, Spanish and Italian !!! After few years of reading grammars and dictionaries, I've came to live in Catalonia and after six months I was able to spoke it fluently. I now only express in Catalan in my all day life.
This is a veeeeery rich language that unfortunately suffers problems about the bilinguism and a lot of spanish words are used. I'm fascinated about the mix of language people sometimes do. This phenomen is particularly strong in Barcelona where the spanish speaking community has always been important.
I want to precise that Catalan is NOT a spanish dialect but an entire language with its own dialects and varieties. It's closer to Occitan than to Spanish although this last has influenced it a lot.

Salut i for?a al canut !!!!

Martona · Post by **Martona** » Mon May 09, 2005 11:05 am

Hi all!!

I came across this web looking for something else and I really liked it. I'm so glad that a few people are willing to learn my mother tongue: Catalan. Now I'm living in Ireland (in Corcaigh) doing an Erasmus year. Anybody from ?ire here? I'm finishing my degree this year, and next year I want to study "Filologia Catalana" because I would like to teach Catalan abroad. Izopiru, are you a teacher of Catalan? You have done a great job in this web! Congratulations!

By all! Sl?n!

Marta.

PD: Izopiru, quina universitat m'aconsellaries: la UB o la UAB?

zompist bboard

An introduction to Catalan

Good site