Thought I'll never find a good Catalan course, but here it is. Thank you! There's not that much information available, especially for those who live outside the Catalan-speaking area. And these lessons are treasure. This particular lesson is also good for people learning other Romance languages. For instance, this was the best explanation of open vs close "e" sound I've heard. Most others try to tell how to do something, you just show and it's immediately clear. Catalan is very interesting, as it shares many features with Spanish, French and Italian at the same time, yet it has its own clear identity and own rules. Not that I need it for my life, but it is amazing both from the theoretical perspective and from how it sounds. Will continue with the other videos here. Thanks again for this course.
No, uns cinc dias però parlo altres llengues. Fa molt que jo voll estudiar catalá! Moltes gracies. (Cuando tengo preguntas, me gustaría hacerlas en catalán pero todavía no puedo. ¿No te molestaría si hiciese mis preguntas en español a medida que voy aprendiendo catalán?)
Hola de nuevo! Reconozco que no es un sonido nada fácil. Yo la describiría como una “Y” en inglés pero colocando la lengua en la zona superior del paladar, en el medio. Es difícil de describir! ;)
Very interesting but you didn't mention the e in a final position or o pronounced as u in unstressed position. It would be great to give more information about this because it is somehow confusing for foreigners. Thank you, Maria !
Hola Sebastolaf Gravberg! The purpose of this video is to show the different sounds a vowel in Catalan may have - regardless of the position they have in a word or whether they belong to an unstressed or stressed syllable. Agree that a second video would be a good follow-up :) Gràcies for the suggestion!
I find your regional pronunciation incredibly interesting. Like 'flor' you pronounce [ˈflɔ], but 'flors' you pronounce [ˈflɔrs]. Normally I'd say you may not be aware of this, but you've used a schwa below, and I figure anyone who uses a schwa knows how they pronounce things.
Hi Maria! I've been watching a few of your videos, and enjoy discovering the catalan language. I have a question about the pronunciation of the vowel "e". Just so you know my background, my native language is French, but I learned a bit of Spanish in high school. As I was watching your videos, I was under the impression that in some cases, the "e" is pronounced as something close to "a" (maybe the closed "a"). For instance, when you say "moltes gracies" at the end of the video, it seems to me like I hear "moltas gracias". In another video you would say the word "arbres", and I would hear "arbras". I could find a few other examples as well... Any thoughts on that? Would this be a third way of pronouncing the "e" ?
Hola Ricky! Glad you are enjoying it :) Very well observed, it is something that I should have covered in the video! So, we could say "E" has 3 potential sounds in standard Catalan. Stressed "E" can be either a close or an open sound, as explained in the video. However, when we have an unstressed "E", it sounds like a neutral "A" (2:10 in the video). Taking the word 'AR-BRES. Since the first syllable is stressed, the "E" becomes a neutral "A" [ə]. Hope this makes sense? :)
Yes, it does make sense now. Merci! Actually, it was helpful that you included the phonetic symbol [ə], because I remembered that this sound is part of the French phonetic system as well... So now I am more aware of how you pronounce the unstressed "E". I can also hear clearly the difference in pronunciation between the catalan word "Gracies" and the Spanish word "Gracias", which I hadn't noticed before! :-)
Glad it is now clearer :) You will see that French and Catalan do share many similarities. Not so much in terms of pronounciation but vocabulary and some grammar!
In català we have the same 5 vocals, but we have " open " and " close " vocals... different pronunciation... maybe an "a" could look an "e". Are complicated rules. Sure she will do a video explaining this.
Hola! 1) À sounds like a stressed A as explained in the video 2) á does not exist in Catalan, that is Spanish accentuation 3) A without an accent sounds like a neutral A as explained in the video. So there are basically only 2 sounds :)
Moltes gràcies per tot el teu treball per a salvar la nostra llengua i cultura . És una bona revisió per me perquè visc als Estats Units i no tinc molta ocasió de parlar el català sobretot perquè es parla el castellà en la meva casa i soc del Rosselló i voldrìa aprendre la pronunciació més comú de la nostra llengua. Fins a un altre i gràcies de nou!
Hello. I am learning Catalan. I am wondering: Is the final letter “n” pronounced in Catalan words like “improvisin”? And also is the final letter “m” pronounced in Catalan words like “aprovàvem”? Thank You.
Why does your captioning at the end spell "Moltes" as "Moltès" - I thought "many thanks" was "moltes gracies" and the final "e" in each is pronounced like unstressed "e" (with the schwa sound). Apart from this, I very much appreciate the examples you gave of open and closed stressed "e" - that has always been a big stumbling block for me!
Hola Rick, gràcies, well spotted! You are actually right, I hadn't realised I made a typo. The right spelling is "moltes gràcies", no accent in "moltes" - you will see it spelled correctly in the other videos. Thus "mol-tes" is an unstressed "e" as you mentioned. Glad the other examples worked well :)
Creo que olvidaste el sonido de la "e" al final, como en "pare". Me gustaría que hicieras videos en español y la explicación de la pronunciación de la "ll" en "Ell" y "Elle". Moltes gràcies!
Tienes razón - sólo me centré en los sonidos de la E tónica! Está en inglés, pero aquí tienes el vídeo sobre cómo pronunciar la LL :) ua-cam.com/video/wYWkoq5MY8U/v-deo.html
Hola! The purpose of this video is to show the different sounds a vowel in Catalan may have - regardless of the position they have in a word or whether they belong to an unstressed or stressed syllable. I will do another video to explain why "de" sounds like "da".
M'encanta de veure catalans reclamant la NORMALITAT internacionalmemt amb tota la que està caiguent... una annéctota, en japonés les vocals fonétiques són A I U E O
Hi ! I love your channel and I really want to learn Catalan. I just have one question. What do you mean by stressed letters . Is a letter considered stressed when there’s a vowel already in the word ?
Hola Gadiel! What I meant with "stressed syllable" is the strong syllable of the word. Meaning the letters that have a strong emphasis in terms of pronunciation. All syllables have vowels. Will give you an example: the word "HOLA" (hello) has 2 syllables: HO - LA. The strong/stressed syllable is the first one, since it is pronounced in a stronger manner [ 'HO-la]
Learn Catalan from Barcelona Hola ! Yes that makes sense . Thank you ! This next question may be a hard one but it would be awesome if you could answer it . So I know in Spanish there are specific times when we have to use the accent mark . Like in “qué”, is it the same in Catalan ?
That is right! In Catalan the accent is: "què". We put the accent 1) when "què" follows a preposition 2) in exclamations and questions 3) when "què" indirectly refers to a question. So it's very similar to Spanish :)
Learn Catalan from Barcelona Great ! Once again thank you so much for the help. I’m not sure if you’ve mentioned this in another video but I noticed that in Catalan sometimes there’s a different “c” being used . This is what I’m referring to “ç” when is that “c” correctly used and how is it pronounced?
Hola Gadiel! That's is very right, I didn't include “ç” to keep things simple, but it could also be considered a letter. “ç” is pronounced as an "s" and can only be written before A, O, U or at the end of a word. Hope this clarifies!
![The best trilled [r] video yet!](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/joVgJUO74Mg/mqdefault.jpg)
Thought I'll never find a good Catalan course, but here it is. Thank you! There's not that much information available, especially for those who live outside the Catalan-speaking area. And these lessons are treasure.
This particular lesson is also good for people learning other Romance languages. For instance, this was the best explanation of open vs close "e" sound I've heard. Most others try to tell how to do something, you just show and it's immediately clear.
Catalan is very interesting, as it shares many features with Spanish, French and Italian at the same time, yet it has its own clear identity and own rules. Not that I need it for my life, but it is amazing both from the theoretical perspective and from how it sounds. Will continue with the other videos here. Thanks again for this course.
Merci!!
he estado esperando por esto,fortunately I understand english,el catalan es precioso
Moltes gràcies pel comentari :) Glad it is useful and that you also see beauty in it!
Merci! M´agrada molt el catalá. És una llengua molt bella.
Merci pel comentari, el teu català es fantàstic! Fa molt que l´estudies?
No, uns cinc dias però parlo altres llengues. Fa molt que jo voll estudiar catalá! Moltes gracies.
(Cuando tengo preguntas, me gustaría hacerlas en catalán pero todavía no puedo. ¿No te molestaría si hiciese mis preguntas en español a medida que voy aprendiendo catalán?)
I tant que no! (Por supuesto que no!). M’encanten les preguntes. Es tracta de comunicar-se, no importa en quin idioma :)
Merci!
No entiendo la pronunciación de "ll" en catalán. Se pronuncia como "y" o con un poco del "l" al principio?
Hola de nuevo! Reconozco que no es un sonido nada fácil. Yo la describiría como una “Y” en inglés pero colocando la lengua en la zona superior del paladar, en el medio. Es difícil de describir! ;)
Very clear all María thanks !!!
Very useful for eng speakers.
Very interesting but you didn't mention the e in a final position or o pronounced as u in unstressed position. It would be great to give more information about this because it is somehow confusing for foreigners. Thank you, Maria !
Hola Sebastolaf Gravberg! The purpose of this video is to show the different sounds a vowel in Catalan may have - regardless of the position they have in a word or whether they belong to an unstressed or stressed syllable. Agree that a second video would be a good follow-up :) Gràcies for the suggestion!
Thank you! this was very helpful. Just started with my Catalan today.
It's the beginning of a beautiful journey! ;)
En japonés les vocals son A I U E O (en aquest ordre) ès un ll'engua que enamora.
Great but please make some more videos it's a great help
Gràcies, VIRAL B! New video coming in a couple of weeks. Any particular interest?
If you can explain the accents
That´s a very good call :) I´ll give it a thought on how it is best to tackle it and do that!
How to use à á ç .....?
I find your regional pronunciation incredibly interesting. Like 'flor' you pronounce [ˈflɔ], but 'flors' you pronounce [ˈflɔrs]. Normally I'd say you may not be aware of this, but you've used a schwa below, and I figure anyone who uses a schwa knows how they pronounce things.
Really u are very very master English language
Haha not there yet, but thank you ;)
Brilliant help! Thanks! Moltes gracies!
De res :)
Hi Maria! I've been watching a few of your videos, and enjoy discovering the catalan language. I have a question about the pronunciation of the vowel "e". Just so you know my background, my native language is French, but I learned a bit of Spanish in high school. As I was watching your videos, I was under the impression that in some cases, the "e" is pronounced as something close to "a" (maybe the closed "a"). For instance, when you say "moltes gracies" at the end of the video, it seems to me like I hear "moltas gracias". In another video you would say the word "arbres", and I would hear "arbras". I could find a few other examples as well... Any thoughts on that? Would this be a third way of pronouncing the "e" ?
Hola Ricky! Glad you are enjoying it :) Very well observed, it is something that I should have covered in the video! So, we could say "E" has 3 potential sounds in standard Catalan. Stressed "E" can be either a close or an open sound, as explained in the video. However, when we have an unstressed "E", it sounds like a neutral "A" (2:10 in the video). Taking the word 'AR-BRES. Since the first syllable is stressed, the "E" becomes a neutral "A" [ə]. Hope this makes sense? :)
Yes, it does make sense now. Merci! Actually, it was helpful that you included the phonetic symbol [ə], because I remembered that this sound is part of the French phonetic system as well... So now I am more aware of how you pronounce the unstressed "E". I can also hear clearly the difference in pronunciation between the catalan word "Gracies" and the Spanish word "Gracias", which I hadn't noticed before! :-)
Glad it is now clearer :) You will see that French and Catalan do share many similarities. Not so much in terms of pronounciation but vocabulary and some grammar!
In català we have the same 5 vocals, but we have " open " and " close " vocals... different pronunciation... maybe an "a" could look an "e". Are complicated rules. Sure she will do a video explaining this.
un bon exemple son les paraules:
Déu Dèu Deu pesetes
així es veu mes clar les diferéncies.
Hola, Buenos Dias Professora, Como estás? Muchas gracias por tus vídeos. Eres de Barcelona?
Moltes gràcias- for thus descriptive jewel...
Moltes gràcies, Alana :)
When you say 'música' the s sound is pronounced as Z like in french Musique and Portuguese Música? Moltes gracies
That's right Flavio! In this video, you can find some more info: [4:50] ua-cam.com/video/1iqDP_CzZ2w/v-deo.html
Could you make a video to explain the difference for accented vowels (for example, the pronunciation difference between a - à - á) please?
Hola! 1) À sounds like a stressed A as explained in the video 2) á does not exist in Catalan, that is Spanish accentuation 3) A without an accent sounds like a neutral A as explained in the video. So there are basically only 2 sounds :)
When you pronounce some words with e at the end it sounds like an “ah” sound. Is that open or closed?
Moltes gràcies per tot el teu treball per a salvar la nostra llengua i cultura . És una bona revisió per me perquè visc als Estats Units i no tinc molta ocasió de parlar el català sobretot perquè es parla el castellà en la meva casa i soc del Rosselló i voldrìa aprendre la pronunciació més comú de la nostra llengua. Fins a un altre i gràcies de nou!
Hi! Great video! Could you also explain why "e" sometimes sounds like an "a"? And what the accents do to vowels and consonants? Thanks so much!
Coming veeeery soon :)
Moltes Gracies Maria! Feliç hivern!
De res i bon hivern per a tu també J
Hi, for e better learning will bi usefull to have the subtitles in catalan. Thanks
FANTÀSTIC ...MERCÈS PER LA TEVA FEINA ...
Hola, puedes explicar las reglas de las tildes, en especial los acentos diacríticos?
Hola Nicolás, es una buena idea! Lo haré para un vídeo más avanzado!
Interesting
மிக சிறப்பு good
Thank you
Good
Love this video! Does the unaccented e make the same sound as the unaccented a?
Hola Harim! Precisely! Unstressed "a" and "e" have share the same sound [ə] :)
Hello. I am learning Catalan. I am wondering: Is the final letter “n” pronounced in Catalan words like “improvisin”? And also is the final letter “m” pronounced in Catalan words like “aprovàvem”? Thank You.
In both cases it IS pronounced (i.e., it is not silent, if that was the question). This is valid for all dialects of Catalan.
Moltes gràcies,
Ets el millor
Very glad this is helpful :)
Why does your captioning at the end spell "Moltes" as "Moltès" - I thought "many thanks" was "moltes gracies" and the final "e" in each is pronounced like unstressed "e" (with the schwa sound).
Apart from this, I very much appreciate the examples you gave of open and closed stressed "e" - that has always been a big stumbling block for me!
Hola Rick, gràcies, well spotted! You are actually right, I hadn't realised I made a typo. The right spelling is "moltes gràcies", no accent in "moltes" - you will see it spelled correctly in the other videos. Thus "mol-tes" is an unstressed "e" as you mentioned. Glad the other examples worked well :)
Creo que olvidaste el sonido de la "e" al final, como en "pare". Me gustaría que hicieras videos en español y la explicación de la pronunciación de la "ll" en "Ell" y "Elle". Moltes gràcies!
Tienes razón - sólo me centré en los sonidos de la E tónica! Está en inglés, pero aquí tienes el vídeo sobre cómo pronunciar la LL :) ua-cam.com/video/wYWkoq5MY8U/v-deo.html
Good but why you pronounce the letter E as an A? The word de is pronounced da like: sons dos quarts de deu.
Hola! The purpose of this video is to show the different sounds a vowel in Catalan may have - regardless of the position they have in a word or whether they belong to an unstressed or stressed syllable. I will do another video to explain why "de" sounds like "da".
la pronuncia oriental de catalunya no es neutralitzen les vocals pero' jo sempre les neutralitzo les vocals
M'encanta de veure catalans reclamant la NORMALITAT internacionalmemt amb tota la que està caiguent... una annéctota, en japonés les vocals fonétiques són A I U E O
Hi ! I love your channel and I really want to learn Catalan. I just have one question. What do you mean by stressed letters . Is a letter considered stressed when there’s a vowel already in the word ?
Hola Gadiel! What I meant with "stressed syllable" is the strong syllable of the word. Meaning the letters that have a strong emphasis in terms of pronunciation. All syllables have vowels. Will give you an example: the word "HOLA" (hello) has 2 syllables: HO - LA. The strong/stressed syllable is the first one, since it is pronounced in a stronger manner [ 'HO-la]
Learn Catalan from Barcelona Hola ! Yes that makes sense . Thank you ! This next question may be a hard one but it would be awesome if you could answer it . So I know in Spanish there are specific times when we have to use the accent mark . Like in “qué”, is it the same in Catalan ?
That is right! In Catalan the accent is: "què". We put the accent 1) when "què" follows a preposition 2) in exclamations and questions 3) when "què" indirectly refers to a question. So it's very similar to Spanish :)
Learn Catalan from Barcelona Great ! Once again thank you so much for the help. I’m not sure if you’ve mentioned this in another video but I noticed that in Catalan sometimes there’s a different “c” being used . This is what I’m referring to “ç” when is that “c” correctly used and how is it pronounced?
Hola Gadiel! That's is very right, I didn't include “ç” to keep things simple, but it could also be considered a letter. “ç” is pronounced as an "s" and can only be written before A, O, U or at the end of a word. Hope this clarifies!
โอเค
I got here because in geometry a Catalan is also a polyhedron Archimedean solid.
Do diphthongs and triphthongs, please.
Parles inglés molt bé, enhorabona !
thank you very much :-)
De res, momamed :)
a catalunya existeixen dos tipus de català: català occidental i català oriental
Hola a TOTS! (castellanisme)........Hola a TOTHOM! (català)
Que guapa!
com et dius?!
Good