Annotated Story: What We Did This Weekend

A story does more than put verbs in the past: it separates the setting from the events, keeps people and places active in the reader's mind, and moves time forward. This original, rights-cleared A2 narrative uses contemporary standard Catalan with an informal everyday voice. Its central contrast is the imperfect for background and the periphrastic past for completed events.

The Complete Story

Un cap de setmana a Girona

1. Dissabte al matí feia sol i no teníem cap pressa, però la Júlia i jo volíem aprofitar el dia.
2. A les nou vam agafar el tren cap a Girona i, mentre viatjàvem, parlàvem dels llocs que volíem veure.
3. Quan hi vam arribar, vam deixar les motxilles a l'hotel i vam anar a esmorzar en un cafè petit.
4. La cambrera ens va recomanar els xuixos de crema; en vam demanar dos i ens els vam menjar allà mateix.
5. Després vam passejar pel barri vell, vam travessar l'Onyar i ens hi vam perdre expressament, perquè cada carreró tenia alguna cosa especial.
6. Al vespre estàvem cansats, així que vam sopar aviat i ens vam quedar una estona a la plaça.
7. Diumenge plovia i feia fresca; per això no vam pujar a la muralla, sinó que vam visitar el Museu del Cinema.
8. A la tornada comentàvem el viatge: només havien passat dos dies, però ens semblava que havíem estat fora tota una setmana.

Idiomatic English Translation

A weekend in Girona

On Saturday morning it was sunny and we were in no hurry, but Júlia and I wanted to make the most of the day. At nine we caught the train to Girona and, while we were travelling, we talked about the places we wanted to see. When we arrived there, we left our backpacks at the hotel and went to have breakfast in a small café. The server recommended the cream-filled xuixos; we ordered two and ate them right there. Then we walked around the old quarter, crossed the Onyar, and deliberately got lost there, because every little street had something special. In the evening we were tired, so we had an early dinner and stayed in the square for a while. On Sunday it was raining and chilly; for that reason we did not go up onto the city wall but visited the Cinema Museum. On the way back we talked about the trip: only two days had passed, but it felt as though we had been away for a whole week.

The translation repeats subjects such as we because English normally requires them. Catalan does not: the endings of vam agafar, viatjàvem, and comentàvem already identify a first-person plural subject.

Read-Aloud Version

Read in sense groups, pausing at each slash. Keep the auxiliary and infinitive together: vam_agafar, not vam / agafar.

Dissabte al matí / feia sol / i no teníem cap pressa, / però la Júlia i jo / volíem aprofitar el dia. // A les nou / vam agafar el tren cap a Girona / i, mentre viatjàvem, / parlàvem dels llocs / que volíem veure. // Quan hi vam arribar, / vam deixar les motxilles a l'hotel / i vam anar a esmorzar / en un cafè petit. // La cambrera ens va recomanar / els xuixos de crema; / en vam demanar dos / i ens els vam menjar / allà mateix. // Després / vam passejar pel barri vell, / vam travessar l'Onyar / i ens hi vam perdre expressament. // Al vespre estàvem cansats; / diumenge plovia i feia fresca. // A la tornada / comentàvem el viatge.

Numbered Annotations

1. Background first: feia, teníem, volíem

The first line opens the narrative camera rather than advancing the plot. The imperfect presents weather, a continuing state, and an intention already in progress. English uses “was,” “were,” or sometimes a simple past; Catalan makes the aspectual contrast systematic. The first bounded event only arrives in line 2 with vam agafar.

The expression no tenir cap pressa means “to be in no hurry.” Here cap is a negative determiner, not “head.” That false-friend reading would make the sentence nonsensical.

2. Events versus an activity in progress

Vam agafar is the periphrastic past: present forms of anar plus an infinitive. It reports the completed event that moves the story forward. Mentre viatjàvem, parlàvem uses two imperfects because both activities form an open, simultaneous interval.

Despite its appearance, vam agafar does not mean “we are going to catch.” The special auxiliary forms vaig, vas, va, vam, vau, van plus the infinitive mark past events; see periphrastic-past formation.

3. Hi keeps Girona active

In quan hi vam arribar, hi means “there” and retrieves Girona. Catalan prefers this compact reference over repeating the place. English can simply say “when we arrived,” so English speakers often omit hi, but standard Catalan normally uses it when arribar's destination has already been mentioned.

The same line changes from a l'hotel to en un cafè. The contracted definite phrase is a + el → al; no contraction occurs before the elided article in a l'hotel. The indefinite location en un cafè is natural in this context.

4. Three clitic references in one line

Ens va recomanar marks the people receiving the recommendation: “recommended to us.” In en vam demanar dos, en replaces “of the xuixos,” while dos supplies the quantity. Finally, ens els vam menjar has reflexive/affected ens plus direct-object els. The order is fixed; the pronouns appear before the conjugated auxiliary in the periphrastic past.

The pronominal menjar-se is (informal, everyday) and adds a sense of consuming the whole item or enjoying it; plain els vam menjar is also grammatical. It is not a passive construction.

5. A chain of foreground events

Vam passejar, vam travessar, ens vam perdre form the narrative spine. Repeating the auxiliary is clear at A2 and gives the sentence a steady rhythm. Ens hi vam perdre combines reflexive ens from perdre's with locative hi, which again points to the old quarter.

The imperfect tenia then pauses that chain to explain why wandering was enjoyable. It describes a stable property of each street rather than one new event.

6–7. States, weather, and the decision they motivate

Estàvem cansats, plovia, and feia fresca provide circumstances. The connectors així que and per això turn those circumstances into consequences, followed by the completed choices vam sopar, ens vam quedar, and vam visitar.

Feia fresca means that the weather was cool. It does not mean that someone “made fresh.” Weather expressions with fer are idiomatic; tense follows the narrative viewpoint.

8. Looking back from within the past

The imperfect comentàvem gives an ongoing frame during the return journey. The pluperfects havien passat and havíem estat locate earlier situations relative to that past conversation. The subordinate que havíem estat... is the content of ens semblava, while ens marks the experiencers: “it seemed to us.”

Register, Region, and Cultural Context

The periphrastic past is neutral and standard across Catalan-speaking territories, in speech and ordinary writing. The simple past (anàrem, visitàrem) is (literary) in much of the domain and remains more available in some (regional: Valencian) usage; replacing the story's forms with it would change the voice. Variant auxiliary forms such as vàrem beside vam are also standard, but a short narrative should choose one system consistently.

Girona's barri vell, the houses along the Onyar, the wall, and the local xuixo make the setting culturally specific without changing the grammar. Esmorzar here is the morning meal. Meal vocabulary and timing vary regionally, so context is more reliable than a one-word English equation.

Comprehension Check

1. Which verb forms set Saturday's scene before the first event?
2. What place does each occurrence of hi retrieve?
3. What does en replace in en vam demanar dos?
4. Why does the story say plovia but vam visitar?
5. Which forms show that the final two days are viewed from a later past moment?

Suggested answers: (1) feia, teníem, volíem; (2) Girona, then the old quarter; (3) xuixos; (4) rain is the background circumstance, while the museum visit is a completed event; (5) havien passat and havíem estat.

Transformation Practice

1. Change Diumenge plovia; per això vam visitar el museu so that Sunday was sunny and the pair climbed the wall. A natural answer is: Diumenge feia sol; per això vam pujar a la muralla.
2. Avoid repeating dos xuixos: Vam veure els xuixos i _ vam demanar dos. Answer: en.
3. Retell line 3 in the first-person singular: Quan hi vaig arribar, vaig deixar la motxilla a l'hotel i vaig anar a esmorzar.
4. Turn the completed event vam passejar pel barri vell into an ongoing background action: passejàvem pel barri vell.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways