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Learn Hardcore Catalan: La cadena és bruta. - The bicycle chain is dirty.

Hardcore Catalan
/Repairing a bicycle at a community workshop
/La cadena és bruta.

La cadena és bruta.

La cadena és bruta.

The bicycle chain is dirty.

Breakdown of La cadena és bruta.

the bicycle chain

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Questions & Answers about La cadena és bruta.

Why does the sentence start with la?

La is the feminine singular definite article in Catalan, equivalent to the in English.

So in la cadena:

la = the
cadena = a feminine singular noun

Catalan nouns have grammatical gender, so the article has to match the noun.

Why is it cadena and not some other form?

Cadena is the basic singular form of the noun. It is a feminine singular noun meaning chain.

If you changed the number, you would get:

la cadena = the chain
les cadenes = the chains

So the sentence uses the normal dictionary form of the noun in the singular.

Why is it és with an accent?

The accent in és is important.

és = is (from the verb ser, to be)
es without an accent is a different word, often a pronoun like himself/herself/itself or part of a pronominal verb

So in this sentence, és is the verb and means is.

Why is the adjective bruta and not brut?

Because adjectives in Catalan usually agree in gender and number with the noun they describe.

Here:

cadena is feminine singular
so the adjective must also be feminine singular
therefore: bruta

Compare:

el cable és brut = the cable is dirty
masculine singular
la cadena és bruta = the chain is dirty
feminine singular
les cadenes són brutes = the chains are dirty
feminine plural

Why is the adjective placed after the verb?

In La cadena és bruta, bruta is a predicate adjective: it comes after the verb és and describes the subject.

This works very much like English:

The chain is dirty
La cadena és bruta

So the structure is:

subject + verb + adjective

That is completely normal in Catalan.

Why does the sentence use és from ser instead of està from estar?

This is a very common learner question.

Catalan uses both ser and estar, but not always in exactly the same way as English. In this sentence, és bruta presents dirty more as a quality or description of the chain.

However, està bruta is also possible in many contexts, especially if you want to stress its current state: for example, the chain got dirty and now needs cleaning.

A simple way to think about it:

és bruta = describes it as dirty
està bruta = emphasizes that it is currently dirty

In real Catalan, both can appear, but they may suggest slightly different nuances.

Can I leave out la and just say Cadena és bruta?

Normally, no. In a normal sentence, you would usually need the article:

La cadena és bruta.

Leaving out the article would sound incomplete or unnatural in most contexts.

Catalan often uses articles in places where English does too, and sometimes even more often than English. Here, since we are talking about the chain, the article is expected.

How is La cadena és bruta pronounced?

A broad pronunciation guide is:

luh kuh-DEH-nuh ez BROO-tuh

More approximately in IPA: [lə kəˈðɛ.nə ˈes ˈbɾu.tə]

A few useful notes:

cadena is stressed on de
és is a short word, pronounced like ess but with a pure vowel
bruta is stressed on the first syllable: BRU-ta
the r in bruta is not the English r; it is a tapped Catalan/Spanish-style r

Pronunciation varies somewhat by dialect, but this is a good general guide.

Is the word order flexible? Could I say Bruta és la cadena?

Catalan word order is somewhat flexible, but La cadena és bruta is the most neutral and natural order.

You could change the order in special contexts for emphasis or style, but it would sound marked, poetic, or contrastive. For everyday speech, stick with:

La cadena és bruta.

That is the standard, straightforward way to say it.

Does bruta only mean physical dirt?

In this sentence, bruta naturally means dirty in the physical sense.

But like English dirty, Catalan brut / bruta can sometimes be used in extended senses too, depending on context, such as:

morally dirty
obscene
unpleasant
crude

Still, without extra context, La cadena és bruta will normally be understood literally: the chain is dirty.

What would the negative version be?

You make it negative by putting no before the verb:

La cadena no és bruta. = The chain is not dirty.

This is the normal pattern in Catalan:

és = is
no és = is not

So the structure is:

subject + no + verb + adjective

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