El pinyó és brut.

El is the masculine singular definite article, so it means the.

It is used because the sentence is talking about a specific pinyó, not just any one in general. If you wanted a pinyó, you would normally use un instead: Un pinyó...

You can tell from the agreement:

• el = masculine singular
• brut = masculine singular adjective form

In Catalan, nouns have grammatical gender, and the article and adjective must match that gender and number. So this sentence shows that pinyó is masculine singular.

A good habit is to learn nouns together with their article: el pinyó, not just pinyó.

És is the third-person singular present form of ser.

It matches a singular subject such as el pinyó.

So grammatically, it is the form used for:

• he is
• she is
• it is

depending on the subject.

The accent is part of the correct spelling of the verb form és.

It also helps distinguish it from es, which is a different word in Catalan, often a reflexive or pronoun form.

So:

• és = is
• es = a different grammatical word

The accent shows that the stress falls on the last syllable:

pi-nyó

Without the accent, Catalan spelling rules would suggest a different stress pattern.

The ó also tells you the vowel is the close o sound.

A rough English approximation is pee-NYOH.

A few pronunciation notes:

• pi sounds like pee
• ny is like Spanish ñ
• it is also close to the sound in English canyon
• the stress is on the last syllable: pi-NYÓ

A more technical pronunciation is /piˈɲo/.

This is a very common question, because Catalan distinguishes between ser and estar.

In general:

• ser is often used for identity, classification, or more general characteristics
• estar is often used for states or conditions

So with brut:

• és brut can sound more general or characteristic
• està brut often sounds more like it is dirty right now

In everyday Catalan, many speakers would often prefer està brut for something that has become dirty. But és brut is still grammatical and can make sense depending on the nuance or context.

Because it has to agree with pinyó, which is masculine singular.

The forms are:

• brut = masculine singular
• bruta = feminine singular
• bruts = masculine plural
• brutes = feminine plural

So if the noun changed, the adjective would change too. For example:

• Els pinyons són bruts = masculine plural

Because here brut is a predicate adjective: it describes the subject after the verb ser.

This is similar to English:

• The pinyó is dirty

If you wanted the adjective directly inside the noun phrase, Catalan would usually put it after the noun:

• el pinyó brut = the dirty pinyó

So:

• El pinyó és brut = full sentence
• el pinyó brut = noun phrase

Yes. Depending on context, brut can mean things like:

• dirty
• filthy
• gross
• obscene
• coarse or rough

But in a simple sentence like this, the most natural interpretation is the literal one: dirty.