Questions & Answers about Això és aigua.
Això is a neuter demonstrative pronoun. It means something like this / this thing / that when you are referring to something without naming a noun.
So in Això és aigua, you are basically saying This is water.
By contrast, aquest is masculine singular and normally goes with a noun, for example:
- aquest llibre = this book
You would not normally use aquest by itself here unless you were referring to a specific masculine noun already understood from context.
It often corresponds to this, but in practice it can sometimes cover both this and that, depending on context.
A useful beginner rule is:
- això = this / this thing
- allò = that / that thing over there
Catalan does not always match English distance distinctions exactly, so the best translation depends on the situation.
És is the 3rd person singular present of ser (to be).
The subject is això, which is singular, so the verb must also be singular:
- això és = this is
This sentence is identifying what something is, so ser is the correct verb.