Questions & Answers about Això és una casa.
Això means this in a general, neutral sense: this thing / this.
It is different from aquesta, which agrees with a feminine noun:
- aquesta casa = this house
In Això és una casa, això stands alone as a pronoun, like this in English:
- This is a house.
So:
- això = this (thing / this matter)
- aquesta casa = this house
A common pronunciation guide is roughly:
- això ≈ eye-SHO
More precisely:
- ai sounds like eye
- x in this word sounds like sh
- the final ò is a stressed open o
So the stress falls on the last syllable: ai-XÒ.
The accent mark in és helps distinguish it from es, which is a different word.
- és = is (from the verb ser, to be)
- es = a reflexive or object pronoun in many contexts
So in this sentence, és must have the accent because it means is.
És is the third-person singular form of ser (to be).
So:
- és = is
In Això és una casa, it links the subject and the description:
- This is a house.
Catalan has two verbs that can translate as to be: ser and estar.
Here, ser is used because the sentence identifies what something is.
Una means a / one, so una casa means a house.
In English, we usually need an article here:
- This is a house, not normally just This is house
Catalan works similarly in this sentence, so una casa is the natural form.
Because casa is a feminine noun.
In Catalan:
- un = a for masculine singular nouns
- una = a for feminine singular nouns
Examples:
- un llibre = a book
- una casa = a house
So the article must agree with the noun’s gender.
Yes, casa is a feminine noun in Catalan, so it takes feminine words with it:
- una casa
- la casa
- aquesta casa
This is something learners need to memorize with the noun, since grammatical gender does not always match English logic.
Yes, in this sentence the word order is very similar to English:
- Això = This
- és = is
- una casa = a house
So:
- Això és una casa. = This is a house.
Catalan often allows some flexibility in word order, but this is the normal and straightforward order here.
Usually, això means this.
Catalan commonly distinguishes:
- això = this
- allò = that
So:
- Això és una casa. = This is a house.
- Allò és una casa. = That is a house.
In real speech, the exact choice depends on distance or how the speaker is mentally pointing to something.
Normally, no. If you mean This is a house, you would usually say:
- Això és una casa.
Leaving out una would sound unnatural in this basic identification sentence.
Because això is a neutral pronoun. It does not agree with a noun in gender the way adjectives or determiners do.
Compare:
- Això és una casa. = This is a house.
- Aquesta casa... = This house...
In the second example, aquesta goes directly with casa, so it must be feminine.
But això stands alone, so it stays the same.
You would change both the subject and the noun phrase:
- Això és una casa. = This is a house.
- Això són cases. is not the most natural equivalent for These are houses
- more naturally: Aquestes són cases. or Aquestes són unes cases depending on context
If you want these are houses, Catalan usually uses a plural demonstrative such as aquestes rather than això.
It is completely normal and natural. It is a simple everyday sentence used to identify something:
- Això és una casa.
It may sound basic because it is the kind of sentence used in beginner lessons, but the grammar itself is standard and natural Catalan.