Demà la mare vol comprar fruita a la botiga.

to want

Breakdown of Demà la mare vol comprar fruita a la botiga.

• la fruita: the fruit
• la mare: the mother
• a: at

Questions & Answers about Demà la mare vol comprar fruita a la botiga.

Why does the sentence start with Demà instead of putting the time expression at the end?

Catalan is fairly flexible with word order, especially for time expressions. Starting with Demà is very natural and helps set the time frame right away: Tomorrow, the mother wants to buy fruit at the shop.

You could also say something like La mare vol comprar fruita a la botiga demà, but Demà at the beginning is very common and often sounds more natural when you want to emphasize when something will happen.

Why is it la mare and not just mare?

Catalan often uses the definite article before nouns much more than English does. So la mare literally means the mother, but depending on context it can also correspond to my mother, his mother, the mother, and so on.

This is very normal in Catalan. English often leaves out the article in places where Catalan keeps it.

What does vol comprar mean, and why are there two verbs together?

Vol is the 3rd person singular of voler, meaning to want.
Comprar is the infinitive to buy.

So vol comprar means wants to buy.

This works much like English:

• She wants to buy
• Vol comprar

Catalan often uses a conjugated verb followed by an infinitive in the same way English does.