Mai vull perdre el telèfon o la bossa.

Here mai means never.

It is the negative time adverb. In other contexts, mai can sometimes be closer to ever, but in this sentence the meaning is clearly never.

Putting mai at the beginning gives it extra emphasis, a bit like saying Never do I want to lose... in English.

In Catalan, when a negative word like mai comes before the verb, no is often not needed. So:

• Mai vull perdre el telèfon o la bossa.
• No vull perdre mai el telèfon o la bossa.

Both are possible. The first one puts stronger focus on mai.

Because Catalan often drops subject pronouns when the verb already shows who the subject is.

Here vull already means I want, so jo is unnecessary. You could add it for emphasis:

• Jo mai vull perdre el telèfon o la bossa.

But normally Catalan leaves it out.

Vull is the first person singular present tense of voler, which means to want.

So:

• vull = I want

Voler is irregular, so vull is a form you need to memorize.

Because voler is followed by an infinitive, just like English want to + verb.

So:

• vull = I want
• perdre = to lose

Together, vull perdre means I want to lose. With mai, the full sentence means I never want to lose...

They are the definite articles:

• el telèfon = the phone
• la bossa = the bag

They match the gender of the nouns:

• telèfon is masculine singular → el
• bossa is feminine singular → la

Catalan normally uses articles here. If you wanted to make possession explicit, you could say:

• el meu telèfon = my phone
• la meva bossa = my bag

O means or.

So el telèfon o la bossa means the phone or the bag.

In a negative sentence, this is still normal. But if you want to make it extra explicit that you mean neither one, Catalan often uses ni... ni...:

• Mai vull perdre ni el telèfon ni la bossa.

That is closer to I never want to lose either the phone or the bag / neither the phone nor the bag.

Yes. That is a very natural alternative.

Compare:

• Mai vull perdre el telèfon o la bossa. → stronger focus on never
• No vull perdre mai el telèfon o la bossa. → very common neutral order

So the main difference is word order and emphasis, not basic meaning.

Bossa is a general word meaning bag.

Depending on context, it can also mean something like handbag or purse. If you want to be more specific, Catalan can say:

• bossa de mà = handbag

So la bossa is best understood as the bag unless the context suggests a handbag or purse.

The accent mark in telèfon shows that the stress goes on the middle syllable:

• te-LÈ-fon

The è also tells you it is an open e sound in Catalan. Accent marks are important because they help show both stress and sometimes vowel quality.