També va portar una forquilla i un ganivet per al peix.

a

Breakdown of També va portar una forquilla i un ganivet per al peix.

• i: and
• també: also
• portar: to bring

Questions & Answers about També va portar una forquilla i un ganivet per al peix.

Why does va portar mean brought?

Because va portar is the very common Catalan periphrastic past.

• va = literally goes/went in other contexts, but here it is part of a past tense
• portar = to bring / to carry

So va portar means he/she/it brought.

This structure is extremely common in Catalan:

• va menjar = ate
• va arribar = arrived
• va comprar = bought

So even though it looks like go + infinitive, in Catalan it often simply expresses the past.

Who is the subject of va portar? Does the sentence say he, she, or it?

The subject is not stated explicitly.

In Catalan, verb endings often make the subject clear enough, so pronouns are often omitted. Here, va portar is third person singular, so it can mean:

• he brought
• she brought
• it brought
• sometimes even you brought in the formal singular sense, depending on context

You need the wider context to know exactly who did it.

What does també do in this sentence, and why is it at the beginning?