L'hora de l'autobús és important, perquè la meva germana tornarà abans de sopar.

In Catalan, the definite articles el and la usually become l' before a vowel or a silent h. So:

• la hora → l'hora
• el autobús → l'autobús

This is very similar to apostrophe use in French. The l' can stand for either masculine or feminine singular.

Del is the contraction of de + el. But before a vowel, el changes to l', so you get de l' instead of del.

So the steps are:

• de + el autobús
• el autobús becomes l'autobús
• result: de l'autobús

Catalan often uses de to link two nouns where English might use a noun directly as a modifier. So l'hora de l'autobús is literally something like the time of the bus.

English often compresses this into the bus time or the bus schedule/time, but Catalan normally uses de for this kind of relationship.

Catalan distinguishes between ser and estar. Here, és comes from ser, which is used for qualities seen as essential, defining, or general.

Saying that the bus time is important describes a general fact, so és important is the natural choice. Està would sound wrong here.

Some Catalan adjectives have the same form for masculine and feminine singular. Important is one of them.

So you get:

• un horari important
• una hora important

The plural does change: importants.

Perquè with an accent means because.

This matters because similar-looking forms mean different things:

• perquè = because
• per què = why / for what
• el perquè = the reason

So in this sentence, perquè introduces the reason.

In standard Catalan, possessives are usually used with a definite article. So my sister is normally la meva germana, not just meva germana.

This is different from English, where we do not use the with possessives. For a learner, the safest standard pattern is:

• el meu...
• la meva...
• els meus...
• les meves...

The possessive agrees with the noun being possessed, not with the speaker. Since germana is feminine singular, the correct form is meva.

Compare:

• el meu germà = my brother
• la meva germana = my sister

So meva matches germana.

Tornarà is the future form of tornar. In this sentence it means will return or will come back.

So la meva germana tornarà means my sister will return / come back. Catalan tornar is very commonly used for returning.

It is the simple future of tornar. For regular verbs, Catalan often forms the future by adding endings directly to the infinitive.

With tornar:

• tornaré = I will return
• tornaràs = you will return
• tornarà = he/she will return
• tornarem = we will return
• tornareu = you all will return
• tornaran = they will return

So tornarà is the third person singular future.

After abans, Catalan normally uses de before an infinitive:

• abans de + infinitive

So abans de sopar literally means before having dinner / before eating dinner. In natural English, this is often just translated as before dinner, but grammatically Catalan is using the verb sopar.

Here, sopar is a verb in the infinitive: to have dinner / to eat dinner. That is why it comes after de in abans de sopar.

But sopar can also be a noun in Catalan, meaning dinner. So the same form can function as either a noun or a verb depending on the sentence.