Demà la meva mare tornarà de la farmàcia abans de dinar.

Catalan word order is quite flexible, and time expressions are often placed first to set the scene.

So Demà la meva mare tornarà... is a natural way to say Tomorrow, my mother will return...

You could also say:

La meva mare tornarà demà de la farmàcia abans de dinar.

That is also correct. Putting Demà first just gives the time a little more prominence.

Catalan often leaves out subject pronouns when they are not needed. This is because the verb form already shows the person and number.

Here, tornarà means he/she/it will return, and the subject is already clearly stated as la meva mare, so adding ella would usually be unnecessary.

If you did add ella, it would sound more emphatic:

Demà la meva mare, ella tornarà de la farmàcia...

That is possible in some contexts, but it is not the neutral everyday version.

In standard Catalan, possessives usually take the definite article when they come before the noun.

So you normally say:

la meva mare = my mother
el meu pare = my father
la seva casa = his/her house

For an English speaker, this feels strange because English does not use the before my. But in Catalan, this is the normal pattern.

There are some exceptions in special styles, fixed expressions, or direct address, but for ordinary sentences, la meva mare is what you should expect.

Tornarà is the 3rd person singular future of tornar.

The infinitive is:

tornar = to return / to come back

The regular future in Catalan is formed by adding endings to the infinitive. For tornar, the future forms are:

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 here tornarà agrees with la meva mare.

Yes, often it can.

Catalan, like English, can use the present tense for a future event when the time is already clear:

Demà la meva mare torna de la farmàcia abans de dinar.

That can sound perfectly natural, especially in everyday speech.

Using tornarà makes the future more explicit. So both are possible, but the future tense is a very straightforward choice.

Here tornar means to return or to come back.

It is a very common Catalan verb. In this sentence, it means that your mother will come back from somewhere.

Be careful, because tornar can also appear in another structure:

tornar a + infinitive

That means to do something again.

For example:

Tornarà a trucar = She will call again

So tornar can mean either return or be part of again, depending on the structure.

Yes. In this sentence, de means from.

Catalan de has several meanings depending on context, including of, from, and sometimes others. After a verb of movement like tornar, de often marks the place someone is coming back from.

So:

tornar de la farmàcia = to return from the pharmacy

That is why the meaning is from, not of.

This is an important distinction:

tornar de + place = to return from + place
tornar a + place = to return to / go back to + place

So:

Torna de la farmàcia = She is coming back from the pharmacy
Torna a la farmàcia = She is going back to the pharmacy

The preposition changes the direction completely.

Also remember the other pattern:

tornar a + infinitive = to do something again

So tornar a can mean two different things depending on what follows:

• a + place: go back to
• a + infinitive: do again

Because abans often needs de when it is followed by a noun or an infinitive.

Here it is followed by dinar, so you get:

abans de dinar

This means before lunch or literally before having lunch.

Compare:

abans = before / earlier
abans de sortir = before leaving
abans de classe = before class

If a full clause follows, Catalan usually uses abans que instead:

Tornarà abans que jo arribi.
= She will return before I arrive.

The most useful way to understand it here is as an infinitive:

dinar = to have lunch

So abans de dinar literally means before having lunch.

However, because dinar is also used as a noun meaning lunch, the whole phrase is very naturally understood as before lunch in everyday English.

So for a learner, the safest takeaway is:

• grammatically, it works very naturally as an infinitive after de
• in meaning, it corresponds closely to before lunch

Abans de dinar is the normal general expression for before lunch or before having lunch.

If you say abans del dinar, you are talking more specifically about the lunch as a particular meal or event.

So the difference is roughly:

abans de dinar = before lunch / before having lunch
abans del dinar = before the lunch

Also, if you did use the article el, then de + el contracts to del in Catalan.

The accents show where the stress falls.

In Catalan, words ending in a vowel are normally stressed on the second-to-last syllable unless an accent mark shows otherwise. These words are stressed later than that rule would predict, so they need an accent:

demà → stress on the last syllable
tornarà → stress on the last syllable
farmàcia → stress on mà

For an English speaker, the most practical thing is to treat the accent as a guide to pronunciation and stress.

Usually it is close, but not always identical in everyday associations.

La farmàcia is the place where you get medicine and health-related products. In British English, chemist’s is often a very good match. In American English, pharmacy is usually the best translation.

Depending on the country, an English drugstore may suggest a larger shop that sells many non-medical items too, so it is not always a perfect one-to-one match.

Yes. Catalan allows several word orders, especially with time phrases and prepositional phrases.

For example, these are all possible:

Demà la meva mare tornarà de la farmàcia abans de dinar.
La meva mare tornarà demà de la farmàcia abans de dinar.
La meva mare tornarà de la farmàcia demà abans de dinar.

Some versions sound more natural than others depending on what you want to emphasize, but the original sentence is perfectly normal and clear.

The original order is nice because it presents the information smoothly:

• Demà = when
• la meva mare = who
• tornarà = what will happen
• de la farmàcia = from where
• abans de dinar = by what time / before what point