Word
Avui em fa mal la cama.
Meaning
Today my leg hurts.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Questions & Answers about Avui em fa mal la cama.
Why is it em fa mal instead of something like jo faig mal or a verb meaning to hurt?
In Catalan, fer mal is a very common expression for to hurt / to cause pain.
The structure is:
[indirect object pronoun] + fer + mal + body part / thing
So:
- em = to me
- fa = does / makes
- mal = pain / harm
A very literal way to think about em fa mal la cama is:
the leg causes pain to me
That is why Catalan does not build it the same way English does.
What does em mean here?
Em is the unstressed object pronoun meaning to me.
In this sentence, it shows who feels the pain.
Compare:
- em fa mal la cama = my leg hurts / my leg is hurting
- et fa mal la cama = your leg hurts
- li fa mal la cama = his/her leg hurts
The full stressed form would be a mi, but in normal sentences Catalan usually uses the clitic pronoun:
- A mi em fa mal la cama = My leg hurts / As for me, my leg hurts
Here, a mi adds emphasis, while em is the normal grammatical pronoun.