Quan torno de la feina, encara em fa mal l'esquena.

Catalan usually does not need subject pronouns when the verb ending already shows who the subject is.

• torno = I return / I come back
• The ending -o tells you it is 1st person singular.

So:

• Quan torno de la feina... = When I come back from work...

You can say jo torno, but jo is usually only added for emphasis or contrast.

In Catalan, the present tense is often used for habitual actions or things that regularly happen.

So Quan torno de la feina means:

• When I come back from work
• or more naturally, When I get back from work

It does not necessarily mean only right now. It can describe a repeated situation.

Quan means when.

It introduces a time clause:

• Quan torno de la feina = When I come back from work

So the sentence structure is:

• When X happens, Y happens

Here:

• X = quan torno de la feina
• Y = encara em fa mal l'esquena

Yes, literally it is from the work/job, but idiomatically it means from work.

• feina = work, job
• de la feina = from work

Catalan often uses the article where English might leave it out.

So:

• torno de la feina = I come back from work

A learner should not translate word-for-word too rigidly here.

Both are related to work, but they are not always used in exactly the same way.

• feina often means work, job, employment, or the work you have to do
• treball can also mean work, but often sounds a bit more like labor, task, or work activity

In everyday speech, anar a la feina and tornar de la feina are very common for going to work / coming back from work.

So in this sentence, feina is very natural.

Here encara means still.

So:

• encara em fa mal l'esquena = my back still hurts / my back is still hurting

It shows that the pain continues.

Compare:

• em fa mal l'esquena = my back hurts
• encara em fa mal l'esquena = my back still hurts

Catalan commonly uses the expression fer mal for pain.

Literally:

• em fa mal l'esquena = the back makes pain to me

But naturally, it means:

• my back hurts
• my back is hurting

Breakdown:

• em = to me
• fa = does/makes (from fer)
• mal = pain / harm
• l'esquena = the back

This structure is very common in Catalan:

• Em fa mal el cap = My head hurts
• Em fan mal les cames = My legs hurt

Em is the 1st person singular weak pronoun, meaning to me or me, depending on the structure.

In em fa mal l'esquena, it marks the person who feels the pain:

• em = to me

Other forms would be:

• em fa mal = it hurts me / I have pain
• et fa mal = it hurts you
• li fa mal = it hurts him/her
• ens fa mal = it hurts us

So em is there because I am the one experiencing the pain.

Catalan often uses the definite article with body parts, especially when it is already clear whose body part it is.

So Catalan prefers:

• em fa mal l'esquena

rather than:

• em fa mal la meva esquena

This is similar to other Romance languages. Since em already tells us to me, it is obvious that it is my back.

So:

• em fa mal l'esquena = literally the back hurts me
• natural English: my back hurts

Because the grammatical subject is l'esquena, which is singular.

• l'esquena = the back → singular
• so the verb is fa

Compare:

• Em fa mal l'esquena = My back hurts
• Em fan mal les cames = My legs hurt

So the verb agrees with the body part:

• singular body part → fa
• plural body part → fan

The dictionary form is tornar.

In this sentence:

• torno = I return / I come back

Some common forms:

• torno = I return
• tornes = you return
• torna = he/she returns
• tornem = we return
• torneu = you all return
• tornen = they return

The comma separates the introductory time clause from the main clause:

• Quan torno de la feina, = When I get back from work,
• encara em fa mal l'esquena. = my back still hurts.

This is very natural punctuation, especially in writing.

You may sometimes see less punctuation in informal writing, but the comma here is standard and helpful.

Yes, Catalan is somewhat flexible, though some orders are more natural than others.

The original sentence:

• Quan torno de la feina, encara em fa mal l'esquena.

A different but still natural order could be:

• Quan torno de la feina, l'esquena encara em fa mal.

Both mean essentially the same thing.

However, em fa mal l'esquena is a very common and natural pattern, so it is a good one to learn first.

A more literal translation would be:

• When I return from work, my back still hurts me.

A more natural English version would be:

• When I get back from work, my back still hurts.

This is a good example of why you should learn Catalan expressions like fer mal as a whole pattern, not only word by word.

The apostrophe appears because la becomes l' before a vowel sound.

• la esquena → l'esquena

This is very common in Catalan.

Pronunciation, roughly for an English speaker:

• l'esquena ≈ luhs-KEH-nuh or les-KEH-nuh

The stressed syllable is usually the middle one:

• es-QUE-na

The exact vowel quality depends on accent, but the key point is that the apostrophe just shows an elision of the article.

Yes, and it changes the nuance slightly.

• Quan torno de la feina = When I come back from work
• Quan arribo de la feina = When I arrive home/from work

tornar focuses on coming back/returning, while arribar focuses on arriving.

Both can work depending on what you want to emphasize, but torno de la feina is very natural in this context.