La meva àvia m'explicava un conte cada nit abans de dormir.

In Catalan, possessives are very often used together with the definite article, especially with family members and body parts.

So:

• la meva àvia = my grandmother
• el meu pare = my father
• la meva mà = my hand

For an English speaker, this feels unusual because English normally does not use the with possessives. But in Catalan, la meva àvia is the normal pattern.

m' is the weak pronoun for em, meaning to me here.

So:

• La meva àvia m'explicava... = My grandmother used to tell me...

The full form is em, but it becomes m' before a vowel or silent h:

• em parla
• m'explica
• m'ha dit

In this sentence, explicava begins with a vowel sound, so em changes to m'.

In Catalan, object pronouns often come before the conjugated verb.

So:

• m'explicava = was telling me / used to tell me
• literally, something like to-me told

This is normal Catalan word order with weak pronouns:

• em mira = he/she looks at me
• et diu = he/she tells you
• li dona un llibre = he/she gives him/her a book

Explicava is the imperfect tense. It is used for:

• repeated past actions
• habitual actions
• background descriptions
• things that used to happen

Here, the sentence includes cada nit (every night), so the imperfect is the natural choice:

• La meva àvia m'explicava un conte cada nit = My grandmother used to tell me a story every night

If you said va explicar, that would usually mean told on one completed occasion:

• La meva àvia em va explicar un conte = My grandmother told me a story

So the imperfect fits the idea of a repeated bedtime routine.

Yes. The Catalan imperfect often covers both ideas.

Depending on context, explicava can mean:

• was telling
• used to tell
• sometimes simply told, in a descriptive/background sense

In this sentence, because of cada nit, the most natural English translation is used to tell.

Conte is a masculine noun meaning story, often a tale or children's story.

So:

• un conte = a story / a tale
• explicar un conte = to tell a story

It often suggests something told to a child, especially in a bedtime context. It can feel a bit more like tale than the broader word història, though the exact difference depends on context.

Un is the indefinite article, meaning a.

So:

• un conte = a story
• el conte = the story

Here the sentence means that the grandmother used to tell one story each night, not one specific already-identified story. That is why un conte is used.

Cada nit means every night.

Yes, you can also say totes les nits, which means every night / all nights. In many contexts, both are possible.

• cada nit focuses on repetition, one by one: each night
• totes les nits can feel slightly more like every night / all the nights

In this sentence, cada nit sounds very natural.

After abans de (before), Catalan uses the infinitive when the subject is general or understood.

So:

• abans de dormir = before sleeping / before going to sleep

You do not use a gerund-like form here.

Other examples:

• abans de menjar = before eating
• abans de sortir = before leaving

This is a very common Catalan structure:

• abans de + infinitive

Because Catalan often simply uses dormir in expressions like this.

• abans de dormir = before sleeping / before going to sleep

English often prefers go to sleep in this context, but Catalan does not need an extra reflexive pronoun here.

If you translated too literally from English, you might expect something more complicated, but abans de dormir is the normal, simple way to say it.

Àvia means grandmother.

A simple pronunciation guide is:

• Àvia ≈ AH-vee-uh

The accent mark on à shows the stressed syllable:

• À-vi-a

So the stress falls on the first syllable.

The accent in àvia helps show stress.

Catalan spelling uses accent marks partly to indicate which syllable is stressed. In àvia, the stress is on the first syllable:

• À-vi-a

Without getting too technical, the accent tells you this word does not follow the most basic default stress pattern.

Accent marks in Catalan are important, so it is worth learning them as part of the word.

Yes. Explicar is very commonly used for:

• to explain
• to tell (a story, something that happened, a fact, etc.)

So:

• explicar un conte = to tell a story
• explicar una història = to tell a story
• explicar una cosa = to tell something

For an English speaker, it may look like it should only mean explain, but in Catalan it is perfectly normal in this sentence.

The sentence breaks down like this:

• La meva àvia = subject, my grandmother
• m' = indirect object pronoun, to me
• explicava = verb in the imperfect, used to tell
• un conte = direct object, a story
• cada nit = time expression, every night
• abans de dormir = time expression, before sleeping / before going to sleep

So the structure is roughly:

[subject] + [pronoun] + [verb] + [thing told] + [time] + [before + infinitive]

That makes the whole sentence very natural Catalan.