Word
Quan vivíem al poble, el meu avi i la meva àvia seien sovint al balcó al vespre.
Meaning
When we lived in the town, my grandfather and my grandmother often sat on the balcony in the evening.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Quan vivíem al poble, el meu avi i la meva àvia seien sovint al balcó al vespre.
a
in
i
and
meu
my
a
on
Questions & Answers about Quan vivíem al poble, el meu avi i la meva àvia seien sovint al balcó al vespre.
Why are vivíem and seien in the imperfect?
Because the sentence describes a past situation as a habit or background state, not as a single completed event.
- vivíem = we used to live / we were living
- seien = they used to sit / would often sit
The imperfect is very common in Catalan for:
- repeated past actions
- ongoing past situations
- background description
So this sentence feels like a memory or a scene from the past.
Why isn’t there a subject pronoun before vivíem?
Catalan often drops subject pronouns because the verb ending already shows the subject.
- vivíem already means we lived / we used to live
- the ending -íem tells you it is nosaltres = we
You could say Quan nosaltres vivíem al poble..., but that would usually add emphasis or contrast.
What does quan mean here exactly?
Quan means when, but in this kind of sentence it introduces a time clause that gives the setting for the main clause.
So Quan vivíem al poble means something like:
- When we lived in the village/town
- Back when we lived in the village/town
Because the verb is imperfect, it suggests a period of time, not one exact moment.