Acabo de passar l'aspiradora al passadís i a l'habitació.

Catalan often drops subject pronouns because the verb ending already shows who is doing the action.

Here, acabo is the 1st person singular form of acabar, so it already means I finish / I have just in this structure. Because of that, jo is not necessary.

You could say Jo acabo de passar l'aspiradora... but that would usually add emphasis or contrast.

Acabo de + infinitive is a very common Catalan structure meaning have just done something or just did something.

So:

• Acabo de passar l'aspiradora = I have just vacuumed
• Acabo d'arribar = I have just arrived

Even though acabar by itself means to finish, this whole pattern is an idiomatic way to express the recent past.

Because the construction is fixed: acabar de + infinitive.

So you do not say acabo passar. You say:

• acabo de passar
• acabo de menjar
• acabo de sortir

In this pattern, de is simply part of the grammar of the expression.

Because passar l'aspiradora is the normal idiomatic way to say to vacuum in Catalan.

Literally, it is something like to pass the vacuum cleaner, but you should learn it as a set expression. Languages often package everyday actions differently.

Depending on the variety of Catalan, you may also hear passar l'aspirador. The sentence you were given uses l'aspiradora, which is perfectly natural.

This is because the article la becomes l' before a vowel or silent h.

So:

• la aspiradora → l'aspiradora
• la habitació → l'habitació

The apostrophe does not change the gender. Both aspiradora and habitació are still feminine nouns.

Because al is the contraction of a + el.

• a + el passadís → al passadís
• a + la habitació would become a l'habitació because la changes to l' before a vowel

So the difference comes from the article:

• passadís is masculine: el passadís
• habitació is feminine: l'habitació / underlying la habitació

In Catalan, when two places are joined with i, it is normal to repeat the preposition.

So:

• al passadís i a l'habitació = natural
• al passadís i l'habitació = not natural here

Repeating a makes the structure clear and is the usual way to say it.

Catalan often uses a where English uses in, especially with places and parts of a house.

So al passadís and a l'habitació are completely normal for in the hallway and in the room/bedroom.

This is one of those cases where you should not translate the preposition too literally from English. Just learn the Catalan pattern as it is.

It can mean room in a general sense, but in many home-related contexts it often means bedroom.

So in this sentence, depending on context, it could be understood as:

• the room
• the bedroom

If you want to be completely explicit about bedroom, Catalan also has dormitori.

They show where the stress falls.

• passadís is stressed on the last syllable: pa-sa-DÍS
• habitació is stressed on the last syllable: ha-bi-ta-ci-Ó

For an English speaker, that is important because without the written accent, you might stress the word in the wrong place.

Not with exactly the same meaning.

• Acabo de passar l'aspiradora = I have just vacuumed
• He acabat de passar l'aspiradora = more like I have finished vacuuming

So acabo de + infinitive expresses the idea of something that happened very recently, while he acabat de... focuses more on completion.

You mainly change the form of acabar:

• Acabes de passar l'aspiradora... = You have just vacuumed...
• Acaba de passar l'aspiradora... = He/She has just vacuumed...
• Acabem de passar l'aspiradora... = We have just vacuumed...
• Acaben de passar l'aspiradora... = They have just vacuumed...

The rest of the sentence can stay the same if the action and places stay the same.