Word
Abans de sortir, vull estendre la roba al balcó.
Meaning
Before leaving, I want to hang the clothes on the balcony.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Abans de sortir, vull estendre la roba al balcó.
voler
to want
a
on
abans de
before
la roba
the clothing
Questions & Answers about Abans de sortir, vull estendre la roba al balcó.
Why is it abans de sortir and not just abans sortir?
Because abans normally takes de before an infinitive or a noun phrase.
- abans de sortir = before leaving / before going out
- abans de dinar = before lunch
By itself, abans usually means earlier / before in a more general sense:
- He arribat abans = I arrived earlier
So in this sentence, de is required.
Why is sortir in the infinitive?
After abans de, Catalan uses the infinitive when the subject is the same as in the main clause.
So:
- Abans de sortir, vull... = Before leaving, I want...
The person who is leaving is the same person who wants to do something.
If the subject were different, Catalan would normally use a full clause, often with abans que:
- Abans que ell surti... = Before he leaves...
So sortir is infinitive here because it matches the subject of vull.
Why is there no separate word for English to after vull?