Questions & Answers about Avui em fa mal el peu.
Why does Catalan say em fa mal el peu instead of something more literal like my foot hurts?
Because Catalan very often expresses pain with the pattern fer mal a algú = to hurt someone / to cause pain to someone.
So the sentence is built like this:
- Avui = today
- em = to me
- fa mal = hurts / causes pain
- el peu = the foot
Literally, it is something like Today, the foot causes pain to me.
That sounds odd in English, but it is a very normal Catalan structure.
What exactly is em doing here?
Em is the unstressed pronoun meaning to me.
In this sentence, it shows who feels the pain:
- em fa mal = it hurts me
- et fa mal = it hurts you
- li fa mal = it hurts him/her
So em does not mean my here. It means to me.
Why is it em and not me?