Si les estovalles són netes, la meva mare hi posa els plats abans de sopar.

to be

Breakdown of Si les estovalles són netes, la meva mare hi posa els plats abans de sopar.

• la mare: the mother
• meu: my
• abans de: before

Questions & Answers about Si les estovalles són netes, la meva mare hi posa els plats abans de sopar.

What does hi mean in la meva mare hi posa els plats?

Hi is a locative clitic pronoun. Here it means something like there, on it, or on them, referring back to a place already understood from the context.

So la meva mare hi posa els plats means: my mother puts the plates there / on it / on them

In this sentence, hi most naturally refers to the tablecloth / the table.

A key point: hi does not change for singular/plural or gender. Even though les estovalles is plural, the pronoun is still just hi.

Why is estovalles plural when English would usually say tablecloth?

In everyday Catalan, les estovalles is very commonly used as a plural noun for what English often treats as a singular item, the tablecloth.

Because it is grammatically plural, everything agrees with it in the plural:

• les estovalles
• són
• netes

So even if English uses a singular translation, Catalan treats this noun as plural in normal usage.

Why is it són netes and not és neta?