La veritat és important.

to be

Breakdown of La veritat és important.

• important: important
• la veritat: the truth

Questions & Answers about La veritat és important.

Why is it la veritat and not just veritat?

In Catalan, abstract nouns often take the definite article when you are talking about them in a general sense. So la veritat means truth or the truth.

That is why La veritat és important is the natural way to say Truth is important / The truth is important.

Using veritat without the article is possible in some contexts, but in a simple general statement like this, la veritat sounds much more natural.

What does és mean, and why does it have an accent?

És is the he/she/it form of the verb ser, meaning to be. Here it means is.

So:

• la veritat = the truth
• és = is
• important = important

The accent in és is important because it distinguishes it from es, which is a different word, often a reflexive or pronoun form, like himself/herself/itself or part of passive constructions.

So:

• és = is
• es = a pronoun, not the verb is

Why is important the same as in English?

Catalan has many words that look similar to English, especially in formal or abstract vocabulary, because both languages have borrowed a lot from Latin and French-related sources.