El dau és sobre el tauler.

to be

Breakdown of El dau és sobre el tauler.

• sobre: on
• el tauler: the game board
• el dau: the die

Questions & Answers about El dau és sobre el tauler.

Why is there el before both dau and tauler?

El is the masculine singular definite article, meaning the.

Both dau and tauler are masculine singular nouns, so they take el:

• el dau = the die
• el tauler = the board

If the noun were feminine, you would normally use la instead.

Is dau really singular? What is the plural?

Yes. Dau is the singular form, meaning die.

The plural is daus, meaning dice:

• el dau = the die
• els daus = the dice

This is useful because English speakers often think of dice first, but Catalan clearly distinguishes singular and plural here.

Why does the sentence use és? Could it also be està?

In Catalan, ser and estar do not match English to be in exactly the same way.

Here, és is the form of ser for he/she/it is. In a simple neutral statement of location like this, ser can be used naturally.

You may also hear està in everyday speech:

• El dau és sobre el tauler.
• El dau està sobre el tauler.

Both can occur, depending on dialect and nuance. The version with és is perfectly correct, and it fits the sentence you were given.