El gimnàs és aquí.

The gym is here.

Breakdown of El gimnàs és aquí.

• ser: to be
• aquí: here
• el gimnàs: the gym

Questions & Answers about El gimnàs és aquí.

Why is it el and not la?

Because gimnàs is a masculine singular noun in Catalan, so it takes the masculine singular definite article el.

A quick article summary:

• el = masculine singular
• la = feminine singular
• els = masculine plural
• les = feminine plural

So:

• el gimnàs = the gym

Like in many languages, noun gender in Catalan is something you usually have to learn along with the noun.

How do you pronounce gimnàs?

A good learner-friendly approximation is zhi-MNAS or, for some accents, jee-MNAS.

A few helpful points:

• The g before i is a soft sound, not a hard g like in go.
• The stress falls on the last syllable: gim-NÀS.
• The final s is pronounced.

The whole sentence El gimnàs és aquí is roughly: el zhi-MNAS es a-KEE

What do the accent marks in gimnàs, és, and aquí do?

They help with stress and, in some cases, with distinguishing words.