kazordoon Bilingual Triglot Newbie Spain Joined 4780 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, English Studies: French
| Message 1 of 8 28 October 2011 at 9:55pm | IP Logged |
I am a native Catalan speaker who has just started to learn French.
I am quite amazed of the many similarities between French and Catalan.
Now, when studying the two words "y" and "en" in French, I was wondering if
they are the same as “hi” and “en” in catalan language?
I noticed that in most of the examples given in books, these words could be translated into “hi” and “en” in catalan , but not sure if they mean exactly the same.
examples:
english:Are you going to the bank today? No, I’m going(there)tomorrow.
french: Tu vas à la banque aujourd’hui ? Non, j’y vais demain.
catalan: Tu vas al banc avui ? No, jo hi vaig dema.
english: I’d like two books. I’d like two (of them).
french: Je voudrais deux livres. J’en voudrais deux.
catalan: Jo voldria dos llibres. Jo en voldria dos.
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tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 2 of 8 29 October 2011 at 1:14am | IP Logged |
Good question. I've been wondering about the same thing. To me, as a non native speaker, these little words are
quite tricky, and it would be nice to know if they are used (almost) exactly the same way in both languages. At least
they share the same Latin roots: hic (hi and y) and inde (en).
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Radzikowski Pentaglot Newbie United States interslavic.com Joined 5076 days ago 6 posts - 16 votes Speaks: French, Polish, English*, Spanish, Russian
| Message 3 of 8 29 October 2011 at 8:00am | IP Logged |
tractor wrote:
... and it would be nice to know if they are used (almost) exactly the
same way in both languages. At least they share the same Latin roots: hic
(hi and y) and inde (en). |
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Tractor - I believe you are absolutely correct:
Both the French "en" and "y" are derived from the same Latin source as
the Catalan "en" and "hi" - as well as the Italian "ne" and
"ci" (all PRONOMINAL ADVERBS):
EN & "NE" - both from the Latin "inde" > from that place, from that
time
J'en ai trois / Ne ho tri > I have three (of them).
Parles-en / Parlane > Talk about it.
Y & HI & CI - from the Latin "hic" > in this place, here
J'y suis allé / Ci sono andato > I went there.
J'y pense / Ci peno > I'm thinking about it
(I do not know Catalan, so I cannot give examples)
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Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh
| Message 4 of 8 29 October 2011 at 10:24am | IP Logged |
They're almost identical. If anything I think the French use them slightly more than Catalans. You're unlikely to be wrong when you use them, anyway.
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ReQuest Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5032 days ago 200 posts - 228 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Spanish
| Message 5 of 8 29 October 2011 at 10:44am | IP Logged |
Kinda off-topic but does this also exists in Spanish? Or is it expressed in a different way?
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tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 6 of 8 29 October 2011 at 10:58am | IP Logged |
ReQuest wrote:
Kinda off-topic but does this also exists in Spanish? |
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Not any more. "Y" is still present in "hay" though:
hay (Spanish) = hi ha (Catalan) = il y a (French)
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Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5865 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 7 of 8 31 October 2011 at 11:14pm | IP Logged |
I don't know, in El catalán sin esfuerzo I've seen "en" used where I don't think it would be used in French (and really I'm not sure why it's there), for example:
"Bon dia. En teniu una familia nombrosa avui !"
"I ara què farem ? n'has posat pertot arreu de farina..."
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kazordoon Bilingual Triglot Newbie Spain Joined 4780 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, English Studies: French
| Message 8 of 8 02 November 2011 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
Crush wrote:
I don't know, in El catalán sin esfuerzo I've seen "en" used where I don't think it would be used in French (and really I'm not sure why it's there), for example:
"Bon dia. En teniu una familia nombrosa avui !"
"I ara què farem ? n'has posat pertot arreu de farina..." |
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I'm a catalan speaker, and both sentences don't sound correct to me.
The first one, "Bon dia. En teniu una familia nombrosa avui !" meaning "Good morning. You have (it) a large family today ! ", besides that doesn't make much sense, you don't need the pronoun "en", since you actually typed the noun, "familia".
The same happens with the second sentence "I ara què farem ? n'has posat pertot arreu de farina..." meaning "what shall we do now ? You have put (it) the flour everywhere"
it's again using the pronoun "en" together with the noun "farina" that supposedly is substituting.
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