ML0069: Introduction to Catalan Language & Culture
School | Hispanic Studies |
Department Code | MLANG |
Module Code | ML0069 |
External Subject Code | 100325 |
Number of Credits | 15 |
Level | L5 |
Language of Delivery | English |
Module Leader | Mr Toni Bassaganyas Bars |
Semester | Autumn Semester |
Academic Year | 2018/9 |
Outline Description of Module
This module, a Year 2 option within Hispanic Studies, is designed for students with little or previous knowledge of the Catalan language. The module provides an introduction to grammar, vocabulary and standard pronunciation of the Catalan language with the aim of enabling students to achieve a basic but sound level of competence in written and spoken Catalan and to reach a level corresponding to A2 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
Catalan culture and an awareness of its history through knowledge of all the territories where Catalan is spoken is also part of the content of this module. Catalan is the official language of Andorra and the co-official one, together with Spanish, of Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands. It is also spoken in some Eastern Aragonese villages, in Southern France and in the town of L’Alguer, in Sardinia. Reading, comprehending, speaking and writing through the practice of translation, grammar exercises, conversation and essay writing will be an essential part of the module. Basic texts from a variety of registers will be read and discussed in class. Audio and visual material will also be used to teach linguistic and cultural aspects of the module.
On completion of the module a student should be able to
- Show an ability to understand basic spoken information in everyday conversation
- Show an ability to interact in Catalan by providing and asking basic information with a degree of fluency
- Show an ability to read texts in Catalan of a basic/ intermediate level
- Demonstrate a basic but sound competence in the handling of Catalan language through a number of written languages activities
- Show knowledge of basic notions about the Catalan language and its history
- Show basic knowledge of key aspects of Catalan culture
How the module will be delivered
The module is taught by means of three hours of classes per week over an academic year. Classes combine lectures, seminars, conversation exercises and aural and oral language activities. The language of this module will be Catalan and English.
Skills that will be practised and developed
This module will provide students with a solid foundation of the basic structures of the target language, as well as some culture and society awareness of the places where
Catalan is spoken, therefore enabling them to communicate in the four key language skills at a straightforward level on a range of topics. The emphasis of the module will be placed on achieving the following objectives:
- Reading skills: Read basic texts (advertisements, notes, menus, personal letters, descriptions, short stories, short newspaper articles or abridged literary texts). Find specific information and be able to understand basic details in everyday material.
- Listening skills: Understand phrases and the highest frequency vocabulary related to areas of most immediate personal relevance (basic personal and family information, shopping, local area, employment). Grasp the main point in short, clear messages or announcements.
- Speaking skills: Communicate and interact about routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar topics and activities.
Handle short social communicative acts in common everyday life situations: provide and ask information on personal details and on daily interactions; use a series of phrases to describe family, friends and other people, living conditions, educational background and professional situation.
- Writing skills: Write short texts on areas of immediate need and personal information (notes, filling in forms with personal details, descriptions, and personal letters). Write short narratives using the grammatical items for this level. Be able to translate phrases and short texts from both Catalan into English and English into Catalan.
Transferable skills: Identify a number of key aspects of Catalan culture and society, relating them to the sociolinguistic context and to the linguistics points studied during the course.
How the module will be assessed
Assignment 1: 30%
Portfolio (70%) comprising of:
Translation: 20%
Grammar test: 20%
Assignment 2: 30%
Assessment Breakdown
Type | % | Title | Duration(hrs) |
---|---|---|---|
Written Assessment | 30 | Assignment 1 | N/A |
Portfolio | 20 | Portfolio Part 1 (Translation) | N/A |
Portfolio | 20 | Portfolio Part 2 (Grammar Test) | N/A |
Portfolio | 30 | Portfolio Part 3 (Assignment 2) | N/A |
Syllabus content
Introduction and personal information
In this unit we will learn some basic facts about the Catalan language, the area where it is spoken, how many people speak it, and its particular sociolinguistic situation. We will briefly compare it to other Romance languages you may already know, and point out some similarities and differences as compared to those languages. We will learn how to spell words and the main pronunciation features of the language, as well as some grammar and lexical basics: definite articles, prepositions, the present tense of some frequent verbs, greetings, numbers and nationalities. At the end of the unit we will be able to give information about ourselves.
- Presentation of the course
- The Catalan linguistic territory
- The alphabet: letters and sounds of Catalan
- Spelling different words
- Greetings
- Giving information about oneself and another person: name, surname, gender, civil status, nationality, place of birth, telephone, professional status
- Names of countries and nationalities
- Personal pronouns
- Possessive pronouns
- Present tense: ser (and estar), tenir, viure, dir-se
- Numbers
- Prepositions: de/a
- Article: el/en, la
2. Description: physical description and of character, familiar and social relationships
In this unit we will focus on acquiring grammatical structures and vocabulary to be able to talk about ourselves and about other people. We will learn how to formulate simple questions, and different ways of talking about physical appearance and character traits.
- Demonstratives: aquest/s, aquesta/es, aquell/s, aquella/es
- Interrogatives
- Present tense: conèixer, tenir
- Introducing oneself and others in formal and informal contexts
- Describing someone’s physical appearance and way to dress
- Identifying someone, guessing about his/her age, height and weight
- Describing someone’s character: way of being and of behaving
- Adjectives of quality: alt/a, baix/a, prim/a, gras/ssa, ros/ssa, maco/a, jove, gran...
- Parts of the body and adjectives related to physical appearance
- Providing and asking information about the family: names, personal details, family relationships
- Short adverbs
We will also talk about the history of the Catalan language, from the middle ages to the 19th century.
3. The urban landscape: locations, services and place indications
In this unit we will keep adding more vocabulary. We will zoom in on talking about space and time, and we will learn how to ask and give directions and talk about schedules, timetables and plans.
- Asking and providing information about the place of residence and about how to find specific places in town
- Vocabulary related to public spaces, ways of transportation
- Parts of the day and days of the week
- Times: asking and providing information about times of shows, films and opening times in shops or train/bus schedules
- Present tense: haver-hi, voler
- Locative adverbs: dreta, esquerra, dalt, baix, damunt, davall, a la vora, prop, lluny…
- Adverbs of time: avui, demà, demà passat...
- At the bar: asking for food and drinks in the menu and asking for prices.
We will also talk about the history of the Catalan language, from the 19th century to the present day.
4. Education, professional, routines and leisure activities
In this unit we will talk about things we have to do (our daily routines) and things we like to do (leisure activities, hobbies, etc.). We will learn the main verbs to describe our usual activities and how to express preferences and our likes and dislikes.
- Asking and providing information about studies and educational background
- Exchanging information about professional activities: type of job, timetables, salary…
- Vocabulary of jobs and education
- Asking and providing information about regular activities as well as leisure and entertainment
- Months of the year, seasons, times of meals
- Regular verbs in the three conjugations.
- Irregular verbs: fer, anar, voler...
- Reflexive verbs: llevar-se, dutxar-se…
- Incoatives verbs: repartir, servir, llegir…
- Expressing preferences: agradar, preferir, desagradar…
- Indirect Object Pronouns: m’agrada, t’agrada, li agrada...
We will also talk in some detail about the ‘domini linguistic’ of Catalan, that is, the areas where it is spoken, and about its status in each of these areas.
5. The private space: places of residence
In this unit we will talk about our homes: how to describe them, and what we normally have inside them. We will use this vocabulary to learn comparative structures, and we will start writing short informal letters.
- Parts of the house, furniture and appliances
- Adjectives related to the house: assolellat, espaiós, gran
- Pronoun hi
- Pronoun en with hi ha
- Comparisons: superiority and inferiority
- Que+adjectiu
- Quin+substantiu+més+adjectiu
- Informal letters
We will also talk about the main dialects of Catalan and the main particularities of each of these major dialects.
6. Eating and drinking
In this unit we will focus on what we need to be able talk about eating and drinking: food items, verbs, adjectives, quantifiers and measure terms, etc. We will also introduce an important part of Catalan: weak pronouns. We will deal with direct object pronouns.
- At the restaurant: making a booking (what day and time, how many people)
- Shops and products
- Measures: content and recipients
- Adverbs of quantity: quant, tant, poc, gaire, bastant, massa, força, molt...
- Direct Object pronouns: la/el, les/els
- Direct Object pronoun en
- Direct Object pronoun ho
- Verbs: valer, poder, tenir, haver
- Adjectives in relation to food: dur, verd, petit, dolç, cuit…
- Asking information about products: sizes, quality, quantity, shape. Prices
- Interrogative pronouns
We will also talk about some of the Catalan traditions, including many related to eating and drinking.
7. Past events
So far we have been talking about the present. We have also acquired quite a lot of vocabulary. In this unit we will start talking about the past. First we will introduce the simple past, called passat perifràstic. In contrast to other languages (e.g. Spanish), this tense is very easy to learn in Catalan. We will use it to talk about our life experiences and historical events. We will introduce more weak pronouns: indirect object and reflexive pronouns. Like all Romance languages, Catalan has two past tenses, and at the end of this unit we will introduce the other one, the imperfet, and we will contrast it to the simple past.
- Passat perifràstic (vaig+infinitive)
- Talking about past events of one’s life and of the life of others
- Talking about historical events
- Review Indirect Object Pronouns: em/et/li/ens/us/els
- Review reflexive pronouns
- Pronouns before and after the verb: em vaig llevar/vaig llevar-me…
- Imperfet: regular and irregular verbs
We will also talk a little bit about Catalan art. We will focus on writers, especially from the 20th and the 21st century.
8. Recent past events
In this unit we will continue talking about the past. This time we will focus on the present perfect, which will imply that we will have to learn how to form the past participle of verbs. We will compare it to the simple past. We will also learn about pronoun ho used as an attribute (with verbs ser and estar), and we will talk about our feelings and mood.
- Perfet (haver+past participle)
- Past participle: regular and irregular
- Narrating recent past activities and experiences
- Passat perifràstic vs perfet
- Injuries and cures
- Feelings, moods, states of being
- Pronoun ho (attribute)
We will also talk a little bit more Catalan art. We will learn about the main Catalan painters and architects, some of whom are almost universally known (you have probably heard about Dalí or Gaudí).
9. Comparing past events
In this unit we will strengthen our command of the past in Catalan. We will compare how things used to be and how they are today, and that will require that we know when to use the simple past, the imperfet and the present perfect. This will allow us to read and write short narrative texts, as well as journalistic texts.
- Describing how things were in the past and how they are now: cities, towns…
- Expressing opinions about people, activities, routines comparing past and present
- Using the passat perifràstic and the imperfet tense in narrative texts: short stories, abridged novels, autobiographies...
- Passat perifràstic vs present perfect vs imperfet
- News: TV news, newspaper articles
We will also go over the situation of Catalan in the media: newspapers, TV channels, websites and radio stations which use Catalan.
10. Future events
After devoting three units to the past, in this unit we will talk about the future. We will see it is considerably easier. We will introduce, at the end of the unit, the conditional.
- Future tense: regular and irregular
- Future plans: holidays, job, studies, entertaining, trips
- Organising and plan trips: to ask about destinations, timetables, accommodation, transport, prices, bookings
- Degrees of comparison: més... que, menys... que, tant... com
- Future vs Conditional
- Conditional tense: give advise about items and things to do, expressing wishes
- Impersonal tense: talk about the weather and the temperature
We will also talk about Catalan traditions we have not already seen in the course –including some of the most surprising ones.
Background Reading and Resource List
- Badia, Dolors (2010) Llengua Catalana. Nivell Llindar (Vic: L’Àlber)
- Núria BASTONS, Cristina BERNADÓ, Llorenç COMAJOAN, Gramàtica Pràctica del Català, Barcelona: Teide, 2011, pp. 360.
- Bastons, Núria et al. (2010) Veus 1 (Barcelona: PAM)
- Clua, M. Jesús et al. (2006) Curs de llengua catalana Nivell bàsic 1, 2 i 3
(Barcelona: Edicions Castellnou)
- Keown, Dominic. A Companion to Catalan Culture. Woodbridge: Tamesis
- Oxford Catalan-English / English-Catalan (Pocket edition)
- Wheeler, Max et al. (1999) Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar (London:
- Yates, Allan (1993) A Catalan Handbook (Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya)
- Online Catalan Course: www.parla.cat