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Unit 1Sounds & Spelling through the IPA0/8Unit 2Greetings & Introductions🔒Unit 3Pronouns, tenir & hi ha, Numbers🔒Unit 4Nouns & Adjectives; Colours and the Home🔒Unit 5The Present Tense; Everyday Verbs🔒Unit 6Family, Jobs & Describing People🔒Unit 7Time, Days, Meals & Daily Routine🔒Unit 8Food, Shopping & the Pronoun en🔒Unit 9The City, Directions & Places🔒Unit 10Likes & Free Time🔒Unit 11The Recent Past🔒Unit 12Consolidation & Exam Language🔒
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IPA quick referenceFull guide

Vowels

IPASounds likeExample
a"a" in father (short)casa /ˈkazə/ — first a
ə"a" in sofa (the schwa — very common!)casa /ˈkazə/ — second a
ɛ"e" in bed (open)set /ˈsɛt/
e"ay" in say, but short, no glidemés /ˈmes/
i"ee" in seesis /ˈsis/
ɔ"o" in British hot (open)bo /ˈbɔ/
o"o" in note, short, no glidetot /ˈtot/
u"oo" in foodtu /ˈtu/
w, jglides: "w" in cow /aw/, "y" in boy /ɔj/nou /ˈnɔw/, mai /ˈmaj/
The golden rule of Central Catalan: unstressed a and e are pronounced /ə/, and unstressed o is pronounced /u/. That's why Barcelona is /bəɾsəˈlonə/ and color is /kuˈlo/.

Consonants that differ from English

IPASounds likeExample
ʎ"lli" in million (spelt ll)lluny /ˈʎuɲ/
ɲ"ni" in onion (spelt ny)any /ˈaɲ/
ʃ"sh" in shop (spelt x)peix /ˈpeʃ/
ʒ"s" in measure (spelt j, g+e/i)jo /ˈʒɔ/
tʃ"ch" in church (spelt tx, final -ig)cotxe /ˈkɔtʃə/, maig /ˈmatʃ/
dʒ"j" in jam (spelt tj/tg)formatge /fuɾˈmadʒə/
βa soft "b" with lips barely touchingavi /ˈaβi/
ð"th" in this, softcada /ˈkaðə/
ɣa soft "g", throat relaxedamiga /əˈmiɣə/
ɾsingle tap, like American "tt" in buttercara /ˈkaɾə/
rrolled/trilled r (rr, or word-initial r)carrer /kəˈre/
ŋ"ng" in singcinc /ˈsiŋk/
ˈstress mark — the NEXT syllable is stressedcatalà /kətəˈla/

Three habits worth knowing: written v sounds like b (/b/ or /β/); b/d/g between vowels soften to /β ð ɣ/; and the final -r of infinitives is silent: parlar /pəɾˈla/, dormir /duɾˈmi/.

CEFR · A1 · Course

Catalan from Scratch

A complete beginner’s course in Central Catalan, built to pass the official A1 exam.

Taught in English (explanations and translations in English).

The complete course, completely free

  • All 12 units with 108 interactive, auto-marked exercises
  • Full mock A1 exam with timers and attempt history
  • Complete glossary (275 entries) with native-speaker audio and IPA
  • Listening, dictation and translation drills
  • Progress saved to your account; continue on any device
Start with Unit 1 →

The full course is free with a free account: Sign up · Log in

How to use this course

This workbook takes you from zero to CEFR A1 in Central Catalan, with one explicit goal: passing the official A1 exam (the Certificat de nivell inicial de català). Every unit builds towards the four exam skills — listening, reading, writing and speaking — and the book ends with a full mock exam, model answers and examiner tips.

The rhythm of a unit

One unit = one focused session (60–90 min). Read the theory, learn the New vocabulary (every unit adds 20–25 new words and 5–8 new phrases that are never repeated, so your stock grows to 300+ by the end), work the dialogue aloud, then do all the exercises in writing before checking the answer key. Each unit ends with a Resources box: one verified listening link and one online practice link.

Pronunciation: this book uses the IPA

Every Catalan word, phrase, example and dialogue line in this book carries a transcription in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), between slashes, e.g. llibre /ˈʎiβɾə/. The IPA is the international standard for writing sounds; learn the symbols once (next section) and you can pronounce any word in this book — and in any dictionary — without guesswork. The stress mark ˈ goes before the stressed syllable.

Finding & using the links

How to use the links • Every link is clickable in a PDF reader, and the address is printed so it works on paper too.
• On a LingoHut lesson page, the audio word-list comes with activities — look for Listening game, Matching game, Flashcards, Dictation — and click one to practise.
• No account needed for LingoHut, Loecsen, Intercat, verbs.cat, Talkpal or Forvo. Parla.cat (A2+) asks for free registration.
• If a link stops working, open the site's index below and search the topic title shown next to the link — titles stay stable even when addresses change.
• Index pages: LingoHut → lingohut.com/en/l114/learn-catalan · Loecsen → loecsen.com/en/learn-catalan · Easy Catalan (subtitled videos) → youtube.com/c/EasyCatalan · Intercat resources → intercat.cat/en/resources · verbs.cat → verbs.cat · Talkpal → talkpal.ai/catalan-grammar-exercises · Generalitat → llengua.gencat.cat

A1 self-assessment checklist

Tick what you can do confidently. All boxes ticked = you are ready to register for the exam.

Molta sort a l'examen! — Good luck in the exam!

Next step: Catalan A2 · See the course →

External sites (LingoHut, Loecsen, UPF, Easy Catalan, verbs.cat, Talkpal, Forvo, jbdowse.com, Wikipedia, internationalphoneticalphabet.org, llull.cat, llengua.gencat.cat, CPNL) belong to their respective owners; all links were live in June 2026. Exam formats and dates are set by each convener — always confirm details on the official pages before registering. IPA transcriptions are standard Central Catalan citation forms; natural connected speech assimilates further.