Catalan confusing past tense.

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  I was wondering about the simple past tense in Catalan. Does anyone know how "ell va anar" came to mean " He went" in Catalan when all the other romance languages have this to mean "He is going to go" /.  

Ulasan

Maketu profile picture MaketuDecember 2010

Hi there!

You actually have a point! The construction "vaig/vas/va/vam/vau/van + infinitive" is called pretèrit perfet perifràstic and it is the most used construction to express the simple past both in the spoken and the writen language. I'm a Catalan native speaker and, honestly, I have no idea whatsoever why this construction is past tense, but it definitely is!

 

If you have a verb reflexiu, the pronoun can go both at the beginning " ES va adormir" or at the end 'va adormir-SE'

 

hope it helps a little! if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to drop me a line!

 

Maria