Hello. I’m back, taking stock. What on earth have I been up to since the wins I posted back in 2017? I finished my first novel – a crew of
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UPDATE My short story ‘Hotel Catatonia’ was Highly Commended and a runner-up in the 2017 Victoria Literary Festival writing competition (Canada). It was published in the competition anthology which you can buy
Welcome to Stuff Catalans Do. Here, for easier reading, I’ve combined all the Stuff Catalans Do posts from April 2017 into one. You can read the Intro here. Do you
Zumzeig Aka the joy of research. To tell you the truth, I was stumped. There aren’t that many Z-words in Catalan, at least not native words. Most are international ones
Yperita My hefty (dead-tree) Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana has only one word with Y – yperita (the y is pronounced ‘ee’) It doesn’t even have its own page, but
Xiuxiueig Did you freak out when you saw this word? People tend to when they see a piece of text in Catalan because of the liberal sprinkling of ‘x’ s,
W is not really a ‘native’ letter in Catalan. The only words in the W section of the dictionary are those of foreign origin, from wagnerià through waterpolo and watt
Verdaguer Maybe the first thing that springs to mind is that metro station in Barcelona whose name you can’t pronounce. The Verdaguer monument is close by, unreachable in the centre
Ullastret and Ulldecona From ancient Iberian settlements in the north to rock art and ancient olive trees in the south, the history of Catalonia goes way back. Ullastret (oolyaSTRET), a
Tombatruites Making a truita (trooEETeh) de patates (Spanish omelette) is dead easy. You fry the diced potatoes in olive oil till soft. You beat the eggs in a bowl, with
