Theory
From “bon dia” to the imperfect subjunctive, with tables, examples you can listen to and a mini-quiz of more than thirty questions per unit, each one with its reason.
parlar · to speak
Catalan meant to be said out loud
Petit Drac is a Catalan academy for English speakers: theory from A1 to B2, lessons for listening, speaking and writing, and the history of the language, built so that what you study ends up coming out of your mouth, and not just in an exam.
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39theory units
39spoken lessons
13eras of the language
312phrases to say out loud
What Petit Drac is
A Catalan course in English, from A1 to B2, with the part that is almost always missing: opening your mouth. Every phrase is heard, said into the microphone and written, and underneath it shows how it sounds, in a respelling you can read without learning anything first or in the phonetic alphabet, whichever you prefer.
Catalan has a handful of things that trip everyone up: the neutral vowel, the open vowels, the past tense with “vaig”, the pronouns “en” and “hi”. Here they're explained with their reasons, comparing them with what you already know. And there's a part hardly anyone tells you about: where the language you're learning comes from.
What you'll find
- A path ordered by CEFR levels, from A1 to B2.
- Explanations with their reasons: when you get one wrong, the quiz stops and tells you what happened.
- Spaced repetition, which brings back what you've studied just before you forget it.
- Your progress in your account: start on your phone, carry on from your laptop.
What you won't find
- Ads, neither out here nor in there.
- Trackers, third-party analytics or anybody's pixels.
- Lives that run out, or streaks that tell you off.
- A subscription waiting for you at lesson three.
What's inside
Each block is studied in its own way, and they all add up to the same progress.
39 units
Practice
Every lesson, three times over: you hear it, you say it into the microphone and you write it. Whole phrases, the kind people say at the bar, at the doctor's or in a meeting.
Vocabulary
By topic, type and level, each word with its audio, its pronunciation and a note on its gender, its plural or what's irregular. Search it, filter it and practise it with a quiz in both directions.
True or false
A game of cards you swipe: right if it's true, left if it's false. The word and phrase cards come from the vocabulary and the lessons; the ideas, from what learners most often get wrong.
History of the language
From the Latin of Tarraco to today's Catalan. Each era ends with “what remains of this in your Catalan”: why “son” is “fill”, where Balearic and Valencian come from, what Fabra did.
How each phrase sounds
Under every phrase, how it's pronounced: in a respelling designed for English speakers or in the International Phonetic Alphabet. You choose.
Today's review
Whatever you finish goes into the deck and comes back the next day, then at 3 days, 7, 14 and a month. Only what you've studied: nobody starts with three hundred cards.
From A1 to B2
The levels of the Common European Framework: from introducing yourself and ordering a coffee to speaking fluently and starting to use it at work. It's the course's guidance, not a grade from any exam.
What it can do
The catalogue above says what's inside. This is what the app does while you study.
It listens and tells you if you got there
You tap the microphone, say the phrase and the browser's speech recognition compares it with the one you were meant to say. Three possible answers: good, almost and again.
And you can hear it all
Every example phrase and lesson phrase can be played. In the listening quiz it plays without being shown in writing, which is how you hear it in the street, and you can ask for it more slowly.
Pronunciation, however you read it best
A respelling for English speakers or the International Phonetic Alphabet, your choice in your account. The neutral vowel, the open vowels and the “ll” written in a way you can actually say.
Look up any word
Search the vocabulary by typing in English or in Catalan, and filter it by type, topic, level and by what you've mastered, have in progress or haven't touched.
Words, in both directions
You see the Catalan word and choose what it means, or you see the meaning and give the word, choosing or typing. The decoys are of the same type: you can't get it right by elimination.
True or false, by swiping
Each card states something, and you send it right if it's true or left if it's false, with your finger, the buttons or the arrow keys. You know straight away whether you got it right, and why.
Spaced repetition
What you study comes back just when you'd be about to forget it, at intervals that grow longer when you get it right. Only what you've finished goes in.
Typing or choosing
Choosing among four is recognising; typing is remembering. You can switch modes, and when you type you aren't penalised for an accent or a capital letter: what counts is that you know how to say it.
When you get it wrong, it tells you why
The quiz stops and explains what happened, with the reason written out for every question. Getting it right does move on by itself, because there's nothing to read there.
Your progress follows you
It's saved on the server, tied to your account, so you start on your phone and carry on from your laptop. And you can download all of it whenever you like.
Pick up an unfinished quiz
If you close it halfway through a round, it offers it to you when you come back: the same questions, and where you were. Or you leave it, and it doesn't come up again.
No ads and no tracking
There's no advertising, no third-party analytics and no cookie banner, because nothing is installed that needs your consent.
A page for each part of the course
An explanation of each part of the course, to read before you start: what you study at each level, how Catalan sounds, how you practise speaking, what vocabulary it brings and where the language comes from. With the real data, taken from the app.
The Catalan syllabus, from A1 to B2
The 39 theory units, with their sections and their mini-quiz.
Catalan pronunciation, sound by sound
The Catalan sounds that English lacks or spells differently, with examples, their respelling and their phonetic alphabet.
Speaking Catalan, not just understanding it
The 39 lessons, with how each one is listened to, said and written.
Catalan vocabulary, by topic and by level
The course's words broken down by level, type and topic, with a sample from each topic and the false friends.
The history of Catalan, from Latin to today
Thirteen eras, each with what it left in today's Catalan.
How it works
You study a block
A theory unit, a lesson or an era. At the end there's a mini-quiz, and you don't scrape through by luck: the bar is at 80%.
Getting it wrong is part of it
When you get one wrong, the quiz stops and shows you the answer with its reason. Getting it right moves on by itself, because there's nothing to read there.
What you finish comes back
Whatever you finish goes into the daily review, whether you passed it or not: the unit that trips you up is exactly the one most worth reviewing.
And it stays with you
Your progress lives in your account, not in this browser. Clearing your history doesn't wipe out three months of work.
And the tools it brings
Everything can be heard
With your system's Catalan voice, and at half speed when it goes too fast. A speaker button never gives away the answer.
And said out loud
Your browser's recognition compares what you say with what it should have been, and accepts an “almost” without counting it as right.
Respelling or phonetics
How each phrase sounds, written for English speakers or with the symbols dictionaries use.
Notifications, if you want them
A reminder when you haven't dropped by for a few days, and a tip of the day. They're turned on device by device and switched off with one tap.
Bigger text
Five sizes, so you can read without holding the screen up to your nose.
Your data is yours
From your account you can download all your progress or delete the account entirely, without asking anyone's permission.
How to learn Catalan as an English speaker
A guide for beginners, whether or not you use this app: where to start, how long it takes, what's really hard and how you get to speak it.
Where to start
With your ears and your mouth, not with a list of verbs. A good deal of Catalan vocabulary looks familiar from day one —through the Latin roots of English, and far more if you know Spanish or French, which also bring much of the grammar—, so what you really need to learn at the start is what doesn't look like anything you know: how unstressed vowels sound, the “ll”, the “x”, the “j” and the buzzing s. If those sounds are learned properly from the beginning, everything else is heard and remembered better, and you don't have to unlearn, later on, a pronunciation that has been settling in for months.
Then, the pieces that hold up any conversation: greeting people and introducing yourself, the articles —also in front of people's names: “la Marta”, “el Jordi”—, the present tense of the most common verbs, asking questions and saying no, numbers and the time. With that you can already order a coffee, ask the way to a street or say where you're from. And it's worth hearing Catalan from day one even if you don't understand everything: the radio, a podcast or a series with subtitles get your ear used to it long before you need to speak.
How long each stage takes
There's no official figure, and it depends a lot on how much Catalan you hear around you and on the languages you already speak. As a rough guide, studying a little every day, A1 and A2 —introducing yourself, getting by in shops, paperwork and timetables— can come within a few months if you already speak Spanish, because its closeness to Catalan speeds up the first steps a lot; starting from English alone, allow longer. At that stage you understand quite a lot more than you can say, and that's normal: reading a simple news story comes long before holding a conversation without switching to another language.
B1 is harder, because it's where the less familiar parts turn up: the pronouns “en” and “hi”, which have no equivalent in English, combining pronouns, the subjunctive and the connectors of a real conversation. It usually takes as long as the first two levels together, or longer. B2, speaking fluently and starting to use it at work, needs above all hours of real use: listening and speaking far more than studying new rules. At every stage, consistency counts for more than hours: half an hour a day gets you further than four hours on a Sunday.
How to split your time
Better a little every day than a lot all at once. Memory holds on to what comes back just as it starts to fade, and that only happens if you study often. A twenty- or thirty-minute session can start with the review of what's due that day, go on to something new —a grammar unit or a lesson of phrases— and end with a short spell of vocabulary. New material without review is gone in a few days; review with nothing new stalls and gets boring.
Spread it across the four skills too, because they don't move forward on their own. Reading and listening are the ones that get the most help from everything that looks familiar, and the first to climb; speaking and writing fall behind unless you practise them on purpose. A simple rule: for every spell of theory, another spell saying phrases out loud. And outside study time, Catalan in the background: the radio while you cook, the news, a series. You don't need to understand everything for your ear to get used to the music of the language.
What's hardest, and how to practise speaking
What gives a learner away most isn't grammar, it's sound. In central Catalan, unstressed “a” and “e” fade into a neutral vowel, like the a in “about”, and unstressed “o” sounds like “oo”: “casa” and “pare” end the same way, and “botiga” is said almost boo-TEE-guh. Stressed “e” and “o” have an open and a closed version, and they change words. In grammar, the hardest things are the ones English doesn't have: the past tense with “vaig”, which looks like a future, and the pronouns “en” and “hi”.
To speak you have to open your mouth, and you can start with nobody in front of you. Repeat each phrase right after hearing it, copying the rhythm and the intonation, not just the words; read it out loud with its pronunciation written underneath; record yourself and compare with the audio. When you take the step of speaking with people, tell them you're learning and ask them to keep talking to you in Catalan: many speakers switch to Spanish, or to English, out of politeness as soon as they notice an accent, and that way you lose exactly the practice you're after.
Typical mistakes
The most common ones are those that seem right because they sound fine in Spanish, which many learners know or hear around them all day. “Tinc que”, copied from Spanish “tengo que”, instead of “he de” for obligation; Spanish “bueno”, “vale” and “hasta luego” instead of “bé”, “d'acord” and “fins després”; or “vaig menjar” taken as “I'm going to eat”, when it means “I ate”. And the false friends: “cama” is leg (Spanish “cama” is bed), “gana” is hunger, “botiga” is any shop, “rentar” is to wash, not to rent, and “llevar-se” is to get out of bed. A false friend isn't avoided with rules: it's avoided by having seen it go wrong once.
In writing, the usual mistakes are matters of detail and are soon fixed once you know them: the apostrophe before a vowel (“l'home”, but “la universitat”), the “ç” where a “c” would sound like “k”, the “l·l” with its raised dot, the grave and acute accents, which don't always fall where Spanish puts them, and “ny” where a hand used to Spanish wants to write “ñ”. In pronunciation, the typical mistake is to say every vowel clearly, the way it's written, and to pronounce the final “t” of “molt” or the “r” of “parlar”, which aren't heard in central Catalan.
How to use the app at each stage
When you start, the first theory units are the ones about sounds: Catalan's own letters and the vowels. They're worth doing before anything else, along with choosing in “Your account” how you want to see pronunciation, as a respelling or in the phonetic alphabet. After that, alternate the A1 units with the lessons at the same level, which you listen to, say into the microphone and write, and let the vocabulary by topic and the “True or false” cards fill the short gaps. Today's review, always first.
At A2 and B1 the weight shifts to the grammar English doesn't have —the periphrastic past, weak pronouns, “en” and “hi”— and to the lessons built around situations: the doctor, the market, flat-hunting, a job interview. It's a good moment to switch practice and vocabulary to “Typing the answer”, which makes you recall instead of recognise. B2 brings registers, regional varieties and the Catalan spoken in the street; and the history of the language, which you can read at any point, explains many of the oddities you'll have come across along the way.
What it does, and doesn't do, with your data
This is usually in the small print. Here it's in normal print.
No ads and no tracking
There's no third-party analytics, no pixels and no embedded social networks.
Nothing is requested from other sites
No typefaces from Google Fonts and no libraries from a CDN: requesting them would hand over the IP address of everyone who opens the page, and that would have to be declared.
The only third party is Google
And in exactly two places: if you choose to sign in with your Google account, and in the contact form, whose anti-spam is theirs. Everywhere else on the site your browser talks to nobody else.
The microphone isn't ours
Speech recognition is done by the browser, and some browsers send the audio to their maker's servers. We don't control that, so we say so.
No cookie banner
Not because we're dodging it: only the session cookie and a local copy of your progress are used, and the law exempts those from asking permission. The day there's anything more, you'll be asked first.
Take it with you, or delete it
Downloading all your progress is one button. And deleting your account really deletes it; it doesn't just switch it off.
What it costs
Nothing. There's no paid plan, no seven-day trial and no button that turns orange at lesson five.
De mica en mica s'omple la pica: little by little, you go a long way. If your Catalan is growing here, help keep it free.
DonateQuestions before you start
Do I need to know any Catalan?
No. You start with the letters and sounds and with “bon dia”. If you already understand it but don't dare to speak it, start with the practice: it's made exactly for that.
Which Catalan does it teach?
Central Catalan, following the standard of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, which is the variety of the voices that come with phones and computers. Where Balearic or Valencian say it differently, that's explained in the right place.
Will it help me get a certificate?
It helps you prepare, but it isn't official preparation for any certificate and it isn't endorsed by any institution. The split into levels from A1 to B2 is the course's guidance, not an exam grade.
Do I need a microphone?
For the speaking part, yes, and a browser that supports it (Chrome and Safari work well). Everything else —reading, listening, writing, the vocabulary and the cards— works without one, so you can study on the metro and leave the speaking out loud for home.
Where is my progress stored?
On its own server, in a file of yours tied to your account. No third-party databases and no cloud services in between. You can download all of it or delete it from your account.
Who's behind it?
Jordi Salord, an app developer. He's from Menorca, came to Catalunya to study and stayed; Catalan is his mother tongue, and Petit Drac is his way of making it more accessible. It's neither a commission nor a product: he writes and maintains it himself. The rest of his work is on his website: jordisalord.com
Has it been reviewed by a native speaker?
Not yet, and it's worth saying so: the Catalan content has been written with care and is awaiting review by a native speaker before it's considered final. If you spot a mistake, the contact form goes straight through.
Does the app itself work in English?
Yes. The app can be used in English or in Spanish, with the explanations, the questions and the meanings in the language you choose. The Catalan you study is the same in both, and the written pronunciation adapts to the reader: the respelling for English speakers isn't the Spanish one.
How much time do I need to spend on it each day?
Whatever you have, and better daily than all at once. Ten or fifteen minutes is enough for today's review and a piece of a unit or a lesson. Progress is saved instantly, so you can stop at any point, and if you close it halfway through a quiz, it offers to pick up where you left off when you come back.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes: it's a web app, so it opens in the browser on your phone, tablet or computer without installing anything. Since your progress lives in your account, you can start a unit on your phone and finish it on your laptop. The speaking part needs a browser with speech recognition.
Why do I need an account?
Because progress is saved on the server, not in the browser: without an account there would be nowhere to note what you've studied and no way to carry on from another device. You open one with your email —a code arrives to check it's yours— and a password, or with your Google account, and from “Your account” you can download your data or delete the account whenever you like.
Does it work offline?
It has to be opened with a connection, but it copes with drop-outs: if you lose signal halfway through a unit, what you study is noted in the browser and uploads on its own as soon as the network is back. The voice that reads the phrases is your system's; speech recognition, in some browsers, does need the internet.
Shall we start?
You sign in with an email and a password, or with your Google account. A minute later you're in the first unit.
Enter Petit Drac