LingoflyL·L l·l — ela geminada
«ela geminada» is a digraph of the Catalan script, read as “a long (doubled) l”. Two l sounds in a row: you start the first and finish the second — the sound stretches. For example, in the word “intel·ligent” — intelligent. The Catalan alphabet has 27 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. This character does not count as a letter of the alphabet. The only mid-word dot in Europe: intel·ligent, il·lusió. Losing the dot changes the word: cel·la is "cell", cella is "eyebrow".
In short
| Character | L·L l·l |
| Name | ela geminada |
| Sound | a long (doubled) l |
| What it is | a digraph |
In our course the character comes 15th of 35: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ll and m, appears in 27 words of this site.
How to type L·L l·l
- On a phone: add the Catalan keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- Unicode code points: l·l — U+006C U+00B7 U+006C, L·L — U+004C U+00B7 U+004C. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
Two l sounds in a row: you start the first and finish the second — the sound stretches
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- intelligent
The character in the “signs of its own” group
ç is the only letter with a cedilla, l·l the only mid-word dot. The combinations are not letters, but no menu can be read without them.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «ela geminada» it is “a long (doubled) l”, as in the word “intel·ligent”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 27 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Catalan character l·l read?
As “a long (doubled) l” — it is a digraph of the Catalan script. Two l sounds in a row: you start the first and finish the second — the sound stretches. For example, in the word “intel·ligent” — intelligent.
What is the sign l·l called?
Ela geminada. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Catalan script: it is called “ela geminada” and reads as “a long (doubled) l”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.