adéu
“adéu” — goodbye in Catalan. Interjection, level A0, topic — greetings and goodbyes. From a Déu — 'to God': the same road Spanish adiós took. The everyday parting word. In a live sentence: “Adéu, que vagi bé!” — Goodbye, all the best! One of 8 words in the set “greetings and goodbyes” in the Catalan course.
In short
| Written in Catalan | adéu |
| Translation | goodbye |
| Part of speech | interjection |
| Level | A0 |
Why it looks that way
From a Déu — 'to God': the same road Spanish adiós took. The everyday parting word
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Adéu, que vagi bé!Goodbye, all the best!
Nearby words: greetings and goodbyes
Every conversation starts here, and so does every first impression: say hello in the local language and you stop being a stranger in about a second.
- holahellothe h is silent: OH-luh
- bon diagood morningLiterally 'good day'. Before a masculine noun bo shrinks to bon: bon dia, bon cafè
- bona tardagood afternoonFor after lunch. Tarda is feminine, hence bona, not bon
- bona nitgood nightBoth a greeting late in the evening and a wish before sleep — like the Spanish buenas noches
- fins arasee you soonLiterally 'until now' — a goodbye for someone you will see again today. In Catalonia it outdoes adéu as the everyday farewell
- com estàs?how are you?Built on estar — it asks about your state right now, not about life in general
- què tal?how's it going?Literally 'what such'. Lighter and shorter than com estàs? — it fits anyone
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “greetings and goodbyes”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “goodbye” in Catalan?
From a Déu — 'to God': the same road Spanish adiós took. The everyday parting word
- How do you say “how's it going?” in Catalan?
Literally 'what such'. Lighter and shorter than com estàs? — it fits anyone
- How do you say “how are you?” in Catalan?
Built on estar — it asks about your state right now, not about life in general
- How do you say “see you soon” in Catalan?
Literally 'until now' — a goodbye for someone you will see again today. In Catalonia it outdoes adéu as the everyday farewell
- How do you say “good night” in Catalan?
Both a greeting late in the evening and a wish before sleep — like the Spanish buenas noches
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “goodbye” in Catalan?
«adéu». In a live sentence: “Adéu, que vagi bé!” — Goodbye, all the best! Interjection, level A0, from the set “greetings and goodbyes”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
From a Déu — 'to God': the same road Spanish adiós took. The everyday parting word. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.