callar
“callar” — to keep silent in Catalan. Verb, level A2. Silence here is simply the absence of words, not consent: va callar tota la reunió. In a live sentence: “Va callar tota la reunió i al final va parlar” — He kept silent the whole meeting and spoke at the end. A word from the everyday Catalan course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Catalan | callar |
| Translation | to keep silent |
| Part of speech | verb |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
Silence here is simply the absence of words, not consent: va callar tota la reunió
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.
- Va callar tota la reunió i al final va parlarHe kept silent the whole meeting and spoke at the end
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 “to keep silent” in Catalan?
«callar». In a live sentence: “Va callar tota la reunió i al final va parlar” — He kept silent the whole meeting and spoke at the end. Verb, level A2.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Silence here is simply the absence of words, not consent: va callar tota la reunió. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.