la servilleta
“la servilleta” — napkin in Catalan. Noun, level A2, topic — food and drink. A relative of service: the napkin "serves" the table. A paper one is servilleta de paper. In a live sentence: “Em dona una servilleta, si us plau” — A napkin, please. One of 241 words in the set “food and drink” in the Catalan course.
In short
| Written in Catalan | la servilleta |
| Translation | napkin |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
A relative of service: the napkin "serves" the table. A paper one is servilleta de paper
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.
- Em dona una servilleta, si us plauA napkin, please
Nearby words: food and drink
A menu, a market, a shop sign, the question “what is this?”. Food is the most frequent subject of the first weeks and the safest excuse to start talking.
- el cafècoffeeThe drink and the place in one. The el is the masculine article — and a gender hint
- el teteaEl te with the accent is 'tea'; te without it is 'to you'. The pair works like sí and si
- l'aiguawaterA feminine word, yet the article is el, which shrinks to l' before a vowel: l'aigua. The apostrophe is not decoration — it is obligatory spelling
- el pabreadThe bakery is a fleca — a word Spanish does not have. Pa amb tomàquet, bread with tomato, is the country's signature snack
- el formatgecheeseA cousin of French fromage and it sounds like it: fur-MAH-juh. The final t is faint
- la carnmeatMeat of any kind. The cuts are described: carn de vedella is beef, carn de porc is pork
- el peixfishThe x is a sh here: pesh. The fish in the sea is peix too — unlike Spanish, which keeps a separate word for it
- la fruitafruitA collective, so it stays singular: m'agrada la fruita — I like fruit. One piece is una fruita
- la pomaappleHence pomar, an apple orchard. In Catalan New York stays la Gran Poma — the Big Apple
- la taronjaorangeBoth the fruit and the color: una samarreta taronja — an orange T-shirt. Valencia, which sent the word across Europe, is orange country
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “food and drink”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “napkin” in Catalan?
A relative of service: the napkin "serves" the table. A paper one is servilleta de paper
- How do you say “fish” in Catalan?
The x is a sh here: pesh. The fish in the sea is peix too — unlike Spanish, which keeps a separate word for it
- How do you say “water” in Catalan?
A feminine word, yet the article is el, which shrinks to l' before a vowel: l'aigua. The apostrophe is not decoration — it is obligatory spelling
- How do you say “orange” in Catalan?
Both the fruit and the color: una samarreta taronja — an orange T-shirt. Valencia, which sent the word across Europe, is orange country
- How do you say “meat” in Catalan?
Meat of any kind. The cuts are described: carn de vedella is beef, carn de porc is pork
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 “napkin” in Catalan?
«la servilleta». In a live sentence: “Em dona una servilleta, si us plau” — A napkin, please. Noun, level A2, from the set “food and drink”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
A relative of service: the napkin "serves" the table. A paper one is servilleta de paper. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.