Lingoflyl'oli del motor
- l'oli del motorengine oil
“l'oli del motor” — engine oil in Catalan. Noun, level A1, topic — transport. Honestly "the oil of the engine": l'oli is cooking oil too; in the car it is checked with a dipstick every couple of months. In a live sentence: “Cada dos mesos miro l'oli del motor” — Once every two months I check the engine oil. You can hear how it sounds right here. One of 104 words in the set “transport” in the Catalan course.
In short
| Written in Catalan | l'oli del motor |
| Translation | engine oil |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A1 |
Why it looks that way
Honestly "the oil of the engine": l'oli is cooking oil too; in the car it is checked with a dipstick every couple of months
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.
Nearby words: transport
Bus, metro, taxi, stop, station. These are words you need to recognize in writing — off a departure board and off a sign.
- l'estacióstationBoth the subway station and the train station: l'estació de metro, l'estació de tren. Before a vowel la shrinks to l'
- el metrosubwayMasculine and unchanging: el metro, vaig en metro. The same word is the meter of length
- l'autobúsbusIn the plural the apostrophe vanishes: els autobusos. The intercity bus goes by another name — l'autocar
- el taxitaxiMasculine: el taxi. You take it at the stand — la parada de taxis — rather than wave your arm
- el bitlletticketFrom the basic phrase dos bitllets per a Girona. Train, bus and cinema — one word for all tickets
- l'horaritimetableoo-RAH-ree. The train timetable is l'horari de tren; the working one is horari laboral
- la sortidadepartureFrom sortir, to go out: a departure and an exit at once. Sortida on the board is the departure
- l'arribadaarrivalFrom arribar, to arrive. Arribades on the board — arrivals, against sortides
- l'andanaplatformFeminine, with the apostrophe: the platform where the train stops. The rail track itself is la via: el tren surt de la via cinc — it leaves from track five
- el vagócarriageA relative of wagon. Vagó de primera — a first-class carriage
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “transport”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “engine oil” in Catalan?
Honestly "the oil of the engine": l'oli is cooking oil too; in the car it is checked with a dipstick every couple of months
- How do you say “departure” in Catalan?
From sortir, to go out: a departure and an exit at once. Sortida on the board is the departure
- How do you say “bus” in Catalan?
In the plural the apostrophe vanishes: els autobusos. The intercity bus goes by another name — l'autocar
- How do you say “carriage” in Catalan?
A relative of wagon. Vagó de primera — a first-class carriage
- How do you say “timetable” in Catalan?
oo-RAH-ree. The train timetable is l'horari de tren; the working one is horari laboral
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 “engine oil” in Catalan?
«l'oli del motor». In a live sentence: “Cada dos mesos miro l'oli del motor” — Once every two months I check the engine oil. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Noun, level A1, from the set “transport”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Honestly "the oil of the engine": l'oli is cooking oil too; in the car it is checked with a dipstick every couple of months. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how this sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.