In Spanish, there are two main groups of verbs, indicativo and subjuntivo. It's very simple. In order to understand this, imagine I am holding two hands, one in each hand. In the left bag I am going to put the "Indicativo" tenses, that is, the present... (read more)

Catalan language is spoken by around 9 million people in Catalonia, Valencia, northern France, the Balearic islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Eivissa and Formentera) and in l'Alguer. Although you can of course "survive" in Catalonia speaking Spanish, Catalan... (read more)

According to the Generalitat de Catalunya (the Catalan government), Catalan language is spoken by an estimate of 9.118.882 speakers although around 11 million people actually understand the language. The figure includes speakers from the whole Catalan... (read more)

Orality is the verbal art of peoples who have not developed written communication as such although the difference between the oral and the written is not as sharply marked as traditionally believed, as renown anthropologist Tim Ingold has revealed in... (read more)

Since classical times, metaphor has been considered a figure of speech in which a concept is understood through the qualities of another. So, if we say “your eyes are pearls”, we are describing the eyes as having the qualities of pearls: those eyes... (read more)

One of my favourite places in Barcelona is Gracia neighbourhood. Gracia is a former village that became absorbed by Barcelona as its urban development spread towards the end... (read more)

Cognitive poetics is a discipline of literary theory interested in the language of literary texts as rooted in the body’s perceptual system. In general terms, cognitive poetics explains what happens in the mind when literary texts are read, focussing... (read more)