treballant

Treballant is the present participle (gerund) of the Catalan verb treballar, meaning "to work." It denotes the action of working and is used to form progressive tenses with the auxiliary estar. In everyday Catalan, treballant appears in phrases like estic treballant, which translates to I am working.

Etymology: Treballar and its noun treball come from a Romance root related to Latin tripaliare/tripallum, a term historically associated with labor or exertion. Cognates include Spanish trabajar, French travailler, and Italian lavorare. The sense has long covered both hard labor and ordinary work.

Grammar: The gerund -ant is fixed for all genders and numbers, and with estar it marks ongoing activity. Past or completed actions use the past participle treballat (e.g., he treballat). The gerund is also used in non-finite clauses, adverbially, as in Treballant així, no arribaràs a bon port (Working like that, you won’t get there). It may appear in various periphrastic constructions, but does not itself convey tense.

Examples: Actualment estic treballant en un informe. Ells estan treballant en equip. Ha estat treballant tot el dia. In most contexts, the present progressive is formed with estar + treballant.

See also: treball (work) and treballar (to work).