[BOGAnotes] Things I learned in the 1st strata

Yesterday, I took the 20-part final exam to finish the 1st strata of the BOGA program. This time around, it was much easier than before as I had a better foundation in some of the tougher-to-grasp grammatical concepts. I also think that the somewhat-tough exercises in the review portion helped properly prepare me for the final exam.

As I was flipping through my notes for the 1st strata, I thought it would be a good idea to post some of the things I've learned here. Hopefully, new Euskara-learners will be able to gain new information and native-Euskara speakers will be able to see how non-native speakers see their language. (Please feel free to offer any corrections/tips/observations!)

Things I learned in the 1st strata:

• Euskara has no gender = Unlike Català (and many other languages), nouns in Euskara have no gender, that is, they do not come in masculine or feminine forms.

• Sentences are constructed in a very different way compared to English = Even a simple sentence like: "I am Isabel" comes out very different in Euskara: "Ni Isabel naiz" wherein Ni = I, Isabel = Isabel (although technically, the form in Euskara is Ixabel), and naiz = am. This certainly makes things interesting as I often find myself having to resist the urge to translate directly from English and using the same sentence structure (a very bad idea and one pitfall every language-learner must avoid).

• The article 'the' is not a separate word, rather it takes the form of the letter 'a' which is added at the end of the word = In the BOGA program, new vocabulary words are usually given in the definite form- with the +a already attached, however, in the dictionaries* I use, they always give the indefinite form of the word. Keep in mind though, that some words already do end in an 'a' (called a organikoa). Examples: futbolariA = a footballer/the footballer (remove the +a and it just becomes footballer) and now an example of a word with an organic a: kamiseta = shirt/a shirt/the shirt.

This is the part where I get a little bit more into the grammatical concepts, so new Euskara-learners might find this bit confusing though I do hope you guys will come back to it once you are further along in your studies.

• If the noun goes before the demonstrative, it is in the indefinite form = It took me a while to remember this rule and I did not quite get it up until I compared these two sentences: Hau zubia da = This is a bridge & Zubi hau berria da = This bridge is new.
  

• When an element accompanies an interrogative pronoun it is in the indefinite form = This was not confusing at all except I did experience some problems for sentences in plural form as I would end up writing: Zubiak horiek berriak dira instead of the correct version: Zubi horiek berriak dira.
  

Aside from all that I have previously mentioned, I was able to build up quite a vocabulary of words from the 1st strata which I have made into flashcards so I can make sure that they are engraved in my memory.

Although the 1st strata was a lot of fun, I'm quite happy to be able to move on to the 2nd strata as I'll be taking one step closer to my goal of being fluent in Euskara.

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* I make use of Gorka Aulestia and Linda White's Basque-English, English-Basque Dictionary as well as a compact Euskara-Gaztelania, Castellano-Euskara Dictionary.