#basque:resources

Hello everyone! I’m back onto the whole language month goals, and I’m starting out with a month of Basque.

I’m going to be using de Rijk’s Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar, which I would not really recommend to any beginners—it’s alright but it’s not my favorite. The one good thing it does have, though, is exercises at the end of each chapter, which are just English-Basque and Basque-English translation; they’re a good way to start to get the gears running in my brain again. In addition, someone made a Memrise course of all the vocabulary (it’s called “Standard Basque - vocabulary” by MatiFilozof if the link doesn’t work), so it’s a good way to learn lots of vocabulary as well. I technically finished the course last summer, although I need to review it, but I figured that a combination of these two things would work to jumpstart my brain some.

Rules: reblog and tag 10 others

1. What language/s are/have you studied?

I am currently/actively studying Catalan, Basque, Welsh (sort of), Malayalam, and Western Abenaki, and I have studied/am studying but taking a break on Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, and small amounts of German, Kurdish, Amharic, and Bosnian.

2. How long have you been studying?

Spanish - 7 years

Welsh - 5 years

Catalan - 2 years

Turkish - 2 years

Malayalam - very erratically my entire life, I learned a bit when I was 10 or so but I’m going to say that I only started a few months ago

Basque - 1 year

Arabic - 9 months

Western Abenaki - 5 months

3. Did you learn through class or self-study (or both)?

I learned Spanish in school which got annoying after a while because if you’ve ever taken Spanish in the United States of America you’ll know what I mean. That being said, I really learned Spanish by self-study and everything else I’ve learned through self-study too (classroom learning is awful a good 99% of the time).

4. Why did you decide to learn this language?

Oh dear

I had to take Spanish in school (fun fact: I used to hate Spanish for no apparent reason, I would just get mad whenever my parents tried to speak it), but I really got into it when I became a huge soccer fan in 8th grade, since that made me start listening to stuff in the language, and also I started listening to trash music in Spanish too which helped a lot.

Catalan was 100% Barça’s fault, but I’m also just a sucker for random languages and Catalan brings me joy.

Welsh was because of this series called The Dark is Rising, the last two books are set in Wales and there’s some Welsh in them, and I was instantly in love (I told you I learn languages for irrational reasons).

Turkish I learned for absolutely no reason at all besides “I saw it in the Duolingo Incubator and I wanted it”.

Basque is because I’m so obsessed with Xabi Solano and Esne Beltza and above all the trikitixa and traditional Basque music like you can’t even begin to comprehend how much of my life I spend on it it’s bad

Malayalam is my dad’s native language and I want to not look stupid when I’m visiting family in India so yeah

Arabic has always interested me for some reason, but I also wanted to learn it because the refugee crisis and other issues in the Middle East are interesting and real and I wanted to address them in their native language (so much for that goal I can’t understand anything). Also Mashrou’ Leila came into my life and just never left.

Western Abenaki I’m honestly not sure why I decided to learn but it’s from New England like me and it’s super interesting!

5. What was a major highlight / milestone in studying this language?

I guess Catalan is the only language I’ve actually felt rewarded in, and the first time I met Catalan native speakers was absolutely amazing and I just felt so unbelievably happy that I could communicate with them. I don’t know why but just hearing people speak in Catalan brings me indescribable joy (I know I’m weird). Also when I was in Barcelona I got by fine in Catalan and I surprised a fair number of people at museums and stuff by talking to them in Catalan and then telling them I was from the US - they thought I was from Catalunya.

6.What was the hardest thing about studying this language?

Definitely for all of my languages the hardest thing would be a lack of native speakers teaching me the languages and also for some of them the lack of resources. Learning Malayalam with my dad has been so easy, since he can correct me or tell me the phrase for something, while with languages like Western Abenaki and Basque I just sort of fumble along until I find a sentence with a matching structure that proves me right or wrong.

7. What resources did you find most useful for studying this language?

Catalan and Spanish I learned mostly just with direct input from songs, TV shows, etc.

I used SaySomethingInWelsh for Welsh, and also my precious Modern Welsh Dictionary and Modern Welsh Grammar, which are great! While SSiW was hard for me to get through and definitely not all the vocab I needed, it did work and I can use most Welsh auxiliary verbs without a second thought, so I’m grateful to it for that.

For Basque I used a lot of direct input, but this pdf is super helpful and also the Basque Wikipedia page. The Mikel Morris dictionary also helps a lot.

For Turkish I used Duolingo, and it shows.

For Malayalam, I used my dad, the legendary ca.1970 pamphlet “Learn Malayalam in 30 Days” that I paid 30 rupees (not even a dollar) for (I would not recommend it), and, although I haven’t used it yet, Learn Basic Malayalam in Six Weeks.

For Arabic I’ve checked out a lot of stuff, the Memrise course on Arabic script was a godsend and really helped a lot, and the Colloquial Arabic course seems to be the best book I’ve seen on the language so far (I want to learn the Levantine dialect, not MSA).

For Western Abenaki I’ve used mostly westernabenaki.com as well as a couple random theses which has been intense.

8. Any top tips for studying this language?

For any language, make sure you have a good reason to learn it, get frequent input even if you’re not learning every day, start with stuff from native speakers and familiarize yourself with the living language, enjoy the grammar, and don’t be afraid to take a nice, long break if you need it.

9. What’s your next major language goal?

I’m going to an Abenaki powwow in August so I want to try to get down the basics of the language before then, and I also want to take Catalan in my first semester of college this fall (probably not going to happen but let me dream), so I need to work on reading more advanced texts and regaining my ability to speak the language.

10. Anything we can do in the Tumblr community to get you there?

Correct me if I make mistakes please, it would really help a lot!! And definitely reach out to me if you’re obsessed with one of the languages I’m studying, I’d love to talk to you! If you ever need someone to reach out to about anything, I’m here and honestly would love some nerdy language-loving friends (y’all are great I love you so much)