Learning Journal 3

[Maddie Philips]

There are quite a lot of things that I need to learn about the structure of Basque, because its structure is unlike any other language that I am familiar with. Sentence structure, in particular, is difficult, because it switches from SOV and SVO depending on the context. For example, the SOV ni irakaslea naiz means "I am a teacher," while the SVO ni naiz irakaslea means, "I am THE teacher." Likewise, the SOV ni Maddie naiz means "I am Maddie," while the SVO ni ez naiz Maddie means "I am not Maddie." This is just a basic example of how structure changes in the present tense, so accounting for all other tenses and ways of saying things, I imagine that there's quite a lot more to learn. Luckily, Basque does not have masculine and feminine forms like with romance languages, or even English in some cases, so that is one less thing to worry about.