Learning Journal 3

[Maddie Philips]

There are many things that I need to learn about the structure of Basque, but because it is such a complicated language, it is difficult to learn most of them. Unlike most languages, Basque switches from using SOV and SVO depending on the context of the sentence, so it is very difficult to make one without knowing first the word order. An example is "ni Maddie naiz," which means, "I am Maddie." While this is in SOV, I could negate the sentence by putting it in SVO and saying, "ni ez naiz Maddie," or "I am not Maddie." Likewise, one could use SOV to say, "ni irakaslea naiz," or "I am a teacher," but subtly change the sentence to SVO, "ni naiz irakaslea," to say, "I am the teacher." Because of the many intricacies of Basque, I can definitely say that I have a lot to learn, but it is difficult to know what exactly, because the rules are seemingly so inconsistent.