A week of Basque only: life in a barnetegi
Iratxe spends seven days at a barnetegi in the Basque Country, where everyone agrees to speak only Basque. An A2 reading with encantar, preferir and odiar plus the infinitive.
Una semana entera de euskera: la vida en un barnetegi
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The story of an adult from Bilbao who spends seven days at a barnetegi, a centre where learners of Basque live together and agree to use only that language.
Este verano hace algo más difícil: se apunta a un barnetegi. Un barnetegi es un centro donde los estudiantes comen, duermen y pasan el día juntos, y donde todos aceptan la misma regla: aquí se habla en euskera. Iratxe va a estar allí siete días. Al principio prefiere escuchar, porque le da vergüenza equivocarse.
El euskera es lengua oficial en el País Vasco, junto con el castellano, y también se habla en el norte de Navarra. El castellano, el gallego y el catalán vienen del latín, pero el euskera no. Muchas palabras son completamente nuevas para Iratxe. «Odio no entender nada», dice el primer día.
En el barnetegi el día empieza con «Kaixo» y termina con «Agur». La palabra «Agur» no es nueva para ella: en el norte de España mucha gente la dice también cuando habla en castellano. Los tres primeros números son bat, bi y hiru.
Cada estudiante tiene su método. A Gorka le encanta cantar en euskera, porque las canciones se quedan en la cabeza. Mikel prefiere escribir las palabras nuevas en una libreta pequeña. A dos hermanas de Vitoria les encanta cocinar juntas y repetir en voz alta el nombre de cada verdura. Iratxe no aprende bien sola en su casa: prefiere hablar con alguien, aunque comete muchos errores.
El último día Iratxe habla despacio, pero habla. Sigue mezclando palabras de las dos lenguas y sigue buscando el verbo, que en euskera casi siempre va al final. «Prefiero equivocarme en euskera antes que callarme en castellano», dice antes de subir al autobús.
¿Y tú? ¿Prefieres estudiar una lengua a solas o con otras personas? ¿Te encanta hablar desde el primer día, o prefieres escuchar mucho antes de abrir la boca? ¿Qué lengua quieres aprender este año?
About this article
What you'll learn
Preference verbs (encantar, preferir, odiar) with the infinitive; keeping the pronoun with "a + person"; vocabulary for talking about learning a language.
The story of an adult from Bilbao who spends seven days at a barnetegi, a centre where learners of Basque live together and agree to use only that language.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
de adulta
newas an adult
Spanish uses de plus a noun or adjective to say at what stage of life something happens: de niño, de joven, de adulta. The form matches the person, so a woman says de adulta.
Useful for telling your own story: when you started something.
le da vergüenza
newshe feels embarrassed
Word for word, vergüenza (embarrassment) is what the verb gives to the person. Spanish builds this feeling like gustar: the person appears as me, te, le, nos, os or les, and dar agrees with whatever causes the feeling, so before an infinitive it is singular. Me da vergüenza hablar, le da vergüenza equivocarse.
This is how Spanish speakers say they feel shy about doing something.
se quedan en la cabeza
newthey stay in your head
Quedarse means to stay or to remain. Used about songs or words, it is the same idea as the English to stick in your head.
A natural way to say that something is easy to remember.
en voz alta
newaloud
Voz means voice, and en voz alta means out loud, loudly enough for the others to hear you. The opposite is en voz baja, quietly.
Useful whenever you talk about reading, repeating or practising a language.
abrir la boca
newto say a word
Word for word, to open the mouth. As in English, it means to say anything at all, often when speaking feels difficult.
Very common when people describe how they feel speaking a new language.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Barnetegi
barnetegi
Basque immersion centre
A Basque word used inside Spanish when people talk about learning Basque. It is a residential centre where students live together for some days, and the rule is to speak only Basque. The ordinary adult school is called a euskaltegi.
You will meet both words in Spanish texts about learning Basque.
Equivocarse
equivocarse
to make a mistake, to be wrong
A reflexive verb, so the pronoun changes with the person: me equivoco, te equivocas, se equivoca. The text uses equivocarse and equivocarme.
One of the verbs you need most while you are learning.
Callarse
callarme
to keep quiet, to say nothing
Callar is to be silent; callarse is the reflexive form used about a person: me callo, te callas, se calla. Here callarme means keeping quiet instead of speaking.
It is the natural opposite of hablar when you talk about feeling shy in a language.
La regla
regla
the rule
Regla is a rule that people agree to follow. The same word also names the ruler you draw lines with, so the sentence around it tells you which one is meant.
It turns up in classrooms, in games and in any text about how a place works.
Despacio
despacio
slowly
An adverb, so it does not agree with anything: hablar despacio, comer despacio, ir despacio. Its opposite is deprisa or rápido.
One of the first words you need in order to ask someone to slow down.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Le encanta + infinitive
Le encanta aprender palabras nuevas
she loves learning new words
With an infinitive, encantar stays in the third person singular: le encanta aprender, nos encanta cantar. The person who enjoys it is shown by the pronoun me, te, le, nos, os or les.
This is an everyday way to say that you love doing something.
Preferir agrees with its own subject
Mikel prefiere escribir
Mikel prefers to write
Preferir and odiar behave like ordinary verbs: the person is the subject (yo prefiero, tú prefieres, Mikel prefiere). Encantar does not work that way, because there the person sits in the pronoun. Preferir also changes e to ie in several forms: prefiero, prefieres, prefiere.
Mixing the two patterns produces sentences like a Mikel le prefiere escribir, which preferir does not allow.
A Gorka le encanta
A Gorka le encanta cantar
Gorka loves singing
With gustar-type verbs like encantar, naming the person does not remove the pronoun: A Gorka le encanta cantar, A dos hermanas les encanta cocinar. The name follows a, and le or les still appears.
You need it to talk about what other people love, not only about yourself.
Prefiero equivocarme: infinitive, not gerund
Prefiero equivocarme en euskera
I would rather make mistakes in Basque
After verbs of liking and preferring (gustar, encantar, preferir, odiar, detestar, interesar) Spanish uses the infinitive: prefiero equivocarme, le encanta cantar, odia hablar. English says I prefer making mistakes with -ing, and that pattern does not carry over. The Spanish gerund is perfectly normal after other verbs: this same text has sigue mezclando palabras, and estar, continuar and llevar work the same way.
It is a very common mistake for English speakers, and it appears the moment you talk about what you like.
Empezó a estudiarlo
empezó a estudiarlo
she started studying it
Empezar needs the preposition a before an infinitive. The pronoun lo, standing for Basque, attaches to the end of the infinitive: estudiarlo. You can also say lo empezó a estudiar.
Many Spanish verbs require a fixed preposition before an infinitive.
Aunque comete muchos errores
aunque comete muchos errores
even though she makes a lot of mistakes
Here aunque is followed by the indicative (comete) because the fact is presented as real and known. Aunque can also take the subjunctive, with a different meaning, but that comes at a later stage.
It links two opposing ideas without using pero.
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