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Can you believe it’s practically March already?

How are your New Year’s Resolutions going?

In case your goal for 2019 was to learn Euskara, the Basque language, I want to share some resources to help with that. If you haven’t gotten too far in your learning so far in 2019, no shame! There’s always time to start once you make the commitment.

In doing research for this post, I’ve come to discover how many online resources there are for learning Basque. People have been telling me for years that there really are no excuses to not learn Basque with the internet at our fingertips, and I’m starting to believe them.

Only now in February, I’ve decided to decolonize my mind and finally start learning Basque. For years I haven’t been motivated because I didn’t see any practical use for Euskara in my life. And I’ve internalized this thinking that Basque is too hard to learn.

As the years go on, I’ve been finding myself in more and more situations on my travels in the Basque Country where knowing Euskara would actually be very useful.

And I’ve started asking myself who are these people that say Basque is too hard to learn and why do they say that? Is it actually true? Is Euskara really impossible to learn?

According to one article, here are some reasons why learning Euskara might not be so impossible:

• You know the alphabet
• There are no genders or noun classes
• No weird sounds, either
• If you know Spanish or another Latin-based language, you’ll already know many words

So if Euskara isn’t actually the most difficult language to learn, what political purpose does this way of thinking serve?

All this narrative does is to discourage people from learning Euskara and keep using dominant languages instead. And if we all keep choosing to use dominant languages, then bye bye Euskara.

I’ve decided I don’t want to be a part of that logic anymore.

Part of my fear to start learning has been that I know this will be a lifelong process. It’s a huge commitment. But I’m just going to take my time with it. If it takes me the next 5-10 years to acquire conversational skills in Euskara, then so be it!

So while I’ve found these resources to help learn Euskara online as a first step in the direction of becoming an euskaldun berri (new Euskara speaker), I have yet to seriously try any of them out.

(No joke, I only came to this epiphany yesterday.)

Since I can’t vouch for the quality or effectiveness of these Basque courses and resources, I’ll leave it up to you to explore which websites and apps work best for your learning.

If you find any of the information in this post inaccurate or out of date, please let me know and I will gladly update it.

 

Online Courses

FREE

1. Ikasten by the Education Department of the Basque Government

2. EGUN ON! by Deusto & El Correo (in Spanish only)

3. KAIXO by HABE

4. Radio Kultura – radio program from Gure Irratia with lessons in French & Euskara

5. Videoconference Classes by the North American Basque Organizations

 

PAID

6. AEK – online course during academic year (in Spanish or French)

7. 17 Minute Languages (FREE TRIAL)

8. Cudoo

Mobile Apps

9. uTalk Classic Learn Basque ($7.99 in Apple App Store)

10. Zenbakiak, hartxoentxat (FREE) – For kids and toddlers to learn numbers 1-10 in Basque

11. Basque Flashcards with Pictures Lite (FREE)

12. English-Basque Bilingual Dictionary ($2.99 in Apple App Store)

13. Beginner Basque (Google Play)

14. Start from Zero Basque (Google Play)

 

Practice Basque

15. Mintzanet – practice speaking with native Basque speaker fo half an hour once a week (minimum level of Euskara required)

16. Verbal Planet – practice with tutors

17. Language Exchange – take turns practicing your Euskara with someone learning English

Other Online Resources

18. English-Basque Dictionary

19. Basque Language Games

20. iLanguages.org – vocabulary, phrases, grammar, flashcards

21. Learn 101 – overviews of vocabulary, grammar rules, verbs with audio for pronunciation

22. 101 Languages – online flashcards for vocabulary

23. Quia Flashcards 

 

YouTube Channels

24. Easy Basque – Several free lessons

25. Zuhaitz – “Learning Basque” series with vocabulary words in different categories

 

I’ll follow up with you a little later with some in-person opportunities to learn Euskara, but for now I want to keep the list to online resources.

If you use any websites or apps I haven’t mentioned, please let me know and I’ll gladly add them to the list!

CONTINUE READING:

• Euskara Thriving in the Basque Country with Euskaraldia
• How Many People in the Basque Country Actually Speak Euskara?
• Basque Movies to Watch on Netflix