LingoflyTs ts — te ese
«te ese» is a digraph of the Basque script, read as “ts with a hint of sh”. A "ts" said with the raised tongue tip of the letter s. For example, in the word “itsaso” — sea. The Basque alphabet has 27 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. This character does not count as a letter of the alphabet. Itsaso — "sea". ts pairs with s and tz with z: the pairs work the same way.
In short
| Character | Ts ts |
| Name | te ese |
| Sound | ts with a hint of sh |
| What it is | a digraph |
In our course the character comes 29th of 32: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are z and tx, appears in 165 words of this site.
How it sounds
A "ts" said with the raised tongue tip of the letter s
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- itsasosea
The character in the “z, s, x and their pairs” group
The heart of Basque phonetics: three sounds, z, s and x, and each has its own "ts": tz, ts and tx. z is a plain English s, s has a hint of "sh" in it, x is simply "sh", and tx is "ch". Native ears tell all six apart.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «te ese» it is “ts with a hint of sh”, as in the word “itsaso”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 27 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Basque character ts read?
As “ts with a hint of sh” — it is a digraph of the Basque script. A "ts" said with the raised tongue tip of the letter s. For example, in the word “itsaso” — sea.
What is the sign ts called?
Te ese. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Basque script: it is called “te ese” and reads as “ts with a hint of sh”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can ts be confused with?
Itsaso — "sea". ts pairs with s and tz with z: the pairs work the same way. Similar characters are best studied side by side and deliberately compared: learned on different days, they stay separate and get mixed up at their first meeting inside a word.