arima
“arima” — soul in Basque. Noun, level B1. A loan from Arabic through the Spanish alma, openly admitted: the word came to the country many centuries ago. What lives longer than the body. In a live sentence: “Askok uste dute arima gorputzaren barruan bizi dela” — Many believe the soul lives inside the body. A word from the everyday Basque course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Basque | arima |
| Translation | soul |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
A loan from Arabic through the Spanish alma, openly admitted: the word came to the country many centuries ago. What lives longer than the body
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Askok uste dute arima gorputzaren barruan bizi delaMany believe the soul lives inside the body
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “soul” in Basque?
«arima». In a live sentence: “Askok uste dute arima gorputzaren barruan bizi dela” — Many believe the soul lives inside the body. Noun, level B1.
Why does this word look the way it does?
A loan from Arabic through the Spanish alma, openly admitted: the word came to the country many centuries ago. What lives longer than the body. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.