aspergarria
“aspergarria” — boring (thing) in Basque. Adjective, level A2. From asper — 'boredom' + -garri, 'giving': boring here is 'boredom-giving'. Related to aspertuta nago — 'I'm fed up'. In a live sentence: “Filma aspergarria izan da: erdian lo egin dut” — The film was boring: I fell asleep in the middle. A word from the everyday Basque course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Basque | aspergarria |
| Translation | boring (thing) |
| Part of speech | adjective |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
From asper — 'boredom' + -garri, 'giving': boring here is 'boredom-giving'. Related to aspertuta nago — 'I'm fed up'
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.
- Filma aspergarria izan da: erdian lo egin dutThe film was boring: I fell asleep in the middle
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 “boring (thing)” in Basque?
«aspergarria». In a live sentence: “Filma aspergarria izan da: erdian lo egin dut” — The film was boring: I fell asleep in the middle. Adjective, level A2.
Why does this word look the way it does?
From asper — 'boredom' + -garri, 'giving': boring here is 'boredom-giving'. Related to aspertuta nago — 'I'm fed up'. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.