ontziak garbitu
“ontziak garbitu” — wash the dishes in Basque. Phrase, level A1. Literally 'to clean the vessels': garbitu — wash and clean at once. After every lunch — the obligatory program. In a live sentence: “Sukaldean ontziak garbitzen ditut egunero” — In the kitchen I wash the dishes every day. You can hear how it sounds right here. A word from the everyday Basque course, level A1.
In short
| Written in Basque | ontziak garbitu |
| Translation | wash the dishes |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A1 |
- ontziak garbituwash the dishes
Why it looks that way
Literally 'to clean the vessels': garbitu — wash and clean at once. After every lunch — the obligatory program
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.
- Sukaldean ontziak garbitzen ditut eguneroIn the kitchen I wash the dishes every day
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 “wash the dishes” in Basque?
«ontziak garbitu». In a live sentence: “Sukaldean ontziak garbitzen ditut egunero” — In the kitchen I wash the dishes every day. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level A1.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Literally 'to clean the vessels': garbitu — wash and clean at once. After every lunch — the obligatory program. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how this sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.