pikantea
“pikantea” — spicy in Basque. Adjective, level A2, topic — food and drink. A loan from Spanish picante, from picar — 'to sting'. The spicy here 'stings', like the mosquito. In a live sentence: “Plater hau pikanteegia da niretzat” — This dish is too spicy for me. You can hear how it sounds right here. One of 254 words in the set “food and drink” in the Basque course.
In short
| Written in Basque | pikantea |
| Translation | spicy |
| Part of speech | adjective |
| Level | A2 |
- pikanteaspicy
Why it looks that way
A loan from Spanish picante, from picar — 'to sting'. The spicy here 'stings', like the mosquito
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.
- Plater hau pikanteegia da niretzatThis dish is too spicy for me
Nearby words: food and drink
A menu, a market, a shop sign, the question “what is this?”. Food is the most frequent subject of the first weeks and the safest excuse to start talking.
- kafeacoffeeThe article -a has grown onto the end: kafe+a. You order without it: kafe bat — one coffee
- teateaTe + the article a = 'tea' — only the pronunciation tells it apart from the English word
- urawaterA two-letter word, ur — and even it wears the article: ur+a. In Bilbao you ask for it just as short: ur bat
- ogiabreadOgi + a. The bakery in Basque is okela — a native word, not the Spanish one
- gaztacheeseThe famous Idiazabal sheep cheese — Idiazabalgo gazta: the same word in the name
- haragiameatCuts are built descriptively: behi-haragia — beef, literally 'cow meat'
- arrainafishA fisherfolk's land: arrantzale — 'fisher', arrain saltzailea — 'fishmonger'. Fish in the sea and on the plate is one word
- frutakfruitA collective in the plural: fruta + ak. One piece of fruit is fruta bat
- sagarraappleSagar + the article, and the r doubles at the seam: sagar+a → sagarra. The same fusion makes ogia from ogi and ura from ur
- laranjaorangeBoth the fruit and the color: soineko laranja — an orange dress. The word arrived from Valencia through Spanish
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “food and drink”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “spicy” in Basque?
A loan from Spanish picante, from picar — 'to sting'. The spicy here 'stings', like the mosquito
- How do you say “fish” in Basque?
A fisherfolk's land: arrantzale — 'fisher', arrain saltzailea — 'fishmonger'. Fish in the sea and on the plate is one word
- How do you say “water” in Basque?
A two-letter word, ur — and even it wears the article: ur+a. In Bilbao you ask for it just as short: ur bat
- How do you say “orange” in Basque?
Both the fruit and the color: soineko laranja — an orange dress. The word arrived from Valencia through Spanish
- How do you say “meat” in Basque?
Cuts are built descriptively: behi-haragia — beef, literally 'cow meat'
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 “spicy” in Basque?
«pikantea». In a live sentence: “Plater hau pikanteegia da niretzat” — This dish is too spicy for me. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Adjective, level A2, from the set “food and drink”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
A loan from Spanish picante, from picar — 'to sting'. The spicy here 'stings', like the mosquito. 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.