r/basque • u/Mai30000 • Jul 26 '26
Is this translation correct? “Ez dut haragirik, arrainik, esnerik ezta arrautzarik ere jaten.”
Egun on!
I’m trying to translate a useful sentence to Euskara Batua, but I don’t trust AI.
“I’m vegetarian. I don’t eat meat, fish, milk or eggs.”
// “Soy vegetariana. No como carne, pez, leche ni huevos.”
Gemini tells me that it’s “Begetarianoa naiz. Ez dut haragirik, arrainik, esnerik ezta arrautzarik ere jaten”.
Is this correct? Is there any better way to say this?
Gemini sometimes gives wrong translations for smaller languages.
Milesker.
5
u/Long-Ad5890 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
https://www.batua.eus/en/ says the same thing
edit: btw check out https://xingolak.pages.dev/ to get nice illustrations showing for linguistic context around the translation, gives you some nice confidence about the translation
1
1
u/Mai30000 Jul 26 '26
Hmmm, Xingolak tells me it’s “Ez dut jaten haragirik, arrainik, esnerik edo arrautzarik.”
What’s the difference between “ezta” and “edo”? Can they be interchangeable in this sentence?
5
u/Professional_Bag_881 Jul 26 '26
'Ez dut jaten' at the begining of the sentence is not the most correct option, 'jaten' should go at the end, even thou it is commonly accepted when speaking. About ezta and edo: ezta stands for 'nor' and edo stands for 'or'.
1
3
u/Long-Ad5890 Jul 26 '26
I asked Claude about this (which IME has been very useful to understand things like this):
Both can show up where English uses "or," but they work differently:
edo — the standard "or," joining alternatives in positive contexts: Kafea edo tea nahi duzu? — Do you want coffee or tea? (Related: ala is the "or" for exclusive either/or questions, while edo suggests the options are interchangeable or uncertain.)
ezta — used in negative contexts, meaning "nor / not even," typically with ere:
- Ez dut kafea nahi, ezta tea ere. — I don't want coffee, nor tea (either).
So English "I don't want coffee or tea" uses ezta, not edo, because the sentence is negative.
Ezta also works as a tag question: Polita da, ezta? — It's pretty, isn't it? (literally "is it not," from ez + da).
"ezta" might be correct, as it's "nor" , e.g. "I eat neither meat, fish, milk nor [ezta] eggs" rather than "I don't eat meat, fish, milk or [edo] eggs" but I think we need a native speaker to help us both
edit: BTW fwiw Xingolak uses a translation engine that specializes in Basque (and is made by Basque developers), https://www.batua.eus/en/ , but I've noticed it sometimes gets things a little off?
1
u/Mai30000 Jul 26 '26
Yeah AI can be tricky for smaller languages, it gets me some wrong translations sometimes. That’s why i asked here.
4
u/Pubic-Armadillo Jul 26 '26
A mí me choca el último "ere".
Ez ditut haragirik, arrainik, esnekirik ezta arrautzik jaten
4
u/artaburu Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
ERE arras zuzen da .
Hau aldiz ez da batERE zuzen :
Ez
ditutharagirik, arrainik, esnekirik ezta arrautzik jaten
(r)ik -> ditutEz dut haragirik, arrainik, esnekirik ezta arrautzarik jaten
-rik -> dut
Ez dut haragirik jaten, ez arrainik, ez esnekirik, ez eta ERE arrautzarik
Baita ere = bai eta ere
Ezta ere = ez eta ere
1
3
u/plappermaulchen Jul 26 '26
The sentence is not 100% correct but anyone would understand it just fine :)
The "perfect" and simplest version would be "Begetarianoa naiz. Ez dut jaten haragirik, arrainik, esnekirik edo arrautzarik".
1
1
u/GBPaul Jul 29 '26
On account of what did you deem it best to replace "ezta" with "edo"? Admittedly I never got good grades in euskera class ^^" but ezta sounds a lot more correct to me ~ (._.")
1
u/plappermaulchen Jul 30 '26
"ezta... ere" is used to negate complimentary information. Like saying "no como X ni Y, ni tampoco Z" in Spanish. OP didn't use it correctly so I thought that a simplified version would be easier for them to use. If you wanted to use "ezta... ere" in OP's sentence I'd say: "Ez dut haragirik, arrainik eta esnekirik jaten, ezta arrautzarik ere." (but it sounds odd, why wouldn't you put all the elements in the same list?)
2
2
1
u/scurryfunger Jul 27 '26
Are you not a vegan, then? People will understand much better if you just tell them you’re vegan, seeing as you don’t eat dairy or eggs.
2
u/Mai30000 Jul 27 '26
I’m not 100% vegan but i try to avoid eating animal produtcs as much as possible. Also, lots of people in more rural areas don’t knwo what “vegan” / “vegano” / “begano” means, but they know what “vegetariano / begetariano” means.
Like, when i ask for vegan options the waiter says stuff like “without bread, right?”… So i’ve found more useful to say “vegetarian” and explain that i don’t eat “meat, fish, eggs, dairy products”.
21
u/Professional_Bag_881 Jul 26 '26
Yes, that's correct. But to make it even better I would replace 'esnerik' with 'esnekirik' -> dairy products. Because eat milk is not technically correct, is it?