Learning Spanish Words Through Etymology and Mnemonics

[yong321]

The following are sample headword entries from my Learning Spanish Words Through Etymology and Mnemonics, which makes use of etymology to help you remember Spanish words, and failing that, suggests a mnemonic. I'm not aware of any other book dedicated to foreign language vocabulary study that intentionally combines these two methods in learning.

humo smoke; fume (cognate). From Latin fumus. Note the f- to h- conversion, which is common. Example, el salmón ahumado (“smoked salmon”); aquí no se fuma (“no smoking here”); hay humo hay fuego (“where there’s smoke there’s fire”, literally “there’s smoke, there’s fire”).

vino wine (cognate). If the cognation is not obvious, think of vine (the plant), which is related to vino.

rincón (interior) corner, nook. Arabic origin. Use a mnemonic such as “a raccoon in the corner of the house”. See also esquina (“exterior corner”).

cuñado brother-in-law. cuñada sister-in-law. From Latin cognatus. Cognate with cognate. (Yes, the English word cognate is cognate with this Spanish word.) The original and literal meaning is “related”, hence cuñado (“related by blood”) and cognate (“related in language evolution”). It’s common for Latin gn to change to Spanish ñ.

[yong321]

A few sample words from the second edition (http://yong321.freeshell.org/lsw/ed2.html😞

inversión investment; inversion. invertir to invest (money, time, etc.); to invert. The more common meaning is the first one, “investment”, “to invest”, which is a result of combining or confusing Latin invertere (“to invert”) with an unrelated Latin word investire (“to clothe”, “to cover”), which English invest came from. The latter entered Italian and somehow acquired the sense of “to place capital in”. Example, cartera de inversiones (“investment portfolio”).

marchar to go, to march (cognate); (reflexive) to leave. Note the meaning of the reflexive usage, just like irse (“to leave”). Normally the meaning of a verb used reflexively can be guessed (action to oneself, passive voice, or indefinite person like English one). But sometimes they acquire a new meaning that does not follow the said rules, as in the case of marcharse or irse.

medio (adj., adv., n.) half, middle; (n.) means, way; (pl.) news media. media (adj., n.) half, mean, average; (n.) sock, stocking, pantyhose. Cognate with mean, median. The adjective media is simply the fem. form of medio. As a noun, media only occurs in certain expressions (see Examples); the meaning of “sock, stocking” of media is because a sock covers half the leg. Note the adverb can only be medio, not media. Examples, media hora / libra (“half an hour / pound”; media is adj.); clase media (“middle class”); altura media (“average height”); la habitación está medio vacía (“the room is half empty”; medio is adv. so it does not change to media); en medio de la noche (“in the middle of night”; medio is n.; but in media noche, “midnight”, media is adj.); por medio de (“by means of”); son las tres y media (“it’s half past three”; media is n.); medio de comunicación (“news media”, note medio, not media, and it can be preceded by un).

 mozo boy, young man. There are various etymological theories about this word, including one that connects it to muchacho (“boy”). Alternatively, we know that the Biblical name Moses, according to one theory, means “child of” in Egyptian (see Wikipedia for Moses and its reference that states “Moses is derived from the common element in names such as Thutmosis (‘Thoth created him’)...)”. For lack of definitive proof, we can at least take Moses as a mnemonic for mozo and imagine him as a young boy or young man. Or think of the young music genius Mozart as a mozo. (The feminine form moza means “girl” but is not as common.)

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