Expat Community > Colombia

Vikingo
Joined 2009
Posts: 1828

Different ways to improve your Spanish

10 months ago

For years I made it a habit to write down a new word in Spanish I was unfamiliar with and the respective translation in English (and German) from Google Translate. I use my first language as well, (you should use yours also if other than English) to get an easier understanding of the meaning of the word.
If the word is slang I note it as such in brackets.
A new Spanish word pops up almost daily when searching the News or YouTube for something interesting but a lot of information on YouTube can be discarded; too often click-bait, blatant lies, anti- Americanism or Kremlin propaganda.
I created a MS-Word page on my desktop with title 'New Words'
to have the list handy and use it several times during the day.
It seems when you write a word down it’s easier to memorize.

Learning Spanish can be simplified by taking thousands of 'Spanish cognates' into consideration.
Cognates are words with a very similar spelling in English and Spanish but with a different pronunciation!
Because both languages have a very high percentage of Latin and Greek roots and there is a huge similarity in medicine and science.
For example:
An incredible transformation - una increíble transformación
pronunciation - pronunciación, dedication - dedicación

A cognate rule can be applied in this case, like converting
tion to ción.

https://spanishcognates.org/cognate-ending (more on cognate rules)

Also pay attention to the acute accent mark in Spanish vocals (á é í, ó ú) they are there for a reason to pronounce that particular syllable correctly.
If you pronounce the wrong syllable Colombians are lost and won’t understand you.
You can get a correct pronunciation quickly by entering the word in google translate and clicking on the bell.

https://blog.busuu.com/spanish-pronunciation/

There are quite a few words in Spanish where several of them have exactly? the same meaning but are spelled and pronounced differently, also indigenous words that are in common use here.
Didn’t get to sorting that out yet if I ever will.
Learning a language is a lifelong affair and with technology advancing so rapidly new words show up constantly.

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Different ways to improve your Spanish

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