Use Etymology As a Learning Tool
For example, the Spanish word for "hand" is mano, which is closely related to the English word "manual," referring to doing something by hand.
Fortunately, Steven's method is fairly easy to implement, because nearly all the Spanish words for parts of the body come from Latin, and those Latin words followed a complicated route to become part of English. For many people, learning vocabulary this way might be more bother than it's worth — but at the least, it's a great way to learn about Spanish and English etymology. Often, the Spanish and English words we use every day are more closely connected than we realize. Here are some more examples of English words related to the Spanish names for parts of the body:
- cabeza (head) and "cabbage," both connected with Latin word caput, meaning "head"
- cuello (neck) and "collar," from the Latin collum, meaning "neck"
- pecho (chest or bosom) and "pectoral," from the Latin pectus
- ojo (eye) and "ocular," from the Latin oculus
The best place online to find the etymology of Spanish words is the Diccionario de la lengua española. English etymology can be found in many places; my favorite is the American Heritage Dictionary.
Comments
Totally agreed, Gerald. I studied Latin before I studied Spanish, so I experienced what you are saying twice: the first time when I was learning Latin (and my learning of Latin words went along with increasing my useful English vocabulary) and the second time when I was learning Spanish (which largely seemed like a simplified Latin plus a farrago of fascinating imports).
I too learn well when I can see the etymology of words and what their connections might be. I have not studied Latin in the past, but I have studied Greek. While not seen as often in Spanish as Latin, there are still a ton of words that come from Greek.
That is indeed a great method and I used to do it as well while learning a language. It is possible as well to do it in more languages. For example the word mano in Spanish as you said, manual in English, main in French and mano in Italian!
Thats why you can ´understand´ more languages when you are just speaking one. Another example: believe in Spanish is creer, in Italian it is credere, in French it is croire and in Portugees it is acreditar.
Somehow you can recognize parts of the words in the different languages and it helps you in a very nice way if you want to learn a new language!
Thanks for the article!
As a secondary level teacher of Spanish, this is a technique I use with every lesson, at every level.
Not only does it help with retention of the meaning of the Spanish word, but it expands the literacy abilities of our students. In turn, obviously, this aids in comprehension in all other subject matters. This is one of the main reasons we LOTE teachers push for second language acquisition as early as possible!