My cousin Adam and I are at Cedar Point right now. Well, not exactly. We got here early (8:45) thinking the park opened to everyone at 9. Turns out they closed off the area past the main entrance with a Berlin Wall-like barrier so “non-resort guests” can’t enter. We must wait until 10 to enter. It’s about 9:20.
On a lighter note, we had a great first day. Maverick was frickin’ amazing. Millennium Force made me black out. Flickr pics coming up tonight.
“It appears that, in your infinite parenting wisdom, you saw fit to bring two kids – an approximately four year old boy and 1 year old girl – into the particular screening of Hostel: Part II I was present for.”
“Are these on sale or something?” she asked.”
As far as languages go, Spanish one of the easiest (if not the easiest) second languages Americans can (and should) learn. mean, imagine learning Russian or Cyrilic or Persian or something obscure like that, with no connection to your native tongue. Spanish has so assimilated itself into US culture that it would be foolish not to learn and utilize it. In this edition, I’m going to focus on methods that will help you learn cognates better.
1. Understand indirect cognates.
Some words, like competición, can be understood directly by sight. Most, however, require an extra step, usually through an obscure English synonym. For example, the Spanish word for “flood”, inundación, seems to have no conceivable English cognate. However, a English synonym for “flood” is inundation. Quite closer to our Spanish word, right? This helpful connection will help you recall the word later on.
Here are some more examples: the middle word is the English word you’ll have to remember in order to recognize these cognates:
felicidad —-> felicity —-> happiness
odioso —-> odious —-> hateful, very unpleasant
liquidación —-> liquidation —-> sale
comportarse —-> to comport —-> to behave oneself
anticuado —-> antiquated —-> old-fashioned
temer —-> timid —-> easily frightened (to fear)
piel —-> peel (fruit skin) —-> skin (body skin)
mandar —-> mandate —-> to command
creíble —-> credible —-> believeable
encantar —-> to enchant —-> to cast a spell on
veneno —-> venom —-> poison
regresar —-> regress —-> to return, come back
There are literally thousands of these “indirect” cognates between Spanish and English.
2. Take advantage of noun-verb combos (I call them 2-for-1 words!)
English verbs like to believe, to travel, and to park all have rough noun equivalents: a belief, a trip, and parking lot. In Spanish - you get the same free passes. For example, the verb “creer”, “to believe” has the noun-equivalent “la creencia”, “the belief”. Once you know the Spanish verb, the noun comes naturally. Ejemplos:
viajar (to travel) —-> el viaje (trip)
estacionar (to park) —-> el estacionamiento (parking lot)
pensar (to think) —-> el pensamiento (a thought)
comportar (to behave) —-> comportamiento (behavior)
encarcelar (to imprison) —-> el encarcelamiento (imprisonment)
casar (to marry) —-> el casamiento (wedding)
In addition, some adjectives even have accompanying nouns:
sólo (alone) —-> la soledad (loneliness, solitude)
suave (smooth, soft, gentle) —-> la suavidad (smoothness, softness, gentleness)
Notice the common endings -miento and -dad.
3. Remember the function cognates.
I call these words “function cognates” because the meaning of the Spanish word implies the English one. For example, el abrelatas, a can opener, can be broken down into “abre” and “latas”, literally: “it opens cans”. What does a can opener do? You guessed it - it opens cans! Here are some more examples:
el paraguas (para-aguas, lit. for waters) - umbrella
el parabrisas (para-brisas, lit. for breezes) - windshield
el limpiaparabrisas (limpia-para-brisas, lit. it cleans for breezes) - windshield wiper)
el parachoques (para-choques, lit. for crashes) bumper
It also works for some verbs:
atravesar (a-través, lit. to across) to pierce, to go through
trasnochar (tras-noche, lit. across night) to stay up all night
It’s been almost a year since I wrote on my Blogger blog, and I don’t really have any explanation. I do want to start posting things again. That’s why I got one of these Tumblrs - I don’t have to commit to writing an entire post if I just want to get out a picture, a link, or even a quote.
As far as me, my sophomore year flew by, to say the least, and I’ve really enjoyed IB. My classes will be HL Spanish, English, Biology and SL History, Psychology, Math Methods. I’m going to get a big chunk of my CAS hours done this summer so next year isn’t so overwhelming. As if volunteering weren’t enough, I’ve got a summer psychology assignment, and a mountain of summer reading.
It’s going to be an awesome junior year.
P.S. I’m going to start writing a little in Spanish, just so I (and you) can practice. Voy a empezar a escribir un poquito en Español, de manera que yo (y tú) podamos practicar.
Just a place I can ruminate and post interesting stuff.
