Vendimia and Vintage
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
The Spanish vendimia (“a harvest of wine”) comes from the Latin vinum (“wine” — from which we get words like vino — “wine” — in Spanish) combined with demere, which meant, “to take out”. So the wine harvest is literally, the taking out of the wine.
The interesting part is that, from these same two roots, we get the English… vintage. You may think of vintage cars or vintage clothing — but it really does just refer to taking out wine.
We can see the v-n-d of vendimia maps to the v-n-t of vintage.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Predecir – Predict, Diction
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in CT to CH, True Spanish Etymology Stories
An easy way to remember the Spanish decir (to say) is through the word predict.
Predict is, literally, pre – decir — to say beforehand. Pre means “before” and the dict- maps almost exactly to the Spanish decir.
How come the decir needs an extra -t in it to be predict? Because the Latin predecire took the grammatical form of predicatus and this form grew into English (via the French influence). A prediction in Spanish, after all, is predicho!
Thus, it is a cousin of many English words such as diction and dictionary.
- See more of this pattern: CT to CH, True Spanish Etymology Stories
Ocho and Octagon
The Latin for “eight” is Octo, from which we get the English Octagon.
Since most Latin words with a -ct- sound, like Octo, had the -ct- turn into a -ch- as the language evolved into Spanish, it is no surprise that eight in Spanish is ocho.
This same pattern manifests itself in noche/nocturnal, leche/lactose, and is one of our favorite patterns here at ForNerds!
Aprovecharse and Profit
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
The Spanish aprovecharse (“to take advantage of,” in a good way) comes from the Latin ad– (“towards”) and profectus (“progress, success.”)
From the same root profectus, we get the English… profit.
We can see the root pr-v of aprovecharse mapping to the pr-f of profit. And how do you make a profit if not by taking advantage of the opportunities in front of you?
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Seguir – Persecute, Sequel
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Seguir, Spanish meaning “to follow”, sounds like it has nothing to do with anything.
But it does, in a subtle way. It comes from the Latin sequi, which means “to follow.” From the same root we get:
- Persecute – from the Latin persequi; the per means “through”, and the sequi is the same “follow”.
- Sequel – directly from the Latin sequi for “follow”, via French.
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
Haber and Habit, Prohibit
- Posted by Morgan
- on
- in True Spanish Etymology Stories
Haber (“to have”, in the grammatical sense, and the root form of he, has, ha, hemos, etc) comes from the Latin for habere, meaning “to hold.”
From the same root, we get the English word habit. What is a habit if not something you hold so dearly that you do it all the time? We also get prohibit (the same root with the prefix pro meaning “away”). What is a prohibition if not a habit that you’re trying to stop?
The h-b root is so obvious in all, it’s almost not worth mentioning. Almost!
- See more of this pattern: True Spanish Etymology Stories
what is the etymological way to learn spanish?
Nerds love to pattern-match, to find commonalities among everything. Our approach to learning languages revolves (the same -volve- that is in “volver”, to “return”) around connecting the Spanish words to the related English words via their common etymologies – to find the linguistic patterns, because these patterns become easy triggers to remember what words mean. Want to know more? Email us and ask:
morgan@westegg.com
patterns to help us learn spanish:
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