Siglo, Spanish for “century”, closely related to the English secular.

How? The connection seems surprising.

Both come from the Latin saeculum, meaning, “age, span of time, generation”.

The evolution from saeculum to siglo is obvious: a century is just a unit or breakdown of time.

But in English, it evolved into the sense to mean “worldly.” While the religious concerns itself with the spirit and the “other-worldly,” it is the characteristics of time — growing, aging — that are the most fundamental characteristics of this world.

Life in the real world, in other words, is defined by getting old.

Luego (Spanish for “later”) comes from the Latin locus (“place.”) From this same Latin root, we get various place-related English words, including…

• Local — This is really just a place!
• Locale — A locale is just a type of place!
• Locomotion — Local + motion = moving from one place to another!
• Locate — To just find the place where something is!

We can see the l-g of luego map to the l-c of locate clearly.

The interesting question is how “place” came to mean “later” in Spanish. It’s interesting. Basically, in ancient Latin (and even moreso in vulgar Latin), locus (“place”) was used in lots and lots of expressions related to time. So, over time, the word for “place” became more and more associated with the word for “time” — until, eventually, it became a type of time… being late. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that the Latins are always late — stereotypically, at least!

The Spanish creer, “to believe”, is easy to remember once we realize it comes from the same root as… incredible. Both are from the Latin credibilis (meaning “worth of believing”), and the in- prefix is a negation, so that which is incredible is literally… unbelievable. And thus, creer is also a first cousin to being… credible. Ahhh!

Boda, Spanish for “wedding,” comes from the Latin word votum, meaning a “vote, promise”.

This, indeed, makes sense: what is a wedding if not just a vote for the other person, and a promise to be with them? At least in Spanish it is. (The other word for wedding in Spanish, casamiento, is related to the Spanish for “home”, casa).

This one isn’t obvious, at all, based on the spelling, but it is based on the sound. One lesson is to guess parallel words based on the sounds more than the letters. But pay attention to the letters when they are unexpected or voiced weirdly.

The Spanish espalda (“back”, meaning the part of your body where your spine is!) comes from the Latin spatula meaning also “back” (same sense) or “short wooden blade.”

It’s hard to predict what English word came from the same root? Spatula! It’s easy to see how this evolved: a short wooden blade can look like your shoulder. (Hence the French word for “shoulder” is épaule!)

The s-p-t of spatula maps clearly to the s-p-(l)-d of espalda.

Elegir (Spanish for “to choose”) comes from the Latin for the same, eligere.

From the Latin root eligere, we get the English… elect. We can see the e-l-g map to the e-l-ct clearly; the “g” and hard “ct” sounds do sound similar. To choose, to elect–’tis the same!

More surprisingly, from the same root, we also get the English… elegant. We can see the e-l-g mapping preserved here. Is not something elegant just something that the elites have chosen?

The Spanish Atajo (“shortcut”) comes from the Latin taliare which means, “to split.” How did that transformation come about? Think about it like this: if you want to get somewhere quickly — via a shortcut — then you keep on splitting what remains to get there the quickest way! A more subtle variation of that is, atajo has the a “devious” implication, such as: you’re trying to use the shortcut to get around doing it the hard or honest way. You’re trying to split the path to take a quicker one…

The Latin tailare gives us the English… entail. If a premise entails a conclusion, then, the conclusion is cut for precisely that problem! (This originally happened in reference to inheritances, actually: the inheritance was cut appropriately.)

And from the same root we get the English tailor. A tailor cuts clothing to be right for you!

Brindis (a “toast”, in the sense of saluting someone before you drink alcohol) and brindir (“to provide”) both come from the same origin — through a funny story.

In 1527, the German king Charles V sacked Rome — and the soldiers, when sacking the city, screamed out in victory constantly, “Ich bring dir’s!”, meaning, “I’m bringing it!” (“It” here refers to victory, the new king, a new beginning, etc.). This phrase then became popular and repeated around Rome (in Italian), in different senses: it became the toast that everyone used to the new king; and it also entered popular usage in the same sense, of bringing or providing. Then, the word was copied from Italian into Spanish. And, separately, bring, although a German word, is the same word in English. Remember, English is a Germanic language, after all (despite all those French words since 1066 and all that!).

We can thus see the br-n-d of brindis and brindar map to the br-n-g of bring quite clearly. The d/g sounds often swap places as well, thus making the g/d switch make sense: they do sound quite similar, after all.

Costilla, Spanish for “rib,” is a close cousin of the English coast and accost. All come from the same Latin root, costa, meaning, “side.”

Thus, your rib is literally, “what which is on your side” and to accost is literally, “to come up to you from the side” and, of course, the coast is the definition of the side, your side boundary.

The c-s-t root is clearly visible in all descendents of costa.