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?
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
Here at ForNerds, we love meeting and talking to other people who love learning Spanish, etymologies, and any other topic in nerdy ways. Drop us a note and say hi!
morgan@westegg.com
