The Spanish for “cheap,” barato, and the English barter both come from the same root, the Old French barater, meaning, “to barter, cheat, deceive, haggle.”
The word, over time, lost most of its negative connotation in both languages — neither barato nor barter are particularly strong negative words — although both have that touch of uneasiness, that we try to feel we are better than.
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
