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Learning Spanish & Etymology Pattern-Matching for Nerds

Charlar and Charlatan

Charlar (Spanish for “to chat”) comes from the Italian ciarla — as does the English… charlatan. We can see the ch-r-l root in both easily.

Interestingly, the English word has taken a negative turn while the Spanish, not so much. I would attribute this to the Anglo-Saxon culture’s looking down on talking without action, while the Latin culture’s focus on talking even if it means inaction.

Also from the same root is the English, charade. Charade, like charlatan, contains negative connotations of appearance, not reality.

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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For Nerds Learning Spanish via Etymologies