Learning Spanish & Etymology Pattern-Matching for Nerds

Encontrar – Acquaint

Although encontrar, the common Spanish word for “to meet”, doesn’t sound like its English counterpart, it does have an unexpected first cousin: acquaint.

Both come from the same Latin root for the same (in contra), although the English one comes to us via the French influence: acointier.

Thus, we can see that the en-c-n-t-r maps to a-cqu-n-t somewhat closely: the final -r disappeared as the French word evolved into the English word, and the opening en- (in- in Latin) became the simpler a-.

Someone you meet, after all, is indeed your acquaintance.

There is, however, another English word that is closer to encontrar although perhaps less obvious until you hear it: encounter!

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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