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Learning Spanish & Etymology Pattern-Matching for Nerds

Olor and Odor

Olor (Spanish for “smell”) comes from the  similar Latin olere “to give off a smell”. Odor and Redolent (which is just a bad smell, after all!) come from the same root.

The curious part is the o-l to o-d transition. This is merely a vestige of the influence of the long-dead Sabine dialects of late Latin. Yes, the same Sabines who were raped. They did transition their l-s to d-s.

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