Learning Spanish & Etymology Pattern-Matching for Nerds

Vencer and Vanquish

Vencer — “to defeat” in Spanish — comes from the Latin vincere, of course from the classic triple-V line of Caesar’s. But from this root, we get a bunch of interesting words, including:

  • Vincent — yes, the name is literally, The Conquerer!
  • Victory — the victor does win over the enemy!
  • Convince — With the con- prefix… the victor of an argument just convinces the other!
  • Vanquish — The victor vanquishes the opponent!
  • Invincible — the victor is someone who is not (in!) vincible!
  • Evict — when you’re evicted from your apartment, that is a form of defeat

We can see the v-n-c root in most of these, or slight variations, like v-n-q.

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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