Spanish: Self Learning Week 1

The purpose of these Spanish articles is to help increase Spanish vocabulary. This is for my own personal memory and learning of the language. However, the articles should help anyone on a quest to learn the Spanish language on their own through the internet. Each "week" there will be an article with at least six new words to learn and explore. There is much a single, small word can do.

According to an study done by Oxford online the most used nouns in English include: time, person, year, way, day, thing, man, world, life, hand, part, child, eye, woman, place, work, week, case, point, government, company, number, group, problem, and fact . These words are part of a list that shows the top one hundred words used in the English language. The study suggests that the complete list makes up half of all written material.

Frequency is one of many reasons to learn a new word. It is better to start with words that are meaningful to yourself as an individual. However, repetition will eventually stick a word into memory and these are the types of words that will be repeated often in any language. We'll start with the first six. Remember 'el' and 'la' are words that mean 'the'.

Time in Spanish is el tiempo.

El tiempo es oro. Time is money (literal translation: The time is gold).

Tiempo is also used as a weather expression: ¿Que tiempo hace? Which literally translates into something like "What is the time doing?" but in conversation means "What's the weather like?" The idea is the same however, because when you ask the weather you're asking what's happening outside at the time.

Person in Spanish is la persona.

However, the word for people is la gente.

Esta persona es alta. This person is tall. If you wanted to say a piece of writing was in first person it would be en primera persona.

Year in Spanish is el ano.

Una vez al ano means once a year and muchos anos is many years. Todo el ano (all year long) is the name of an album by Obie Bermudez.


Way in Spanish is el camino.

Yes, that's the same spelling as the Chevrolet El Camino. The word camino can also mean path, track, or journey. The word for 'way' as in manner (in which something is done) is manera. De esta manera, in this way.

Day in Spanish is el d­ia.

El d­ia es bueno. The day is good.

En mis tiempos is in my day, or more literally translated 'in my time'. When speaking of an era, sometimes tiempos (times) is used instead of d­ia.

Thing in Spanish is la cosa.

Mis cosas estan aqu­i. My things are here. Cosa means the same thing (no pun intended) in Italian hence the phrase la cosa nostra, our thing (the mafia).



This concludes week one. When learning a new work it's best to try to place it in a sentence. Words stick better into memory if they have a point of reference or association.

Sources:
"Most common words in English" Wikipedia last modified on 3 June 2011 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_common_words_in_English

Spanish English Dictionary: Curiosity Media, Inc. www.spanishdict.com/

"Weather Expressions" 1997'"2011 Study Languages, LLC www.studyspanish.com/lessons/wthrexp.htm

Helpful Resources:
Demonstrative Adjectives are these words: this, that, these, those. This explains how they work in Spanish.

CliffsNotes.com. "Demonstrative Adjectives". 3 Jun 2011 www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/topicArticleId-24013,articleId-23984.html

A Spanish verb conjugation tool: http://www.123teachme.com/spanish_verb_conjugation www.123teachme.com/spanish_verb_conjugation

A free course on conversational Spanish: 123 teachme www.123teachme.com/learn_spanish/conversational_spanish


*Please note that words like anos and dia have markings over the 'n' and 'i' that aren't currently able to show on this website.