Spanish and English are very similar

Tips For Learning Spanish

Believe it or not, you already know thousands of words in Spanish.

In the next couple of articles, I am going to show you how to build your vocabulary since you already know English words that become Spanish words if you change them slightly.

Category 1  The first and easiest category is made up of words that end in “or.” These words are often identical in Spanish and English.

  • El actor (the actor)
  • El doctor (the doctor)
  • El tractor (the tractor)
  • Interior (interior)
  • El color (the color)
  • El conductor (the conductor)
  • El error (the error)

Notice that Spanish words that end in “or” are stressed on the last : Example: doc-TOR

Category 2 This category of words ends in “al.” These also are often identical in Spanish and English words.

  • El animal
  • El criminal
  • El canal
  • central
  • Local
  • musical
  • Natural
  • personal
  • rural

Notice Spanish words that end in “al” are stressed on the last syllable: lo-CAL

Category 3 Words that end in “ble.”These also are often identical in Spanish and English.

  • El cable (cable)
  • Terrible
  • Possible
  • Flexible
  • Visible
  • Probable
  • Horrible

Notice Spanish words that end in “ble” are stressed on the next to the last syllable: no-TA-ble

To be continued…

Tiquismo or Costa Rica expression of the week:  Estar ahuevado/a  is to be sad. Estar triste is the correct way to express this idea.