Cognate Pattern #1: TION to CIÓN (S03E01)

And we’re back! Spanish Quickies, Season 3 starts… NOW! — Since the start of Gringo Español two years ago, we’ve mainly been focusing on grammar. But to use grammar, you need words. So for the next few videos, we’re going to focus on building up your vocabulary. But what words to learn? I say, learn words that are really easy to learn OR really common. And no words are easier to learn than cognates. Cognates are words that are the same in both English and Spanish. And when I say they’re the same, I mean they look the same–they have the same origin (and usually mean the same thing). Cognates are free words basically. If you know a cognate in English, you already know that word in Spanish. There are literally 1000’s and 1000’s of cognates. So there are 1000’s of Spanish words you already know. You just don’t know that you know them. And that’s where today’s video comes in. One thing that’s cool about cognates is, lots of them belong to these groups, where they all follow the same pattern. So once you know how to translate one word in the group, you know how to translate them all. When making my premium course, Fun with Words, I discovered about 30 different cognate patterns (and made a video for each one). So today, I’m going to show you the first cognate pattern, the TION to CIÓN words. Let’s do this! Click here for any links mentioned in this episode or for related episodes.

Om Podcasten

If you’ve always wanted to learn Spanish, but didn’t think it was possible because you were terrible at Spanish in high school, or you don’t get sucked into Rosetta Stone-style hype–you’ve come to the right place. I’m a normal person, not some big company and not some native Spanish speaker. I’m not a natural language learner at all actually. My first brush with Spanish ended with me getting an F in high school! But somewhere along the way, I fell in love! I’m not sure if I love Spanish because I love traveling, or I love traveling because I love Spanish (and food). But I love them both. Naturally, I want more people to love what I love, but I know that you probably don’t see Spanish like I do… not yet! That’s the point of this podcast. I want to show you that there is ANOTHER WAY! That most of the strategies and tactics they used to teach us Spanish in high school are IGNORANT. They are ignorant to our plight. I know your mistakes. I understand why you make them. They were my mistakes too! I remember the pain and the agony of having to figure it all out myself because... let’s just say... I was underwhelmed with the resources out there. Well, now with these videos (or audios) you don’t don’t have to waste the years I did.